Video problems - tried everything - HELP!

[the_poet]

I haven't done anything to my laptop, but as of a couple weeks ago, when I try to play a .tivo file in Media Player 10, it freezes the computer. When I try and play DVDs in the DVD drive, it plays a few seconds of video and stops, but the audio continues to play. When I try to play AVI files, it plays a few seconds and stops, then freezes.

Bizarrely, Quicktime files play just fine.

The DVD program is the one that came with my laptop - PowerDVD 5.0. It's a Gateway laptop from Best Buy. I figured since it was only crashing with DVD-related activities, it must have something to do with the DVD codec, but here's a list of the things I've tried:

* Patching PowerDVD 5.0 to the latest version (This replaced the DVD codec, but it didn't fix it!)
* Virus scanning
* Spyware scanning
* Using alternate video players like WinAmp and Zoom Player - those refuse to play the video file and I hear audio only

Anything I might not have tried? I'm at my wits end, here!

[davezatz]

Download VLC and trying playing back .tivo files through it. It bundles it's own codec into the player itself. So it's another test to verify something screwy might be going on with your current codec.

[the_poet]

OK, I downloaded the latest version of VLC, but it won't play the .tivo files either - the bar moves, but nothing displays.

Last night I upgraded my video drivers. No luck.

What else can I try? This is stumping me!

[the_poet]

Uninstalled PowerDVD 5.0 completely. Now AVI files play just fine, but of course WMP won't play Tivo files or DVDs without the DVD codec. Now I'm out a commercial DVD program (that came with the laptop). I'll try out a free DVD player/codec and see if that does the trick...

[davezatz]

It may be worth trying to reinstall PowerDVD and see what happens now.

There's several free codecs out there. Dscaler is a good one since it's not pirated. Also check out ZoomPlayer for DVD playback.

Over the years I've tried PowerDVD a few times and can't say I was a fan. Intervideo's WinDVD has seemed to work better.

[the_poet]

It was working OK for awhile (was using Media Player Classic cause it has built in DVD codecs) but now it's freezing the computer again. I'm thinking it may be a problem with TiVo Desktop, as this seems to have started once I upgraded to 2.2 (I had a pretty old version of desktop running for awhile).

If all else fails, I'm just going wipe the whole thing and reinstall Windows.

[MasherSCF]

Do you have trouble with all MPEG2?

[2004raptor]

I have a similar issue in that I cannot play .tivo files. Just wanted to see if you've made any headway in correcting this issue?