Choppy DVD playback on new Inspiron Zino HD with Windows 7

I've been having issues too, but not just with standard DVD's. My blu-ray playback, even with brand new out of the box discs, will just get choppy for no reason, then smooth out, and the repeat the issue. Today it just locked up for 30 or 40 seconds.

I was going to call Dell, but with 8GB of RAM, a discreet video card, and the highest end processor offered, this shouldn't be happening at all. I think I'm just going to return it.

I've heard of problems with some ATI drivers causing issues, but mostly with flash players and sites like Hulu and youtube... see if there is a driver update by going to support.dell.com or ati.amd.com and selecting your graphics card... i know for flash issues Adobe is supposed to be putting out a new player here soon....

yea give them a ring and let us know cause I know a lot of people have been having some issues with this...

Dell was no help for me. They kept blaming software and trying to sell me an upgraded warranty. I am no conspiracy theorist, but it really was as if they installed software to knowing it would cause an issue so that they could sell upgraded support. After hours of tinkering with various programs (all pre-installed by Dell), I think I have found a fix on my DVD playback. I can't use the media center software that dell installed. I have to use windows media player. It will still stutter occasionally but not as badly as before. The annoyance I have with media player is that every time I put a movie in it tell me that it can't be read due to copyright issues and that I need to update my driver. When I try to update my driver I am told I have the most recent one. I have had no issues with Hulu, youtube, or netflix. Hard to call this a true budget media pc, however, when standard definition DVD playback is barely functional.

overall, I like the computer for the price, but the dvd playback is really frustrating and it is not as quiet as I would have liked (it is actually pretty noisy during DVD playback). I used to love Dell support, but my exprience with this computer has me questioning whether I will ever buy a Dell again.

if anyone else gets a resolution to the DVD issue, please do post it for the rest of us!

Jason

I called the Tech support line and after about 25 minutes on hold, I got a Tech Support guy. Thankfully, he failed to live up to the stereo type... He didn't read from a script, he listened, and when I told him I had already done x, y, and z, he didn't ask me to do it again. He just verified it via the Dell Connect client and moved on rather than repeating it.

After checking the registry and making a small change (I assume it was related to either Roxio Burn or Dell Datasafe as I uninstalled both), we rebooted the system, reflashed the optical drive, rebooted again, and tried playing a Blu-ray. I have to say I was hopeful, because it ran jitter free. The tech said he would call me back in a couple of hours and we hung up. It ran beautifully... for about 20 minutes... and then playback froze completely. I let it sit there and opened up the event viewer, left it sitting there for him to check when he called back.

He actually did call back, too! He ran a diagnostic test on the optical drive, it passed (although, it tests using data CD and DVD discs, no utility for testing with a blu-ray disc yet) all tests. So, he's scheduled a repair visit for Monday or Tuesday of next week, where they will replace the Blu-ray drive in my home.

Now, I am skeptical that this will fully resolve the issue, but I was pleased with the service, with the lack of time-wasting double checking, and with the lack of baloney about warranties or upsells on service plans. They did exactly what I would have done had I the tools to do so. I remain skeptical because even though I maxed out on RAM and processor and video card upgrades during the order process, this box is still a mishmash of laptop parts and new AMD low-power processors; anyone who owns a Blu-ray player knows they are memory bandwidth hogs to start with, even stand-alone home players. I just don't think it has the torque to get the job done on an HDMI output to a 42" plasma. Too bad my 21 day window will be long gone when they swap out the drives. Hopefully, I am wrong and this fixes it.

I thought I would add my experiance.  I ran into the same choppy playback with zino.  I got it new with the bluray player the playback was very choppy on every DVD I tried.  Here are the things that Dell has tried (My wife purchased this for me with full service plan).

1. Reload all of the drivers
2. Replaced the bluray drive
3. Updated the PowereDVD software to the latest version 8.3.1.6107.  They really thought that this would fix it.

I have tried the latest trial versions of the PowerDVD and WinDVD. With better but not great results. 

I will update this if they ever fix the problem. Since this is my home entertainment PC. I will either send it back or get it fixed.

Hi,

I have the same problem as most of ZINO users with choppy playback of DVD's or Bluray's.

The problem is definitely not the hardware as I have dual core X2 6850 processor and HD4330 MXM2 graphic card in my ZinoHD400.

I would blame the outdated Power DVD version and ATI graphic drivers.

Since the HD4330 graphic card is MXM-2 module the video drivers are tweaked by DELL so you can't use the normal ATI drivers.

Also Power DVD DX version is special DELL OEM version for Blueray playback.

After talking to Service support they told me the following :

1. this is not a DVD/Bluray combo drive fault
2. you shouldn't upgrade the Power DVD version to 8.3.1.6107 since it won't work
3. you should use the 8.2.5711 version

I have tried using the 8.2.5711 version but I still have the choppy playback issue.

I have gave DELL the last chance to fix this otherwise I will return the ZINO since it is not doing what it should be doing and that's PLAYING DVD and BLURAY.

If anyone has success of solving the issue please post !

Pete

I got the problem solved.  After I updated the PowerDVD to the latest version I started uninstalling software.  I got lucky and it only took uninstalling the dell backup software.  I was getting a .net error on it and just blew it off.  After I uninstalled this the windows media player started to work with the powerDVD software also.  I think that there was something that didn't happen during the personalization process when I first got the system.

After this the playback on both DVD's and BluRays worked great. 

Now to the next problem the hard drive crashed this weekend on this system.  Good thing the windows 7 backup software works well.

mb

Thanks for posting your fix. I am going to try this over the weekend. Generally, my playback has been fine with media player but the system comes ot a complete hault trying to watch stadndard DVDs with PowerDVD. I hope this works! Thanks again for posting.

Jason

I did some of the recommendations - removed the Dell back-up software , and  also removed the Dell Dock software.  DVDs play smooth, but still had choppy Bluray playback.

I went to a couple of other forums which blamed the PowerDVD DX software that is Dell specific. [anything that is 8.x version].

I went and downloaded the trial of PowerDVD version 9 and the Blueray disks played back great!  buuuut I can't get DVDs to play with version 9   :/

I can still play DVDs with PowerDVD DX version 8.  So I have 2 versions loaded for now while I troubleshoot.  BUT I do have smooth jitter free playback for both.

I was taken aback by how poorly Hulu played back on the ZinoHD in full screen.  I can do full screen on my Dell mini 10.  However I did play around a little bit and found that if I set the video resolution to 720p and just played in a Hulu window (480p Hulu resolution) maximized to full screen (still have standard windows border on the edges) that the Hulu video playback was not blocky and almost jitter free...  I am using the latest released flash, but not the 10.1 beta floating around

I have to say this is the first Dell purchase where I was disappointed after opening the box.  I love my mini 10 and laptops I bought over the years. 

It just seems like I am doing the systems engineering here...

Thanks Jimn and others,

Took me quite a while to find this forum (so easy - on the Dell site) - the choppiness of the Blu-ray drives my family members crazy, and they look at me, who bought this Dell in the first place. As a Latitude user, I just love Dell computers, they do never seem to malfunction. However, the Zino (largest processor, HD4330, 3Gbyte, wifi, blu-ray) was bought for the most part to play Blu-Ray while seconding as a low noise PC. The blu-ray is choppy. What did I do wrong?

Thankfully I am not the only one. We invested nicely in Philips HDTV (amazing!), Marantz Sound, great speakers and .....a colorful but choppy Blu-Ray by Dell. Why do IT companies so often disappoint? We waited unitl a few months after the first media reviews, thinking that known bugs should have disappeared by now.

I do not know what to do now. Play as a system engineer with BETA stuff suggested on forums of which I am sometimes clueless why the difference occurs? Or send it back? I do not want to wait 20 minutes on a phone to speak with support who have no solution (see many forums). I enlisted here to tell this to Dell.

Dell, do something!

John, near Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Aha, just followed the previous post: deleted Dell Backup (for what that is worth) and updated PowerDVD to the latest version 9: Blu-Ray runs without a glitch!

Do not know yet about DVD´s, but I have a player for them, so a work around. Anyway, my Zino is greatly improved - Bly-Ray playback is perfect!

Now to figure out how to copy my discs to a network library .... :), the discs seem to have a copy protection. Sigh ...

Good night ,  John

I don't know how I missed this one...

For Hulu if you go to the Hulu labs tab on Hulu.com  there is a a Windows desktop version of Hulu.  It plays much smoother than in any browser I have tried and the User interface is not 1/2 bad either.

I have found it seems to still work best on 720p resolution, but it works pretty well at 1080p as well.  It seems to play much smoother.  There is a new resolution adjustment (Low-Med-High) and the playback works best in Hi

Has anyone had success installing Flash 10.1 beta?  It keeps hanging during the install for me.

I tried BD playback for the first time last night ("Coraline"), and the playback was very choppy in intervals, and this got worse through the movie.

I checked Cyberlink's website, but couldn't upgrade to v9. i just uninstalled Dell Backup, and it seems to have fixed the issue.

System specs:

AMD Athlon 6850e

2GB ram, 320GB HD

ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330

Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit

PowerDVD DX 8.3.1.6107

MobileAirMouse v2

all the best,

Reidar