Audio and Video Stuttering during DVD Playback

Hello everyone.  I'm cross posting this plea for help from another software forum.  I use an application called TheaterTek to watch DVDs in my home theater.  I've been having problems with it recently, however all the my troubleshooting efforts seem to indicate a problem with the hardware or Windows, not TheaterTek (aka TT2).   So I'm posting the info here as well to see if any of you have any ideas.  I apprecriate any help.

 

System Details:

Dimension 8400 3.0GHz, 1GB RAM

Windows XP Home SP2

ATI Radeon X300SE driver ver. 6.14.10.6525

Integrated Audio turned off in the BIOS

MAudio Delta 410 soundcard, driver ver. 5.10.0051

 

 

Here's the saga:

 

A few weeks ago, TT2 began producing stutters, or pauses that last a fraction of a second, in both the audio and video. Most of the time it's only noticeable in the audio, however it occasionally pops up in the video too. I can replicate the issue every time with either Ep 1 or Ep 2 of Star Wars during the beginning scene of the yellow text scrolling. TT2 had worked fine since I purchased it until this occurance. The only event I could think of which might have cause this sudden change in behaviour was a DVD I tried to backup onto my harddrive which failed each time. TheaterTek support suggested I make sure my DVD drive was in DMA mode and not PIO, which makes sense considering how Windows will revert to PIO if you have too many read errors with DMA. According to Windows both my DVD-ROM and DVD-RW are still in UDMA mode 2. I updated the drivers on both drives, but there was no difference.

On top of this, a few nights ago TT2 just stopped working all together, for no discernable reason. I could open the app, but as soon as I tried to play any video, be it on the HD or a DVD, the app would hang in overlay mode, or produce a quartz.dll error in VMR9. I installed the latest version of quartz.dll, but it didn't make a difference. I found that switching from multiple monitors to a single monitor allowed it play, but still with the stutters. I then updated the drivers for my ATI X300SE to version 6.14.10.6525 and I regained the ability to playback with multiple monitors. Still have the stuttering problem though.

Still thinking I might have a DMA problem, I uninstalled the IDE Channel and let windows redetect it, which seemed to produce a slight difference in both drives, but both drives are still stuttering somewhat, just a bit reduced in magnitude. The DVD-RW is better at this point. This is all in overlay mode. In VMR9 I can't get past the menus without the player locking up.
My normal audio setup is spdif out to a receiver, however it does the same thing with multichannel analog out. This is with an MAudio Delta 410. I've tried changing the audio settings in TT2 from Default DirectSound, to Default Wave Out, to MAudio Delta 410 Spdif. All of the options produce the same results.

At this point I'm running out of ideas, short of formating the HD and reinstalling Windows XP (SP2 btw) which I really don't want to do. I had the thought that the DVD-ROM might just be failing mechanically, but then why would I also get stuttering on the DVD-RW?

 

Thanks,

 

Jonathan