My DVD player/computer doesn't play DVD picture anymore
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Thread: My DVD player/computer doesn't play DVD picture anymore

  1. #1
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    Unhappy My DVD player/computer doesn't play DVD picture anymore

    Hi,

    Yes, I'm a newb. I did look around for a fix to my problem before I came here, but hopefully someone can help.

    About 6 weeks, I had a GeForce 4 MX 440 graphics card that had TV-out capability. My tv was kinda old (only has an antenna jack) so I had to buy a few things to help the computer hook up to the TV. When I did this though, for the first few weeks my computer could play DVD's on the TV, and nicely. I had the Display in Dual mode, where the TV display and the computer display were "different" (I don't know a more tech or intelligent way to describe it, but the displays were separate).

    Anyway, I opened up a game later and found that because of the dual display, when I hit one side of the screen where the mouse was supposed to stop, it kept going so that I couldn't play the game properly. I changed the display mode back to single display, and then all hell broke loose. Realizing that in single display I could not watch movies on the TV anymore, I changed the display to Clone so that the mouse would still act properly when I played my game. When I did this, the movies would ok on the computer, but on the TV only sound would come out, no picture, just a black screen. I did a system restore, went back to dual mode, tried a variety of things but I was plagued with the black screen for a display on the tv, though the movies displayed well on the computer.

    Well, I upgraded recently to an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. I decided to see if maybe this graphics card could play the video. Well...not only do I still have a black screen on the TV, I also have a black screen on my computer. All I get is sound, or the screen freezes in the very beginning before you even get to the menu of the DVD, yet the sound keeps going. So now I can't watch movies even on the 15 inch monitor.

    I didn't mean to write such a long post, but what I was getting at is that at one time, this set up did work, and then something I did inadvertantly changed some setting to where now I can't play a damn thing.

    I have WinDVD, Interactual Player, Windows Media Player, which all played DVD's just fine in the past, but now only play the sound with no picture or a frozen picture.

    Any help with this problem would be GREATLY APPRECIATED.

    Thanks, and again, sorry for the long post.

  2. #2
    Geezer confus-ed's Avatar
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    This isn't a cd or dvd issue, this is a display problem, all down to 'overlay' issues between multiple displays.. but I'll try & answer it anyways

    This is a picture lifted from ATI's support page :-


    Which illustrates whats supposed to happen as far as displaying video, if you aren't using 'clone mode' (identical outputs to both monitor & tv/second monitor), what it calls 'threatre mode' if enabled..

    Setting up the drivers right is usually the issue, as windows gets very confus-ed otherwise, as really a monitor property is a 'child inheritance' of the main display card, but in this situation it isn't as far as the drivers are concerned & are a 'parent' as the displays are gonna produce seperate outputs..

    What I'd do is to remove all & any video related drivers (ATI have a tool for this, as do nvidia, make sure ALL traces are gone) .. once you've got just 'standard vga' showing up, then reapply the ati drivers whilst the tv is disconnected & get the main display working 'as expected', then add the tv etc .. I just think here that some bit of setting up the drivers correctly has gone awry for whatever reason

  3. #3
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    Thank you! I will try this.

  4. #4
    Geezer confus-ed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by allerahk
    Thank you! I will try this.
    You are welcome .. let us know how you get on, or if there's any help you need 'extra' ..

  5. #5
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    Hi,

    I am having some serious issues getting rid of the old drivers to re-install the new ATI one from the disk. I can't find the tool you said ATI and Nvidia have that will allow me to remove all the drivers completely. Every time I try to uninstall the ATI driver, when I restart it is uninstalled but then install itself back again automatically before I can get the disk going then I'm back to square one.

    Also I made a booboo when I installed the card in the first place by not completely removing all the Nvidia drivers.

    Now I don't want to seem like I'm being lazy but I cannot find the tool that totally removes everything, can you give me some clues as to where it is?

  6. #6
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    not used this but looks useful
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  7. #7
    Geezer confus-ed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo
    That does - go post it in tech tips & we'll get some beta testers

    Catalyst uninstaller (direct download from ati)

    & look what Nvidia have to say !
    ..To remove all traces of the the NVIDIA WDM drivers, the best way is to use a 3rd party driver cleaner utility such as Drivercleaner (www.drivercleaner.net). The Drivercleaner utility is a free software utility
    which is useful for removing devices drivers from your active Windows System folder and from your Windows Registry.
    .
    .. ok so no beta testers required !

  8. #8
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    Gotta love google
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

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