can not play avi disc

[bmw3]

Hi All,
I can not play avi disc's on my pc my dvd drive does not read it at all how can i put this right ?.
o/s xp home sp2, dvd drive afree ide dvd rom 16x the information i have about my dvd drive came from everest home edt.

[LTR12101B]

Copy it to HD... if it won't copy, it's a reading issue, but it seems more likely to be a codec problem, as lots of things could be used within AVI.

Try Mediainfo or Gspot codec information appliance to see what it needs

[VIPER_1069]

have you installed XVID CODEC and DIVX codec and AC3 CODEC for audio .. if not then install them

as above use MEDIA INFO or GSPOT don't try installing one of those MEGA CODEC packs you may cause more trouble than its worth

[bmw3]

Copy it to HD... if it won't copy, it's a reading issue, but it seems more likely to be a codec problem, as lots of things could be used within AVI.

Try Mediainfo or Gspot codec information appliance to see what it needs

Hi thankyou for reply i can not copy it to my HD my dvd player does not pick up the disc it plays and picks up other disc just not avi does this mean my dvd drive is faulty ?.
I have pluged in another dvd drive into a usb port and it reads and plays the avi disc fine does this mean that i have the right codec's ?.

[LTR12101B]

If it will play (and presumably copy as well) from a different drive on USB, then you do have the right codecs.

If your main DVD-ROM drive won't read that disc, but reads others, it could just be that the disc is not very good. Some writer/media combinations produce results that seem ok in some readers, but which can be useless in others.

If the drive is reading most other discs ok, then it is not "faulty", but it may not be a particularly tolerant reader.

[bmw3]

If it will play (and presumably copy as well) from a different drive on USB, then you do have the right codecs.

If your main DVD-ROM drive won't read that disc, but reads others, it could just be that the disc is not very good. Some writer/media combinations produce results that seem ok in some readers, but which can be useless in others.

If the drive is reading most other discs ok, then it is not "faulty", but it may not be a particularly tolerant reader.

Thankyou for reply maybe it's time i change it if it's going to start playing up can you recommend a good reader/ writer ?.

[LTR12101B]

Been out of the loop for a while, my last drives being those in a 2 year old PC.

Pioneer writer (DVR-109) and LG reader 8163

Pioneers are decent writers (good results on many -R medias in particular).
I would NOT recommend the LG DVD-ROM - not the best speed or compatibility with written media.

For DVD-ROM, I'd go with Liteon every time, especially as many have firmware hacks to put the speed up on written media... the 16x speed-hacked Liteon transfer test is a standars, but a 12x speed-hack is probably better for actual use (most drives read written media at 8x max) - I have a 12x speed-hacked combo as an external.

For DVD-RW, I'd be looking at Pioneer, Liteon, NEC (Optiarc), maybe LG if I was looking specifically for a "triple format" (+/- & RAM) as they have the most experience in the triple. Some are found in rebrands - eg. Asus tend to be rebranded Pioneers, but a rebrand drive can often be a lot later to get "official" firmware updates, so I'd rather have the "real" maker's name on the drive.
Benq are also worth a look, but my last recollection is that the current generation of Benqs are not the stand-outs that they used to be, same with Plextor, and I'd rule Plextor out instantly due to their harassment of the 3rd party scanning software community.


On the other hand, if it is just one disc in many, I'd put it down to a poor write, copy it to another media using a drive that can read it, and move on.