Is There A DVD Diagnostic Program For Analyzing Playback ?

I have a DVD player/recorder that is giving me problems. It seems to play music CD's and copy files fine but it will not play DVD movies correctly. I get all kinds of weird sound and choppiness.

So, is there an effective program that can test the DVD playback of movies from a laptop DVD drive? I did make previous posts regarding this issue and as I result I have tried reinstalling codexes, drivers, burying dead chickens in the backyard at midnight, etc. I don't want to revisit that now, I just want to know if there is a program that can see if there is a hardware problem.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I know that Dell has a hardware diagnostic available as a free download for many of their laptops; not all tho' (who knows why). So, if you have Dell, go to their drivers page, enter your service tag number (on a sticker on the bottom) and see if they have one for your particular model. Other than that, I'm not sure... maybe check these links:
http://www.cdr-zone.com/software/cd-dvd_diagnostic_tools/ (this link provides links to some diagnostic tools but most are aimed at CD/DVD data recovery)
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Nero_InfoTool_d120.html
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl...port/boards/CDROMDVD/Diagnostics/DVD-Help.htm (this link has some good general troubleshooting info)
Maybe a firmware update? Because it's a laptop, you can't really try the drive in another PC unless you happen to have access to an identical laptop. I hope at least some of this helps. Optical drive troubleshooting can be tricky; you've done all the software stuff (codecs, etc).... good luck, keep us posted!

hd2k

BTW- what are you using for DVD playback? Have you tried one of the free DVD players/media players in the MultiMedia section here at MajorGeeks? Try Kantaris or VLC or GOM....