[vlc-devel] Re: VLC Bug in v. 0.8.2: Jerky Menu DVD Playing in Windows

John Michael Williams jwill at isp.com
Thu Jul 7 06:46:01 CEST 2005


Hi BigBen.

I found a workaround!  Turn on DMA all over the place.

This explains why the problem recurred after I reinstalled
the OS:  Windows 2000 (and probably XP) probably default to
turn off DMA on all but certain channels.

TheDJ actually suggested DMA, but I saw I had DMA channels
2 and 4 in use, so I assumed that was all there was to it.
In fact, with my Dell chipset, there is apparently a separate
channel for each disk drive (each CD-ROM or DVD player).

Here is what I did:  in Windows Control Panel, I picked System, then 
Hardware, then Device Manager.  It is possible Device Manager might be
accessed by some other path, too.

Then, for my computer, I picked IDE/ATA and then Primary and
Secondary IDE Channels.  There were two choices for each channel
(total of 4 possible disc drives, I think), and only the first was
set to "Use DMA if available".  The others were set to PIO, and
they reported PIO in use.  I set the other three from PIO to
"Use DMA if Available", rebooted, and they all then said they
were using DMA of one kind or another.  I have tested VLC 0.8.2
on several DVD movies, and it worked just as well when the DVD
was opened menu as when opened simple.

However, I suggest you not close this bug:  There still is a
design error (I think) in VLC.  After a menu choice has been taken,
there should not be any difference between playing the movie
from the menu or from the simple DVD.  The only difference
should be in the return after the movie is over.   I think someone
has done some extremely inefficient work in coding the menu
open functionality.

However, this should be a lower priority fix, because a
workaround is possible for computers which have available
extra DMA channels, anyway.

I'll hang aound on this mailing list for a couple of days.  Thanks
anyway for your offers to help.

I'll post this solution to the Forum.
-- 
                          John
                      jwill at isp.com
                   John Michael Williams

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