PowerDVD 18 will not start when hitting PLAY, black screen

Sazhori

Newbie Joined: Dec 13, 2018 04:50 Messages: 5 Offline

Solved by

Jan 22, 2019 03:02

PowerDVD staerts up as expected, detects the desired drive just fine, But the second I hit PLAY, it goes to black screen on a new DVD, but will resume on any other DVD, On some DVDs it fires right up on hitting play without issue of any kind, otherwise its a black screen with no menus, nothing working whatsoever

Is there a fix ?

EDIT: Yes I did run the update to the latest version of PowerDVD 18 Ultra. This did NOT help whatsoever

Step by step work arounds that worked

1Windows Media Player I do not use for DVD playback, {its very buggy for me} so I fired up VLC Media Player, and lo and behold the movie fired right up, no issues no black screen upon hitting blay, nothing. Fired right up to the main DVD menu.

The movies I tested are Back to the Future trilogy, Part 1 fired right up in PowerDVD 18 upon hitting play, no issues, Part 2 had black screen issue when hitting play and would not pass the first 3 seconds whatsoever, fired right up in VLC with no issue whatsoever upon hitting play, Part 3 fired up in PowerDVD upon hitting play.

Other movie tried in PowerDVD 18 had been watched before,m however being stupid I accidently hit restart instead of resume and now the movie wont get past the inital FBI warning screen, {first it stutters badly then hangs and wont go anywhere}

It was at this point I did the update to the software

The issue even with the software update, STILL happens

At this point I tried a different movie {TV series}, fired right up in PowerDVD 18 upon hitting play with no issues.

Now, I know its not my drive, thing is brand new. SDoftware too is brand new. So why is this happening only on some movies but not on others ?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Jan 22. 2019 03:32

QC2.0

Senior Contributor Joined: Apr 27, 2016 04:02 Messages: 610 Offline

Jan 22, 2019 04:17

If your GPU is such a new model that released not longer than 2 years with full Windows 10 compatibility, and the condition happens only with certain DVDs, I will try other DVD drives, which is from different manufacturer, to give it a shot.

There are always many compatibiltiy issues between software player and disc drive.
And, open sourced free player can work around the issue very freely with less compatibility concerns comparing to a commercial player.

e.g. VLC versus Windows Media Player (Movies & TV on Windows 10).

I know some guys might have the preference to buy new disc drives from the same vendor or same brand, and there are many old models (not-used, and still newly packed) ODD sold especially on Amazon.

But, most of them are pretty old models and have no firmware maintenance (compatibility updates) from hardware manufacturers for many years.
e.g. Bankrupted TSST (Toshiba-Samsung union), many slim type drives that shipped with no well-packed box for laptops.

Sazhori

Newbie Joined: Dec 13, 2018 04:50 Messages: 5 Offline

Jan 22, 2019 04:29

Quote If your GPU is such a new model that released not longer than 2 years with full Windows 10 compatibility, and the condition happens only with certain DVDs, I will try other DVD drives, which is from different manufacturer, to give it a shot.

There are always many compatibiltiy issues between software player and disc drive.
And, open sourced free player can work around the issue very freely with less compatibility concerns comparing to a commercial player.

e.g. VLC versus Windows Media Player (Movies & TV on Windows 10).

I know some guys might have the preference to buy new disc drives from the same vendor or same brand, and there are many old models (not-used, and still newly packed) ODD sold especially on Amazon.

But, most of them are pretty old models and have no firmware maintenance (compatibility updates) from hardware manufacturers for many years.
e.g. Bankrupted TSST (Toshiba-Samsung union), many slim type drives that shipped with no well-packed box for laptops.

Yeah, my GPU is part of the CPU, intigrated video. this after all is a windows 10 preinstalled Dell laptop. But it only happens on some DVDs, on others it wont get past a FBI warning screen or even a blackscreen, but on some dvds it fires up without issue. I know its not the drive, I tried my external, same issue occuredblack screen or stuck at FBI warning screen with no way to get to the Root Menu or even pick a chapter or title. Only a scant few DVDs will let me actually get to another title qwhen astuck at that 3second {AKA endless} black screen. But once I am past that screen issue on some DVDs, the DVD plays without any issue whatsoever

The issue is getting past that point, I am not sure if intel still supports the HD Graphics 5500 series though, could it be a driver issue ?