Desktop is a Presario with XP with a brand new CD/DVD burner. Laptop is Toshiba with Vista with similar burner.
When I save a file made with Windows Movie Maker the video portions played on the desktop hesitate and freeze momentarily. When the same Cd or DVD is played on laptop it plays smoothly.
Poor media, I would expect to be poor on whatever machine it was played on and you are using both CD's and DVD's.
CD's don't seem to have as many problems as DVD's, and your using good DVD's.
Originally posted by attar: If you copy the files on the cd to a folder on the XP and play them from there, is the playback still bad?
I did exactly that and hot yimmidy daug the Windows Movie Maker file played smooth as glass. Thanks so much. I would have never thought of that. When in the future I make a DVD WMM show I will add to the label "If DVD does not play smoothly copy it to your harddrive and play from there"
So what do you think the problem is? Poor media or what
Assuming the disk was burned in the desktop, check that DMA is turned on for the burner (perhaps it's off and that causes problems with video playback).
You could burn another disk on the desktop then the same file on the laptop and see if there's any difference in playback.
I find that poor media (and Verbatim isn't poor media) play worse on a standalone compared to PC.
Ypu are being very helpful and wanted you to know I appreiciate it.
I'm sub beginner level with PCs. What does DMA on burner mean and how would I check it? I don't know if this is important but I use "DeepBurner" to burn my CD/DVDs
I will see if I can burn the same file on my laptop and see if there is a differnce. Should the laptop produced file play well that will tell us what?
You could burn another disk on the desktop then the same file on the laptop and see if there's any difference in playback.
I find that poor media (and Verbatim isn't poor media) play worse on a standalone compared to PC.This I think I can do with a little instuction. The WMM files at about 30 MB in size. How would I copy them from my desktop to my laptop to enable me to burn a copy from the laptop as well?
Since it's only 30MB, I assume you burned it to a CD.
You already have it on a disk - and you played it on the laptop without problems, so when the cd is in the laptop, copy the file to a convenient location then burn it to a new cd disk.
If the new disk plays ok on the laptop and on the Presario, then there's nothing wrong with the media.
If it doesn't play well on the Presario, then burn the file on the laptop to a DVD.
If it doesn't play well on the Presario, then I think it unlikely to be a media problem - because the chances of having poor media ( a cd and a dvd) on two disks that are only 'poor' on one PC are slim.
The following is speculation.
The fact that the Presario has a 'brand new' burner and if it is having a problem reading disks, might mean that it is not set up properly.
The 'DMA' issue refers to the method of transferring data from the burner.
'DMA' in this case is the desired high speed method, whereas 'PIO' is a much slower method.
