Posts by Morgan Brown6

Alright, here's the deal. I installed VLC Media Player, but whenever I pop in a DVD-R, the picture looks like garbage—honestly, it looks like some low-budget cable TV broadcast from the 90s with constant interference. You know, those pixelated blocks just dancing all over the screen and warping the image. Plus, the audio is incredibly choppy.

If I try playing that same DVD using Windows Media Player, the screen just stays pitch black. The audio isn't quite as stuttery as before, but it’s still definitely not clear.

It's the exact same headache with DivX or .mp4 files played directly from the disc. The video is just a mess of squares and the sound keeps cutting out; the only thing working perfectly is the subtitles.

Now, when I use VLC to play an .mp4 file stored locally on my hard drive (something I grabbed via Napster), everything works flawlessly. Video, audio, subtitles—all good.

So, I guess something is fundamentally wrong with the path through the DVD burner. Maybe the burner itself? Or maybe it's the cable...? I don't know.

I went ahead and checked the SMART status, following that suggestion from George Sanders37.

Looking at the results, almost everything is highlighted in blue, except for one entry marked in yellow. That yellow warning corresponds to the Health status : Caution.

yellow: Bad sector count
current : 100
worst: 100
threshold: 36
raw values: 000000000001

Maybe this is some kind of software glitch. I’ve noticed that on certain sites—like Napster—the movie cover art isn't showing up anymore; instead, I just get these empty boxes with an X inside them. It’s the same deal in Outlook Express, too, where some emails show an empty box with an X where a photo should be. I guess... maybe this is related? Like, am I missing some specific codec or something? I don't know!

I went ahead and swapped out the cable, but I guess the issue is still hanging around.

We’re talking about an IDE PATA setup here.
No, the cable itself hasn't changed.

My computer's DVD burner is acting up.
Well, I honestly thought the burner itself was the culprit.

Here is the deal: when I pop in a DVD with a movie recorded in DVD format, I get audio, but the screen stays pitch black (using Windows Media Player). Then, if I put in a disc with movies in .avi or .mp4 formats, I hear the sound, but the video is just a mess of colorful digital blocks dancing across the screen—though the subtitles actually show up fine. (Using BS Player)

When I try to transfer files from a burned DVD over to my hard drive, everything copies over without an issue. The folder with all the filenames is there, the movie files themselves are there, but once I try to play any of them, I run into that exact same problem mentioned above.

Also, when I burned a CD in MP3 format and tried playing it on a different device, I kept hearing this weird popping noise during the songs.

I already swapped out the DVD drive for a different one, but the problem didn't go away.
What could possibly be wrong here? I haven't noticed any other glitches with the PC. It’s an older machine, but it seems to run perfectly fine otherwise. I am running Windows 10.

If anyone happens to know what's going on, I would really appreciate the help.

Well, I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing if we ended up with at least 16GB at the end of the day. First, I'll have to verify how much actual storage space is really there—you know how these things go—and then I’ll just format it to FAT32.

I picked up some cheap 128GB Chinese USB drive on eBay for ten bucks.
At least, that’s what the properties tab claims. I moved about 20GB of stuff from my PC over to the drive, but now I’m running into a weird issue. Some files—specifically movies in .mp4 or .avi formats—play just fine, but others show up as totally empty folders. I’m testing this on a Samsung TV. What gives? I mean, I get that this drive is probably total garbage, but it should either work or it shouldn't. It plays some files and ignores others.

I tried formatting the drive using Windows XP, but it’s only giving me the option for exFAT.

If I were to force it into FAT32, I wouldn't be able to put anything larger than 4GB on there, but I guess my question is: how much capacity would I actually have left? Would it still show as 128GB, or would it be less?

Also, would switching to FAT32 even fix this problem with the invisible files?
Some files look fine on my computer, but they just appear as empty folders on the TV. Maybe the TV doesn't support exFAT?

Can anyone give me some advice, besides just telling me to stop buying cheap Chinese junk? 🙂
Thanks.