Unable to DVDs with sound on laptop

August 6, 2006 3:46 AM

When I play DVDs on my laptop, there is no sound accompanying the picture. The sound card is working fine and I can play music etc. without any problem. It is only with DVDs that this problem seems to exist. I have upgraded my DVD software (PowerDVD) but to no avail. Any suggestions what could be happening here?
posted by sk381 to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Try playing it through the player called VLC.
posted by k8t at 4:23 AM on August 6, 2006

Response by poster: k8t, I can play them using VLC. I'm just trying to figure out why they won't play with my DVD software player anymore , since they used to sometime back.
posted by sk381 at 4:58 AM on August 6, 2006

If VLC works, your best bet is to re-install PowerDvd. Any conflicts should be resolved.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 5:38 AM on August 6, 2006

I would guess a codec issue. Google for audio codec and install a few of the best-reviewed. Yes, this is a scattershot approach, but I've used it sucessfully.
posted by theora55 at 6:16 AM on August 6, 2006

Are you sure that it isn't that the DVDs are playing very, very quietly? I've always had trouble playing DVDs on any computer because the output volume is always really low. If this is the case, I don't think switching between media players is going to help unless it provides some sort of volume gain above and beyond what Windows has.
posted by The Bishop of Turkey at 8:17 AM on August 6, 2006

Response by poster: I checked for the volume and there isn't any sound. I can only assume that the DVDs aren't playing any.

Is there any one particular set of audio codecs that is recommended? Googling turns up quite a few.
posted by sk381 at 10:21 AM on August 6, 2006

Best answer: For whateger it's worth, PowerDVD works fine on my laptop. I agree that the solution is to uninstall and then reinistall the program.

I don't think it's a question of installing codecs; I think it's just that you've got some setting strange somewhere. If you can't find and correct it, then reinstalling it should help.

By the way, PowerDVD memorizes the mute setting and sets or clears it when it begins running, irrespective of how you had it set before you ran the program. Try unmuting your sound using PowerDVD itself after it's running.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:30 AM on August 6, 2006

PowerDVD memorizes the mute setting and sets or clears it when it begins running

Also, when you mute PowerDVD, it mutes the system volume, rather than its own volume. Very annoying...
posted by blind.wombat at 11:46 AM on August 6, 2006