Ok, I've done a bit of research and some people have claimed DVD Writers has issues playing actual DVD movies. Is this true? I have a HP DVD Writer 640c that I've rarely used since I purchased it. It does have lightscribe capabilities and such, but it also plays my DVDs. Now, I recently just purchased the brand mew Twister two-disc Special Edition DVD movie to add to my collection of DVD movies. Now, my dvds play just fine in my DVD player, and my xbox 360. However, when I play them on my PC in my DVD writer drive, it plays the movie fine for awhile, but a bit into any DVD movie I play, it seems to just freeze the movie and lock up. I haven't bothered to try an actual plain old DVD-Rom drive, and I'm not sure if that would stop the freezing. I'm mostly looking for any suggestions or possible solutions that could stop it. I can try a DVD-Rom, but before I do, I was wanting to hear from experts on the matter so they can clarify if the DVD-Writer is what's causing it itself, and to see if what I read is actually true. Would appreciate any response. If you need more information, it's below: OS: Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600) Processor: 2.40 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 Hard Drive: WDC WD1200BB-32DWA0 [Hard drive] (120.03 GB) -- drive 0 CD-Rom: HP DVD Writer 640c [CD-ROM drive] Memory: 2048 Megabytes Installed Memory DirectX: 9.0C Vid Card: Radeon X1300/X1550 Series Thanks in advance to any responses.

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"some people have claimed DVD Writers has issues playing actual DVD movies. Is this true?" Not true at all. If this is an older drive, the layer switch may be giving it some trouble. Does the little LED on the drive flash during the pause in playback? Or, it could be a combination of hardware and software. Certain versions of PowerDVD will sometimes panic and stop responding if the mpeg2 stream gets interrupted. If, during the layer switch, your drive pauses long enough for its buffer to run out of data, it could be throwing PowerDVD off. If you are using PowerDVD, try a different software player. Media Player Classic is free and has DVD support. The Firewall/Print/File Server: 1.26GHz PIII-S 1GB RAM Radeon 9700 Pro 2 x GigE Remote on/off 4 x 750GB HDDs Storing 200 DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/Laserdisc faves

jackbomb: Ok, I was testing it out on Twister and Bourne Supremacy, both which are new(arrived 2 days ago in the mail). Twister froze in the exact same spot again, and so did Bourne Supremacy. The LED light you are asking about, when it freezes, just stays lit up, as a constant light(doesn't flash on and off), almost as if the movie is paused. I have tried InterActual or whatever the dvd software it is, that comes with The Bourne Supremacy DVD, and it froze in the same spot as it does with PowerDVD. I'll try out some other software and try out the one you linked and see if that fixes it. If it is indeed the layer switch, any idea on fixing the problem?

Other players for consideration: VLC Player, KM Player, MPlayer Their lighter footprint makes the a better candidate for "uninterrupted viewing" of DVD's...