When DVD support was first introduced to SSP in 2003, WinDVD 4 was found to be a good solution to provide both the DVD system support necessary for SSP to play DVDs, and an MPEG-2 codec also necessary for SSP to play MPEG-2 files.

Reasearch has found that problems were introduced into WinDVD 5 and still seem to exist in WinDVD 7. These problems can cause SSP to lock up if more than one MPEG-2 video file is attempted to play at one time. This consitently happens if an MPEG-2 video file is playing and then the user cues up a second MPEG-2 video file. It can also happen by simply playing one MPEG-2 file followed by another, although this is more sporatic.

Additionally, this problem seems to also exist for DVD playback if the use of two or  more DVDs are made within a single SSP program (this, by the way, requires the use of two or more DVD drives).

Because of these problems, it is not recommended to use WinDVD 5 or later unless your use of MPEG-2 files is limited to only one at a time, or less. Similarly, the later versions of WinDVD work okay for DVD playback, but use caution if you plan to play two or more DVD clips back-to-back.

Update:

WinDVD 8 was recenlty released. We have run this version through a large set of tests and are happy to say that it performs without incident for playing MPEG-2 video files. If you are trying to use WinDVD versions 5 through 7, the recommendation is to upgrade to WinDVD 8. WinDVD versions 5 through 7 have stability problems when used with SSP. At the time of this post, WinDVD 8 sells for $39.95. You can upgrade from InterVideo's website: www.intervideo.com. Also, WinDVD 4 does not have the same stability issues as versions 5 through 7.