When I watch a movie/video clip from a DVD or online my laptop performs -very- poorly. It will "skip" ahead to various parts or take forever to play and will not play continuously. How can I fix this?

You may need to install WinDVD , Interactual Video player, or some similar video player software. The drive will read data CD's and DVD's with Windows , but it needs video codecs (supplied with the video player software) to play DVD movies and media.

The problem here is with the lens. It is weakened by constant playing of media.
It is usually not very advisable to watch movies, or play songs directly from the DVD drive. This is because this damages the lens especially when you rewind and fast forward on it.
When ever you want to watch a movie, it is best you copy it onto your HDD first, then watch. You could delete it later when you are done if you are 'space conscious'.
In the mean time, you would have your lens checked, and probalbly changed.

I hope that this was helpful?
Have a nice day.

you do have something else running in the background and its using the internet, probably spyware or malware. run your anti-spyware program and check, if you don't have one, you need to try "malwarebytes" or "spybot" they are free programs

If it is your cd-dvd rom, or your dvd's, your movies would skip, freeze, like any other movies players such as a scratch dvd played on your home dvd player. So,
did this happen before any updates to your o/s, such if you are using windows media player to play your movies?? If not, it could be a software issue, where some updates will bring your programs up to date, but uses more cpu/memory and even your GPU (graphic processor) and thus cause your movies or video to play back slowly because your computer hardware is underpower to handle the up to date versions., or it could be vise versa where your program will needs an update to the newest version to play. (Usually like adobe, java to watch youtube or online videos). You might want to see if you can play with another program and see if you get different result, or maybe undo your update to previous version.

Installed open source software mediacoder to convert my .VOB file into MP4. It is playing perfectly in VLC player now

If the rented DVD is too scratched it will cause the DVD player to pause while it tries and find the next available playable area on the disc. This may cause the player to skip to another part of the movie. Try wiping the disc with a damp cloth from the centre towards the outer rim and dry the same way. Fingerprints ect. also cause problems. If the scratches are circular the player will have a hard time trying to play the disc. If the scratches are straight and small it shouldn't cause too much problems.

Contact dell for warrenty replacement if at all possible.

What format are the music videos in?

I also have an inspiron 1525 and I once had this issue (I'm running xp pro) but I found that you need to reinstall you audio driver, here is a link to the vista driver
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=INS_PNT_PM_1525&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=

Hi, i had a customer with what sounds to be the same problem with copying the .mov files. The reason for it being she needed the codecs to get the sound working or it would copy the disc with no sound. the way we fixed it was we needed to buy the Nero Premium as it gives you the extra codecs built in. if your copying films etc your best to download dvd shrink you can find it free by searching on google.com Hope this helps John