Golden Compass Playback Issues

[pseudomaniac]

Greetings.

I have a homemade Media PC

Pentium D 3.0 / 4gb RAM / XP SP2 / Geforce 8500 512mb with HDMI

My BD Drive is a Lite-ON DHO-41S.

I'm a 10 year IT Pro - the software and hardware / drivers on the PC are perfect and tuned.

I can play every movie I've tried in it. Disney's Cars, Die Hard, BlackHawk Down, Fifth Element to name a few - all work fine and play very well.

I am using PowerDVD 7.x that came with the drive. I'm less than impressed, but it was bundled anyway.

I tried playing a newly opened Golden Compass DVD tonight, and the sound channel remiains steady and clear, but the video jumps all over the map. Staggers - jumps - sputters - plays fine - then jumps again.

I upgraded the firmware on the drive from 5.1 to the newest 5.6 and still see this problem.

Does anyone have any ideas or reccomendations on how to fix?

Most appreciated!