Why does my video go Blank / Black after several minutes?

There can be several reasons for this.

If you are trying to play DVD and the video stops after 5-10 minutes it may mean that you are using a trial version of the Video Decoder filter which stops decoding after around 5-10 minutes.

Another reason might be that your Power Management is kicking in since it thinks the computer is inactive. You can temporarily disable Power Management through the Zoom Player options dialog (by selecting the Disable Screen Saver setting), however on some systems you must go to the Control Panel and completely disable Power Management.