Acer :: Aspire 5930G - 1080p Full Hd

I own a 5930G for almost a year.It has an NVidia 9600M GT and it says "1080p full hd" on a sticker.

3 questions:
Using Vlc media player,I have minor sound problems with 720p .mkv files.Particularly,every 3-4 seconds,the sound seems discontinuous for an instant.Is there something I can do about it?

How can I check if I have the latest graphics card drivers and if not,update them?

This and my former aspire acer model,can only burn a few brands of cd/dvds without error.Lots of common brands,like TDK,philips etc get a failure while burning always at the time that the burning process is beyond 80% complete.I start to think that this is a common problem for acer laptops.Can you suggest brands of cd's/dvd's that work well?in my former acer aspire model,"that's write" were the only ones that I could find that worked 100% of the time.And I had tried about 12 known brands.In my 5930g model,I haven't tried to test a lot of brands yet,but the "that's write" brand doesn't work any more.I have burned less than 10 cds and the problem occured right from the beginning.

my battery life is reduced to a mere 30 seconds.Is there a way to recalibrate it?can't seem to find it in the acer e-power management