Good advice for an e1705, but he has an i9300.
I had a 9300 for a little over a year and my card reader never, ever worked. Picked up a 14-in-1 card reader for like $15 from newegg.com after trying for a month or so to get it working.
What brand, and what speed are they?
Newegg has 512's for 40-50 bucks (cheaper with a mail in rebate) for 533MHz. And a matched pair of 512's for $79.
I guess 60-70 for both or maybe 30 a piece. Never know though, might be able to go...
For the DVD it sounds like you need some codecs. Like from PowerDVD or a similar program made for playing DVD's.
Another option is to find a nice codec pack like Defilerpak. It has all the video (and most audio) codecs you will...