Screen Goes Black during videos.

The computer turns on fine and works well with some games, but as soon as I try to play a video or movie. The screen goes black and the Audio scratches out. The computer is still on, but it acts as if it was asleep. I tried shacking the mouse and pressing the power button to turn the screen back on, but I end up having to turn the computer off and on again. There are rare occasions where the screen will turn black and the audio will scratch, but it will turn back on and continue playing the video/movie and an error message will appear saying the Display Drive has recovered itself. please help me address this problem.