Playing DVD's on my PC

lenora

I recently reformatted my PC but I forgot to get a copy of the dvd player/writer software I had installed InterVideo I had but it came preinstalled on my machine I was not overly concerned as I thought I could play it in WMP but when I try dvd's in WMP I get an error message along the lines of you do not have a DVD decoder software installed.

Any ideas?

mr_fishbulb

Videolan might work:
http://www.videolan.org/

wolfman

Have a look here too:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/getmore/plugins.aspx

A few plugins/addons for WMP including the Dvd codec.

Keldin

You need to pay a license fee to play DVD movie discs. When you buy a standalone player the manufacturer has paid the license fee neccessary and has placed the decoding software in the hardware of the player.
Even though you have a drive that can read dvd discs this does not mean you can decode (play) dvd movies. Software programmes that you install on your computer to play dvd movies have the decoder in them because the manufacturer has paid the fees.
Generally you wont find free decoder software as the supplier doesn't get it free. You may however find regular dvd movie player software free which is another matter ;-)

K

wolfman

Keldin wrote:

Generally you wont find free decoder software as the supplier doesn't get it free.

Video Lan
http://www.videolan.org/ (as mentioned above will)

MPlayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ (for linux)

Both are free. This goes back to the "DVD Jon" case. VideoLan is what I use, it's a great media player, can play some many file/format types.

If you look around, you can usually pickup PowerDVD, WinDVD (normally have to pay for them) or equivalent for free on a PC magazine disc.

lenora

I have just downloaded Video Lan nice and simple to install just finished watching my Pride and Prejudice DVD thanks a lot