Dell PC DVD decoder

tomstickland

I've been having a few problems with my PC and playing DVDs tonight.
So I uninstalled Napster that seemed to be hogging Media Player and also uninstalled Dell Cinema Viewer because it doesn't work very well.
Now when I go to play a DVD Media Player says I need a DVD Decoder. Can I get this for free of the internet? There seem to be a lot out there.

Or is this on one the CDs that came with the computer?

tomstickland

Well that was "fun". I took the installation cd and tried to reinstall media centre. This then corrupted loads of things, removed internet explorer etc. I don't understand that. My computer doesn't have media centre on it, even though it's sold as a Dell with media centre on it. The disc obviouslly contains media centre. It's got Dell Cinema Viewer on in, but no disc with that on it.
Confusing.

Anyway, in the end I did system restore.

PeteHerts

If you've not done a Windows update lately then you might not have WMP 11 so if thats the case then do the update and you should get WMP 11 and then you'll be able to play DVD's

tomstickland

I downloaded WMP 11 and it still said I needed a decoder. I don't think media player has a decoder. The decoder is a stand alone add in. I think my computer uses the Dell Cinema decoder.

MVC

I don't know how to restore your Dell but Media Player Classic is free and it includes DVD playback CODECs.

http://hdvinfo.net/articles/sonyhdrfx1/compare.php

imho

I bought a brand new Dell computer and Dell media never worked right and always wanted a disc to install mdx something.After 6 emails and 4 phone calls to them,it seems i should have been supplied with 5 disc,but i never was.In the end,because they were not going to supply the discs they never sent me ,i uninstalled Dell media ! and i am not missing anything by not using it.

espresso

Try using VLC Media Player from here.

streather

try the klite codec mega pack from http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack_download.htm

it'll play any video file you can throw at it

tomstickland

imho wrote:

I bought a brand new Dell computer and Dell media never worked right and always wanted a disc to install mdx something.After 6 emails and 4 phone calls to them,it seems i should have been supplied with 5 disc,but i never was.In the end,because they were not going to supply the discs they never sent me ,i uninstalled Dell media ! and i am not missing anything by not using it.

I found Dell Media Player to be unreliable, but I susepct the decoder is bundled in with it. I've got no disc for it. I suppose it's pot luck; they image the hard drives and then bundle up a load of discs for the customer. There's no gaurantee that you'll get all the discs you need.

odowdchr

As Streather says, try the K-Lite codec pack.
It includes a stripped down Windows media player 6.4, very quick, and it plays anything.