Windows media has stopped playing dvds

hubb

I was watching a dvd movie using windows media player on Windows 7 home premium. I stopped the film, came back later and the WM failed to read the dvd with an "unknown dvd" message. I tried other dvds and the same. A brief flash of the picture as if trying to play and then blank. Why would it play it and then not at all with no changes, updates etc to the pc ? When I play an audio cd I get a crackly, poor sounding audio that sounds like the bit rate has been reduced to hardly anything. As if the sound is corrupted. I tried downloading the free BS.player and the menu of the dvd plays with very poor picture quality, with a horrible digital corrupted picture. audio files saved on my hard drive play ok. Have tried cleaning the player with a special disk but to no avail

JJ_Egan

Try the VLC media player before condemning the drive .
Also try playing a non dvd video through WMP or VLC .

hubb

Ok, it works fine with VLC player. That is very strange.

pendragon_arther

I use VLC Player and Media Player Classic which both play vertually anything, I never use other players.

hubb

What about my crackling cd sounds on WMP ? I can't play those.

pendragon_arther

Do they crackle on other players?

lonestar1

have you installed any codec packs just before problems started ? if so remove them