Commercial DVD will not play in Windows Media Player or VLC

[allanc448]

I am trying to help a friend who is running XP, has the latest Windows Media Player (with all updates) and VLC.
He is trying to play a commercial DVD on both without success.
Windows Media Player displays an error message saying that a codec is missing but does provide further info.
VLC simply does not play it or display any error.

All assistance is appreciated!

[dcsos]

You can update til you're blue in the face and NO DVD PLAY BACK because
and I quote myself here:

Believe it or not:
you need to have ANOTHER PROGRAM INSTALLED FIRST
This is to say:On any windows 98, ME 2000, or XP you must install a
DVD Player SOFTWARE (there are over 50 vendors of such software)
the two most popular here: POWER DVD and WIN DVD

after this
THEN WMP will work to display DVD's..
It needs an MPEG2 playback codec from the third party program..

[bugster]

Just to add, AFAIK, VLC incororates its own, built-in mpeg-2 decoder. But it will not play a commercial DVD that uses CSS as it cannot decrypt them!

[allanc448]

You can update til you're blue in the face and NO DVD PLAY BACK because
and I quote myself here:

Believe it or not:
you need to have ANOTHER PROGRAM INSTALLED FIRST
This is to say:On any windows 98, ME 2000, or XP you must install a
DVD Player SOFTWARE (there are over 50 vendors of such software)
the two most popular here: POWER DVD and WIN DVD

after this
THEN WMP will work to display DVD's..
It needs an MPEG2 playback codec from the third party program..

Interesting.
Thank you.

[Bjs]

Check around the internet for freeware dvd player software , there is two , but I can not recall right now what their names are .

Install the free dvd decoder codec , for media player .
Install the Ac3 filters from www.free-codecs.com and install it .

Download and run ifoedit
In ifoedit , open ifo , locate video_ts.ifo on dvd disc in dvd drive , then hit the play dvd button and see what happens , if it plays , all should be fine , so give media player a wizz and see if it can play it now .

Should have your friend up and running in mediaplayer in xp .

You could even get away with installing a shareware version , and remove those shortcuts to it in the program list you get from the start button , it works .

[waheed]

You can just install the trail versions of PowerDVD or WinDVD. There is no need to purchase them. Then, WMP will use its codec to play commercial DVDs.

WMP always uses a third party codec for dvd playback as mentioned by dcsos.

[waheed]

media player classic (freeware) is capable of playing commercial dvds.