DVD hired movies freezing on PC, a CSS warning (Mostly on 27 dresses video)

[Eleyan]

I found the other day that a DVD of "27 Dresses" refused to play normally on my PC.
Once put into a regular DVD player in the Loungeroom it played completely through with no problems.

Prior to that I had 2 copies in a row from the rental shop.
The first froze about 15 times and took 3 hrs to watch and I missed a few vital scenes.
The 2nd copy froze at least 6 times in my PC with external DVD player b4 I capitulated to the regular tv & player.

There was also a message coming up at times re: CSS.
I played Two and a Half Men multi CD sets in my external player & PC afterwards with no freezing and no problems. Any ideas? Formatting? Layers? I'm stumped on this one.

I was worried that somehow one of those rampant updates that keep downloading had changed my settings so much I would never be able to watch a DVD again. I have a small case of DVD paranoia now.

Also: Windows Media Player 11 will NOT play DVD's at all, but WILL play YouTube downloads, citing "Copyright issues."

[CobraPilot]

You don't mention the physical condition of he discs: Scratches? Dirty?

PCs tend to be more picky when trying to play dirty/damaged discs vs. standalone players.

What you describe fits the "dirty/damaged" symptoms.
__________

As to Windows Media Player not playing DVDs . . . . That sounds like you're missing the proper codec. When I installed VLC Media Player on my PC, the codecs VLC loads seemed to "activate" DVD playback for Win MP.

Good luck, and be sure to tell us if you determined the problems and what solved them.

[Sartori]

It`ll be the scratched condition that hire shops rent out their dvds in . As Cobrapilot says , standalones have a lot more flexibilty of "just getting on with it" and playing past errors , you`ll see it as a glitch on the screen for a microsecond but playing the same dvd on a pc will have it either refusing to play or even crashing it .