VLC - highly recommended, but I don't use it.

[vhwul62]

In the past I repeatedly tried to use VLC: it is highly recommended.
Each time I decided to use other software.

Reason: VIDEO_TS were choppy, always it started off-screen, always I needed to resize the window: it would take about 80% of my 27" screen and half of it is off-screen.

I gave up on VLC.

Now, after a long time I tried the latest, portable, version. Portable so there is no conflict with my currently used player.
Launched it, then opened a mp4 file.

It played the video rotated 90 degrees. Great, that's new!

Well, I'll just continue using MPC...

No, there is no question here, just my experience with VLC.

[Skiller]

VLC is notoriously bad for playing DVD-structures (VIDEO_TS). It has it's own view on the implementation of certain navigation features and therefore does not behave like it should.

Never had issues with it playing MP4, but I also prefer MPC for that.

[VoodooFX]

I keep VLC only for VIDEO_TS play as MPC has more issues with it.

[Skiller]

PowerDVD is best for DVD.
Everything else exhibits erratic behaviour (does not act like a hardware player would). Admittedly, this matters a lot to me because I'm testing my authored DVDs. Probably not a huge deal otherwise.

[johns0]

Mpc-hc plays dvds with no issues on my system,never did like any commercial software player.I tried vlc but i liked mpc settings and codecs views much better.

[vhwul62]

MPC-BE has problems playing DVD VIDEO_TS as well, at least in my experience. Especially when it has a 'home-made' menu.
It hangs.
I've not found a player that can handle this. MPC-HC, MPC-HC, VLC, SMPlayer.
Maybe PowerDVD. I had a license once. Every year an upgrade at $.... it became a very costly business.
So I stopped with it. I only need a player. For 'normal' MP4, MKV, AVI etc MPC is doing fine.

[DB83]

Well the only reason I can think your video plays rotated is becuase you have, whether by accident or design, activated the rotation filters >> Tools >> Effects and Filters >> Video Filters. Check them out !!

Another issue could be tweaked video preferences and GPU. Try reseting all back to default.


But I have never had any issue with any video played with vlc even video_ts files. Yes. It does have its quirks but one has to allow for the fact that some reverse engineering is going on here.


And I also use PowerDVD. Upgrade. Why ? My PowerDVD12 Ultra works fine.

[vhwul62]

@db83
Sorry for the delay. Had to go here, go there, visits, blah blah.
Then, frankly, I had a backlog and forgot. Sorry.

Also I *thought* I replied, but it seems I stopped / cancelled half way.

Anyway, as for your suggestion (Rotation filters) above. You are right, it was rotated. The only thing I did was downloading the portable and then opened media file.
So, meaning to say, I did not touch settings. Wasn't even aware of these settings. Unchecked rotation and now it is okay.

Then I tried to open a VIDEO_TS. VLC showed the (non-official) menu. Clicking on the items - nothing happened, it should highlight. Tried MPC-HC, menu items highlighted and worked.
But, then again, the next time, they may not work.

As for PowerDVD: I checked my account with Cyberlink and found that the last version I have a license on was / is also v.12 Ultra.
Started out with v5 'DeLuxe', upgraded each time, except 8 end ended up with 12 Ultra. In total I payed Eur.360 (which currently is USD.360) so USD.60 in average per upgrade...

That aside, I do not remember anymore, the last upgrade was January 2013: I -think- that PowerDVD v12 did not support context menu?
I believe in later version context menu was supported, but not yet in 12 (?)
Also bought Zoom Player (Eur.35) but somewhat later it stopped playing VIDEO_TS and also I didn't get sound.

From that point on I used MPC-BE...

[DB83]

Not sure what you mean by 'context menu'. The only 'issue' I get with BD's (I do also use DVDFab Passkey) is that I often get a message stating that PowerDVd has to be updated. I let it go through the motions of the update - which does not happen - and the the BD plays fine.

As for vlc I get a disk to play by two methods:


1. Start vlc. Media Menu >> Open Disk >> browse to Video_ts folder (not any of the files within) >> hit 'play'


or


2. Start Windows Explorer. Browse to Video_ts folder. Right-click on video_ts.ifo (not the vob) and right-click 'Open with' select vlc


With both I get the actual dvd menu.

[Dreamer]

What about PotPlayer?

BTW I tested it now, it works good with PotPlayer, MPC-BE and VLC, started with VIDEO_TS.IFO or drag&drop the folder with AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders.

[vhwul62]

Been away for a few days.

Thank you both for the suggestion of playing the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. I was not aware of it.
Tried it with a few different files and things went fine.

Normally I r-click the VIDEO_TS folder and select "Play with MPC-BE".

Regretfully I can't recall the last time that MPC-BE got stuck in the menu.

Anyway, thanks again!

[usually_quiet]

Maybe PowerDVD. I had a license once. Every year an upgrade at $.... it became a very costly business.
So I stopped with it. I only need a player. For 'normal' MP4, MKV, AVI etc MPC is doing fine.

Often it isn't necessary to upgrade to a new version of PowerDVD every year. As I recall, Cyberlink makes patches available for at least a couple of years to fix bugs or support newly released DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Even after the patches stop, PowerDVD still continues to work for many new releases.

[davexnet]

I've got Powerdvd 6 (from 2004) on an old XP box. Always though it was a great app, it looks like this: