WMP10 and WMP11 commercial DVD playback Solved

[gll99]

Part1:

What's the beef?:
I couldn't play commercial DVD with MS WMP 11 and later after a rollback the same with wmp 10.

The exact message with wmp 11 was:
"Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card"

The message with wmp 10 was:
"Windows Media Player cannot play the DVD because a problem occurred with digital copyright protection." .
If you track these messages you may find this error code C00D1163

While trying to solve this issue by tinkering with various system settings following many posted suggestions, I
caused and then had to fix new problems. It was a learning experience to say the least. The final solution was
nowhere near anything suggested by MS or anyone else. I found it out of pure determination and finally
following a gut feeling.

Is that it?:
First a bit more background, I am talking about issues playing commercial dvd's on your PC using Windows Media
Player 10 and 11 but it probably applies to version 9 too. This may incite some MS naysayers, but please don't
say "use VLC or KMPlayer because MS is cr@p". This thread isn't for MS bashing it's for problem solving. Many
people still use this media player and just want to know why their legally bought DVD won't play. I've seen
many comments in my searches about how it's big bad MS fault and "they don't want you to play your DVD". Whose kidding who here? MS built dvd playback into their software player so that you could use it. If they wanted to block you it would be at the OS kernel level so no one else could do it. Why would they limit themselves but let everyone else do it? I already have many software players on my computers that play DVD and personally use and prefer KMPlayer but some of the things I encountered may affect them also so I'll touch on that too later in part2.

So why do I care if WMP plays commercial protected DVD?:
I also happen to dabble in vb programming and use the wmp plugin in some of my appications. When the player doesn't work the plugin doesn't work either.

Why am I posting this information here?
Hope it will help somebody else and who knows, with my mind I could forget how I did this a year from now if it
ever happens again.

So let's get on to solving the issues:
First remember, I'm specifically dealing with the player messages posted above so it's important to have the proper codecs installed on the system. Pay special attention to the next topic.

How do I play a DVD using WMP?
You need a Mgeg2 video decoder compatible with WMP. You will likely also need a AC3 audio decoder/filter since
most DVD have AC3 audio tracks.

Videohelp has links to 2 free mpeg2 decoder/filters and another program that uses libs for decoding as shown in
the tools section

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/Dscaler_5
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/GPL_MPEG-1_2_Decoder
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/ffdshow

The ffdshow application has to be set up, brief explanation, on the "Start" button under "Programs" choose
ffdshow and "Video Decoder configuration". Click codecs if it isn't already open and then look under "format"
for "Mpeg2" and click on "decoder" where it may be showing "disable" and choose one of the libs. The "DVD
decoding" option should now be visible just below. Check it on and click "apply"

You will need an ac3 decoder. I use this one. At the time of writing the current version is 1.46 but I use v1.45b and it works well.

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/AC3_Filter

These links could change or new ones could be added so it's best to check the section for up to date information.

You may also want DECheck available from MS which helps identify compatible codecs with the player but even if
a mpeg2 codec is not fully compatible it will probably still work for playing. It may be that it won't decode
playlists or some other secondary feature etc... I promoted some that were all x's and they still worked for playing after I fixed the real problem

So let's get to the point about those wmp messages:
I tried everything possible suggested in dozens and dozens of threads with the same problem. I reloaded
DirectX, rolled back to wmp10, played with accelerator settings, reinstalled my video card drivers, added ,
deleted and promoted various mpeg2 decoders etc... and that led to more problems but I'll mention those later.
Nothing seemed to work. One person had said he loaded a codec pack and it solved the problem for him but at the time I discounted that solution when others said it didn't work for them but after trying everything else it got me thinking and finally a light went on!

It sudenly hit me that maybe this is an audio problem and not video related at all.

I went into wmp under tools/option/DVD/Advance and found an Elecard Mpeg2 decoder but I was sure that I had originally installed an ac3 filter for audio. I searched my system for the Elecard decoder and found an entry in the "Program Files" directory. I just renamed the whole Elecard directory to Bak_Elecard and rechecked the wmp and this time it showed the AC3 filter. I tried a couple of commercial DVD's and they both worked!!!

Although I haven't tested this to prove it, I'm pretty sure that once the wrong default audio codec is removed the video will play even without the ac3 decoder but you probably won't get audio.

You may have a different default audio codec showing and in a different location than I had (Elecard). The point is that in my case the Elecard audio codec couldn't decode the css encrypted audio on the DVD so WMP gave a cryptic message about copy protection that I posted earlier. That's why it played fine with unencrypted discs.

It's possible that a default mpeg2 video decoder that can't handle encrypted video could cause the same message but at least it points the fault in the right direction at incompatible decoders and not wmp rollbacks, video drivers, directX drivers etc.. That's why the guy who downloaded a codec pack happened to override a poor decoder and it worked for him. No one knew why and some said it didn't work for them so it was a hit and miss and no one caught why.

Some players like KMPlayer and VLC use their own decoders so don't have this problem.

In part2 to follow, I'll highlight a directx problem that came up while I was testing that affected all DVD playback including MPC, WMP, WINDVD, PowerDVD and even KMPlayer, the various symptoms of this problem and also how it was solved.

[gll99]

Part 2:

Rehash::
The problem discussed in Part 1 was existing for many many months on my pc, I never really paid much attention to it although sometimes it really irritated me when I was working in vb on my software player design. There was a workaround, I just loaded DVD43 and it gave the appearance of an unencrypted disc so the Wm player and plug-in both worked.

Still in the back of my mind I knew there had to be a real solution. I just decided to look into it lately and spent quite a few hours researching and trying the multiple suggestions.

A new problem complicates matters:
Along the way something else happened all player programs seemed to lock up or work very slowly with DVD video. I thought at first it was part of the same problem and yet these were new symptoms. I now know that this new problem was totally unrelated to the copyright message issue.

This is what I observed:

1- WMP previously gave that copyright message relatively fast but now it took a long time to read the disc before displaying that message.

2- PowerDVD responded really slow to the play button. It took minutes before starting to play and then if I clicked on something it looked like it locked up. Sometimes the video never actually played.

3- KMPlayer is my default player for ifo/vob files and it usually plays fine but now it crashed on open when I clicked on an ifo. Opening the player directly did not cause a crash but trying to play a dvd made it crash. Avi files played OK.

4- WInDVD, finally produced a more revealing clue. I got the message "Create Overlay Failed"

Now we know the problem. Any ideas as to what causes it?
KmPlayer lets you select the renderer see... Video(Advanced)/Video Renderer and I switched it from the default Overlay Mixer to VMR9 windowed. I tried a dvd and it played like it used to. I then knew that the problem was directx related.

On the Start/Run menu I typed DXDIAG. After clicking on "Display" it was obvious that DirectDraw Acceleration, Direct3D acceleration and AGP acceleration were disabled and couldn't be adjusted because the buttons were greyed out.

So how do we fix it?
Directx could have been corrupted so I reinstalled it but it didn't help.

A Google search revealed a solution. The suggestion was to open Net Meeting and close it or open it play with the video option and then close it. Since I don't use it, I had to find it on my system, initialize it, open it and then close it. When I reran DXDiag everything showed as it should with directdraw etc.. active again. The DVD players worked like before. I reset the renderer in KMPlayer to the Overlay Mixer and tried a DVD and it played normally.

Don't jump to conclusions here about Net Meeting being the only way to solve this. It's just a means to an end. Most likely any program that accesses and then closes Directx properly would probably fix the problem but it's convenient and it works. I would probably suggest reinstalling directx before doing this just in case some of the files had been corrupted when this happened.

In closing:
The DirectX problem was fixed before I had a solution to the issue discussed in Part 1, so although all my DVD players were OK I still was getting the copyright message with wmp until I applied the solution which was only discovered after and described in part1.

With both problems happening at once it would have been tempting to blame this on the same copyright issue had I not known that one existed long before the other. This is especially so without the message from Windvd which the other programs did not provide. I can see why so many people give conflicting advice when mixed solution problems occur at the same time.

[gll99]

Reserved for possible future additions by gll99

[extremebeat]

I have been having the same problem. I built a computer for a friend and can't seem to get WMP to play the DVD's. I followed the path that you documented, but all I see are a bunch of output options that I can't apply. I also have another problem that I tried to solve with ATI about the video card. Seems the card was supposed to include a video decoder. It is supposed to show up when I go into the basic control center, but it is not there. If I go into advanced, the components are listed but not accessable. The Video card is a Radeon HD 4850. Have any clues? ATI's tech help just told me to get a VLC player or equivalent. I already have it and it works fine...that is not the point. Like I explained to them (to no avail) This is a purchased build and I want everything to work properly

[WMznvW]

We had for months the same problem, even worse, WMP11 didn't play commercial DVD, but also refused to play any music from HD. We followed the advised path, NO RESULTS. The advised Mpeg2 videodecoders installed gave no results; using MS " DECHECK "you could see they where NOT compatible with WMP. So we removed them again. Installing AC3_filter gave also no results. AFTER installing
"K-Lite codec pack " suddenly WMP11 played music again !!
Using MS "DECHECK" there was the codec ELECARD Mpeg2 ! Must be the right codec for WMP ! But there was the message : Not compatible with WMP (...) Probably codec broken ? So we removed it and installed the codec again ( from WWW.Elecard.com) No results ! And again there was the massage in DECHECK : Not compatible with WMP...
AFTER REMOVING AGAIN and NOT installing again ALL IS WORKING AGAIN : Like always before: DVD and music played again.
Looking again in DECHECK: The Elecard Mpeg 2 was gone and another codec ( from Ciberlink) appears compatible with WMP. Of course this codec was there also before, but somehow (??) the Elecard Mpeg 2 codec - beëing the exact right codec for WMP .... - blocked it.
Anyhow, all is working normaly. Hope this info could help others.