trouble playing 'PC Friendly' DVDs

[jspeckle]

i have never had a problem playing DVDs on my toshiba satellite, until recently i was given a couple of DVDs with the 'InterActual PC Friendly' logo. None of these will play and the computer does not even recognise that there is a disk in the player.

im operating on windows XP and i have WinDVD and even installed interactual player (after the first time one wouldnt play someone told me that installing interactual player would fix it...it hasnt)

because other DVDs play fine on my computer, i thought maybe this was some sort of software problem. anyone know?

[Safesurfer]

Just a thought, are they from a different Region to your other disks?

[jspeckle]

no, theyre all region 1 disks - unless there is some other form of region IDs that i am not aware of, this makes them all the same - thanks for the thought tho!

[Safesurfer]

I mentioned it because I saw another thread where someone had downloaded DVD Region Free and it had solved the playback problem.

Have you tried ripping to your hard drive and making it region free to see if it will play?

You might also want to have a look at this site http://player.interactual.com/help/support/default.asp and work through the troubleshooting.

Hope this helps.

[redwudz]

I avoid the 'Interactual Player' like a virus. I've managed to screw up my computer at least twice in the past when I inadvertently installed it. When you remove it, it tends to mess up your other players access to DVDs.

I haven't recalled any problem playing DVDs when it is on the disc, though. It does bring up a splash screen as soon as you insert the DVD. I use PowerDVD for DVDs. You could also try a copy of VLC media player.

[jspeckle]

thanks for the thoughts, but still no luck. spent the last two hours dealing with the tips on the interactual troubleshooting website with absolutely no luck. tried the region free thing as well and that has seemed to make no difference.

is there some compatibility issue with PC Friendly disks and windows XP? when i put the disk in and it doesnt load up, i get an error message that says -

'windows cannot read from the disk. the disk might be corrupted or it may be using a format that is not compatible with windows'

considering that i have 8 disks that i get the same message with, i dont think that it is a corrupted disk. my other ones work fine, and all that these have in common is the 'PC Friendly' logo

im totally lost...and i wanna watch my DVDs

[mujahid7ia]

Did you try playing the vobs directly with WinDVD? Or just opening with WMP?

[bazooka]

thanks for the thoughts, but still no luck. spent the last two hours dealing with the tips on the interactual troubleshooting website with absolutely no luck. tried the region free thing as well and that has seemed to make no difference.

is there some compatibility issue with PC Friendly disks and windows XP? when i put the disk in and it doesnt load up, i get an error message that says -

'windows cannot read from the disk. the disk might be corrupted or it may be using a format that is not compatible with windows'

considering that i have 8 disks that i get the same message with, i dont think that it is a corrupted disk. my other ones work fine, and all that these have in common is the 'PC Friendly' logo

im totally lost...and i wanna watch my DVDs

I have no problems with compatibility.

[jspeckle]

yeah ive tried opening the DVDs with both winDVD and WMP. matter of fact now i have winDVD, WMP, and interactual all installed...maybe this is the problem?

wierdest thing is that the computer doesnt even recognise a disk in the drive - it says that there is some formatting problem?

my computer is four years old...a few months ago i did a clean install of windows XP from windows ME - would this make my DVD drive thing outdated?

just wondering if any of this is relevant or if i should just give up and sell these 'PC friendly' DVDs to someone with a friendlier PC

[mujahid7ia]

If it does not recognize the disc in the drive, their is a problem. You can try uninstalling the drive through Device Manager and then restarting and reinstalling. You can also check the drive manufacturer's site (or the site of your PC maker if it's OEM) for any problems w/ that driver under Windows XP.

[bazooka]

it says that there is some formatting problem?

I had that happen before and the laser was shot. Hopefully this is not your problem. You may have too many decoders and the computer is confused.