Problem with pc dvd player

[Reds]

ok so i got my moms dell and its from about 01 and it came with a dvd player but had to take it to best buy awhile back and they wiped it all cause of viruses. ever since then it wont play dvds. whether i try vlc player or wmp 11 or anything. when i try the interactual player i get this error

Error PL4009: A CSS Encryption error occurred while trying to play the DVD. Your detected decoder may not support playback of encrypted DVD content. Please make sure that your decoder fully supports playback of encrypted DVD content by contacting the manufacturer of your DVD playback software.

also im not sure if my dvd burner will work. the computer came with sonic mydvd 4.5 so i would imagine it came with a dvd burner. but seeing as the dvd player itself wont work can it still burn dvds? thanks

[redwudz]

It's strange that VLC wouldn't work for DVD playback. It uses it's own codecs and doesn't rely on system codecs. Interactual Player is one that I wouldn't let within ten feet of any computer. It has a bad habit of trying to take over playback and messing up your system. I wouldn't pay much attention to Interactual errors either.

Windows doesn't come with a MPEG-2 codec that's required for DVD playback, along with the software for the DVD format to be recognized and dealt with properly. But VLC should have worked.

Not being able to play an encrypted DVD is unusual. You would need to use a decrypter to back it up, but playback shouldn't be a problem.

As far as DVD burning, it depends on the burner unit. There were combo DVD readers/CD burners out there a few years ago that had no DVD burning capabilities, depends on the unit. If it really does date back to 2001, I would buy a $30US new burner and not even mess with it. Even if it works, it may have a lot of problems with newer media.

If you just wanted to back up a DVD you own to a regular DVD-5 disc, DVDFab Decrypter>DVD Shrink>ImgBurn will work with about any DVD. And it's all freeware.

[Reds]

the only reason i got that ineractual was cause i put in some hollywood movie and that was like installed with it. most xp computers come with some sort of program installed to watch dvds. but after this got wiped at best buy it doesnt have one which seems to be the problem.

[Krispy Kritter]

Go into Control Panel / System / Hardware tab / Device Manager / and then look under the DVD/CD-ROM drives section. It will list a name for any installed drives. You should then be able to Google that description to get the actual drive used and you will then know what it actually supports. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is only a DVDROM drive (read only, not burn), which was common on older brand name PC's.

As noted above, ignore and don't use the Interactual player. WMP won't play DVD's without an mpeg2 codec as noted above. You can try reinstalling VLC. If VLC still won't play a DVD, report back here with the error code from VLC.

[aedipuss]

maybe running imgburn would be faster. if there's a burner it will report it.