DVDs not playing properly

[peter31]

Good afternoon

I recently renovated a 7 year old computer, adding more memory, additional DVD-RW drive and HDD and installing Windows XP Professional. I have installed a Windows XP DVD codec pack. I am still setting everything up. I have found that video DVDs won't play on either of the two DVD drives, or using any of three software players (VLC Media Player, Real Player and Windows Media Player). It happens with all the DVDs I have tried, both home made and commercially pressed. I don't get any error messages: the player opens and then nothing else happens.

However, if I go into Windows Explorer and look at the files on the DVD, I can play the individual VOB files just fine. So by a process of elimination, it seems like Windows may be having a problem recognising the DVD menus. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

[Baldrick]

VLC Media PLayer doesn't use any windows dvd decoders so it may be something else. In VLC try open a folder and choose the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD. Any difference?

And try more tools, like MPC and SMPlayer as they also has builtin codecs.

[peter31]

I did what you said - opened VLC player, opened the Video_TS folder on the DVD, and it played normally. But when I re-inserted the DVD into the drive, a mesaage from Windows popped up saying "Play DVD movie using VLC Media Player?" and when I click on that, VLC player opens but nothing else happens. The same thing (ie nothing) happens if I open VLC player and then choose "open disk" instead of "open folder". Is this something to do with my Windows setup? Thanks.

[sambat]

If you click "File' > 'Open Disc', does it show the drive where the disk is.

[peter31]

It lists my two drives but just with the drive letters alone, no text identifying the disc in the drive. However, if I look at the drive with Windows Explorer, there it shows the title of the disc in the drive.

If I insert the disc in the drive, choose the option "open with VLC player" and wait 30-45 seconds, the disc will start playing normally. So maybe I wasn't giving it enough time to spin up and get going before. But I still get nothing when I choose the options "open with Real Player" or "open with Windows Media Player" - the players open but then just freeze.