BleepingComputer.com: What Media/ Dvd Players Do You Use?

I am not a person who wants to pay for something if I don't have to.
I really want to enjoy my dvd viewing. I have WinDVD, but it isn't the full application I guess. I keeps popping up the "number" of experiences I have left. All I do is try to figure out how to adjust the sound when it is off-quality and it prompts me I have one experience left. I don't think I care too much about specifics. FF RW Play Subtitles Pause and the ability to have the sound be normal are about all I'm interested in. I'm wondering if there is something out there that won't cost anything.

I find a lot of freeware stuff, but I haven't found any DVD players.
I'm just trying to figure out what kind of choices I even have.
WindowsMediaPlayer will play a disk, but it does not seem to like the DVD in file format.
WinDVD plays the movies either way, but I keep wondering whether I actually have a copy or if it will eventually stop working. Not to mention, the occasional refusal to sound right. drives me nuts.

Basically, I like the way WinDVD looks and feels... I am just left wondering what the deal with it is.

I have WindowsXP MediaCenterEdition. The media center thing is a joke. Way too many screens to go through for something as stupid as playing a DVD or audio CD. I've tried it a couple times and I just have no patience for it. It seems to take somethings simple and complicate it.

So, what are you using?

ugh. I'm so lame. I've downloaded so much I have uploaded my brain. Cuz, apparently it's gone somewhere. I have the VLC player and the movie on my computer seems to be playing fine. And it was free. Hope this info helps someone else. I'm still googling.

This post has been edited by raeinbow: 19 November 2006 - 07:11 PM

Check the freeware page in my sig. At the same time since you are installing and de-installing so much you might want to do the following :

Download install and update Ccleaner
After installing and updating go to options - advanced and tick prompt for registry back ups
Now Start up in safe mode
Do two runs

a) Click on problems and tick all. Click on analyse. At the end you will be prompted for storing a backup.
This will be stored, as a default, in My documents.
Click on cleaner click on analyse and accept all files to be removed.

This post has been edited by fozzie: 16 December 2006 - 07:15 AM

If you decide you aren't happy with VLC, you might look at this:

Quote

It's the only media player I have installed. WMP wanted to install itself the first time I clicked a media file and I said no, and installed this. Media Player Classic might not be fancy, but it works.

did you reformat your computer at any point in time? i ran into this issue and found the answer, but it's quite silly.

there are a multitude of programs that will play dvds, but you must first have a codec (mpeg-2, i believe) to decode them off the dvd. for this you must purchase a program (like winDVD [the amount of remaining plays is likely how many times you can use the codec for free]) which will give you the codec to play movies off the dvd. if you don't want to do this, it might work to rip the dvd files onto your computer and then play them with vlc player or something else, but i'm not 100% on that and besides, it seems like a bit of a hassle.

the codec to decode dvds is not free, which seems odd to me, but there you go. you may want to check the cds that came with your computer and see if there isn't a disk that contains any sort of dvd player application as it most likely includes the codec with the software. once you have the codec on your computer you can, as far as i know, use whatever program you want to watch dvds.

Media Player Classic and VLC Media Player are the best free media players out there, hands down. Both have built-in DVD playback functionality.

VLC comes with nearly every video codec known to man built-in, it will even play quicktime files without quicktime installed. MPC will natively play MPEG2 files, but you'll want to install ffdshow in order to play things like DivX/XviD files.

The ffdshow codecs are in the XP Codec Pack that also contains the classic player.

XP Codec Pack 2.0.6 includes :

- AC3Filter 1.11
- AVI Splitter 1.0.0.7
- CDXA Reader 1.0.0.1
- CoreAAC (AAC DirectShow Decoder) 1.2.0
- CoreFlac Decoder 0.4
- FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder 2004.10.12
- GPL MPEG-1/2 Decoder 0.1.2.0
- Matroska Splitter 1.0.2.9
- Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0 rev. 609
- OggSplitter/CoreVorbis 1.1.0.79
- RealMedia Splitter 1.0.1.1
- RadLight MPC Filter 1.0.0.4
- RadLight APE Filter 1.0.0.4
- RadLight OFR Filter 1.0.0.4
- RadLight TTA Filter 1.0.0.2
- The Codec Detective 2.0
- VSFilter (DirectVobSub) 2.37

This post has been edited by mommabear: 18 December 2006 - 07:49 AM