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DVD playback software

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iphigenie:
As I am on a contract I am stuck in hotels at night, and once thing that occurred to me is that it would be nice to watch DVDs on my laptop to escape from the boredom of TV

I then realised that the standard software installed on said laptop did not include any DVD codec layer.

I tried to find free codecs/players but the results were unsuccessful - couldnt figure out how to actually make the DVD menus work on any of them.

Right not i downloaded a demo and that works, but I am curious as to what people are using since these players are not cheap!

On my other PCs I had something that came with the dvd drive, called cyberlink but for some reason this wasnt sent or installed with this laptop... I am not sure what the licensing would say to my installing those on this laptop or if it is any good.

From what I can see I have 4 options:
* continue to fight with free options until i find one that actually works through the menus to the films
* buy a standalone DVD media player program
* buy a plug in for windows media
* use clonedvd to make files from my DVDs I can watch in a normal player - seems like hard work though just to watch a film

which brings me to the question, what do people use?

TucknDar:
I use K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with the excellent Media Player Classic. (Freeware) Works for me :)

See http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

The K-Lite Codec packs come in a couple of versions, Lite, full, mega, or something like that. Depends on what you need. I just use the mega pack to be sure I can watch anything... I probably don't need half of the codecs, but...

Carol Haynes:
I really like WinDVD (http://www.intervideo.com/WinDVD/)

If you don't want to buy that you can buy just the codec and watch DVDs in Windows Media Player. See http://www.intervideo.com/products/custom/ms/windowsxp/media_pack.jsp

edbro:
VLC Player will play DVDs without any extra codecs needed and its freeware.

www.videolan.org

iphigenie:
I use K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with the excellent Media Player Classic. (Freeware) Works for me :)

See http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

The K-Lite Codec packs come in a couple of versions, Lite, full, mega, or something like that. Depends on what you need. I just use the mega pack to be sure I can watch anything... I probably don't need half of the codecs, but...
-TucknDar (May 13, 2007, 09:07 AM)
--- End quote ---

thats one of the freeware options i tried. I also tried videolan and a tool that started in AL (i think) - but all of them seem to get stuck on a DVD that wants you to choose a country first - no key or mouse action I could think of ever made the selector move to anything :(

I have used both media player classic and videolan for other things in the past and both are great tools which I always install, so as not to have to install realmedia and other borderline spyware systems. But no luck watching a DVD :(

The first commercialware demo I tried worked, so I suspect partly its all easier if you use some proprietary libraries

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