Media Player 10/Center refuses to play DVDs?

[Gothekain]

I've been attempting to play a DVD for the last hour or so using either Media Player 10 or Media Center 2005 on my XP OS.

I need an MPEG-2 codec to play them, since everything else I've tried has failed. I rollbacked to 10 from 11, I have K-Lite Codec Pack and I've been told I need to restart my DVD drive, howeverthehell I do that.

Can anyone give me much needed advice please?

Thanks in advance,
Gothekain

 

[Sal_118]

It didn't work with the K-Lite codec package installed?

Well anyways...have you tried playing them with other software on the machine?

 

[Johnnypass]

hmmmm.

Does the drive recognise the DVD?

Is the region set correctly?

Do you have the latest Firmware for your DVD drive?

Have you tried uninstalling / reinstalling the drive?

 

[zipperman]

Important Note

Are you trying to play them on a DVD Burner ?
You need a DVD Player to play and a burner to burn.
Haveing both is also handy for disc to disc copy.
DVD Players are not very expensive.

 

[SNGX1275]

Any PC burner will also play, you don't need a specific DVD non burner drive.

The issue here, as Gothekain has figured out, is that Microsoft saw fit to not include dvd playback ability naitively with their Media Center (or any XP based) comps.

The interesting thing here is that now he apparently does have an mpeg2 codec installed and WMP/MC are still refusing to play. There is a piece of software from Microsoft that you can use and it will allow you to set which decoder WMP/MC uses for mpeg2 which may help you. I can't remember it offhand, but I originally found a link to it on TheGreenButton's forums. My guess is that something like that should get you straightened out.

In the mean time, you could get VLC. It will play your dvds right now.

 

[zipperman]

My Humble Apology

There may be some that only burn,but i just played one on my
LG DVD-rom burner,on WMP 11.Worked fine.
Sorry if i led you astray,so lets figure yours out.
Someone suggested updateing the Firmware.
That made mine able to"read DVD's" so i guess they would play too.
But you'll have to find out somehow if yours does both.

What make and model is it ? I think maybe DVD-ROM will do both.

 

[SNGX1275]

There is a piece of software from Microsoft that you can use and it will allow you to set which decoder WMP/MC uses for mpeg2 which may help you. I can't remember it offhand, but I originally found a link to it on TheGreenButton's forums. My guess is that something like that should get you straightened out.

I found it. It is called Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility.

• The Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility helps you determine if an MPEG-2 video decoder (also called a DVD decoder) is installed on your Windows XP computer and whether or not the decoder is compatible with Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP Media Center Edition.
  
  

 

[zipperman]

I found this

This tells you what a DVD Burner will do.
This is mine.
Get the download address.
If you have Nero then Nero Toolkit/Nero info Tool will do the same.
What it reads and what it writes.