Can't play a dvd in windows media player

[missy1462]

My husband was given an older laptop and he has found out that he cannot get WMP to play a DVD movie. He bought the Cyberlink PowerDVD SE for Windows XP but that didn't help him either. I don't know what kind of information to give you, as I'm not very computer savvy myself, but I'll paste what I think is important from Everest. Could someone give us some help on how we might resolve this problem?
Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)

Motherboard:
CPU Type Mobile Intel Pentium M 750J, 1866 MHz (14 x 133)
Motherboard Name Gateway
Motherboard Chipset Intel Alviso-G i915GM
System Memory 2038 MB (DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM)
BIOS Type Phoenix (10/12/05)

Display:
Video Adapter Intel GMA 900
3D Accelerator Intel GMA 900

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Intel 82801FBM ICH6-M - AC'97 Audio Controller [B-2]

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter Intel 82915GM Graphics Controller 0
GPU Code Name Alviso-GM
PCI Device 8086 / 2592
Bus Type Integrated
RAMDAC Clock 400 MHz
Pixel Pipelines 4
TMU Per Pipeline 1
Vertex Shaders 1 (v2.0)
Pixel Shaders 1 (v2.0)
DirectX Hardware Support DirectX v9.0

Thank you for any help you might can give us!

 

[raybay]

Likely that Gateway Optical drive has worn out, or has become defective for extended use. You can find new replacements on eBay
It would be good to find one you could borrow so you could run some tests before you spend any money.

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hi missy

Have you tried playing the DVD in another DVD player other than the one on the laptop? It could well be that the DVD itself is damaged. Also, it might be that the laptop doesn't have the necessary codecs to play the files on the DVD.

Try downloading VLC Media Player from here ... http://vlc-media-player.en.softonic.com/ .... it's free and can play almost anything! If that doesn't work, then we can start diving into hardware issues. Have you tried testing if any other DVDs and CDs work on that drive?

Keep us posted.

Spyder_1386

 

[missy1462]

Raybay, thanks for your reply. I know his optical drive works because we can put in any of the dvd's of pictures that we have burnt and they will play just fine. Would that not tell me that the drive is working ok?

 

[missy1462]

Spyder, the Dvd's work fine on my laptop so I know they do work. My husband just downloaded the player you just sent us the link for, then put in a video from our vacation and it played just fine. He then put in a purchased movie and it played just fine also. Go figure this! Thank you so much, but why will this play them and WMP won't you reckon? Needless to say my hubby is one happy camper right now. He was heartbroke that he couldn't watch the videos of our grandchildren. Wow!

 

[aqua]

that older laptop had windows reinstall...so what it needs is a decoder plugin..that match your dvd drive.
open wmp tools-plugins--download plugins...it will take you to a page that shows you what you need.

 

[SNGX1275]

what it needs is a decoder plugin..that match your dvd drive.

That is true to an extent. XP doesn't ship with an mpeg2 decoder, a custom OEM install may and likely does. But in this case installing PowerDVD SE includes that decoder and it is shared with WMP. I don't know why it didn't work for them, but it should have, and does for (nearly) everyone.

 

[Spyder_1386]

It's a pleasure missy .... Glad to see you can play the videos just fine now. I don't really have a good enough reason as to why WMP didn't work on those DVDs other than a codec issue (the software needed by the computer to recognise different types of video and audio files). VLC comes standard with the most recent and most common codecs and also some uncommon ones. I'm guessing it just recognised the file format that the DVD was in whilst WMP did not. Hopefully someone else has some more concrete answers for you. Enjoy!

Spyder_1386

 

[missy1462]

Well whatever the reason may be, I want to thank you again for your help. You have sure made my hubby one happy camper .....