[djwoody]

I am unable to play DVDs in Windows Media Player.

The message I am getting is:
"Windows Media Player cannot play DVD video. You might need to adjust your Windows display settings. Open display settings in Control Panel, and then try lowering your screen resolution and color quality settings."

I have tried all resolutions etc, can anyone help?

Thanks
Chris

 

[bonk]

Have you ever played DVDs in the Media palyer before....and what version have you got WMP 11??

 

[djwoody]

Yes I have played DVDs before, and yes I am using WMP 11. I have just re-installed it and it is still not working.

 

[bonk]

Do you have your Video Driver handy.....if so uninstall it from the Device Manager and restart the PC.

 

[Rollin' Rog]

If the problem is recent you might try doing a System Restore to a date when they worked. If it doesn't help you can undo the restore.

Have you recently installed anything like "Daemon Tools"?

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/archive/dvd-player-not-play-dvds-t9346.html

You might also try running this to see if you still have a compatible mpeg codec:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

Do you have another Media Player you can test? I've had pesonal issues with Windows Media Player updates -- and cannot go beyond 9 due to some problem with DVD codecs which affects my old Power DVD version.

One thing you might try is installing an alternate player such as this -- it does work:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

When installing it I would advise removing all file associations it wants to make -- unless you want them to be the default for this player.

 

[Augie65]

If Rollin' Rog's suggestions don't help. You might need to install XP Codec Pack.
Information about the Codec Pack here.

 

[djwoody]

I have downloaded VLC Media Player and the DVDs are working with that but still not with WMP.

 

[Rollin' Rog]

Hmmm, you didn't answer about the Daemon Tools or perhaps some other virtual disk utility that might be conflicting with WMP? MS has gotten very serious about Digital Rights Management and may include something in WMP11 that detects issues and degrades the ability to play them.

They are definitely doing this in Vista:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

 

[PCG342]

Slightly off-topic, but I'd like to observe that, in my opinion, Microsoft really slipped up with the latest version of Media Player. Agreed?

 

[Rollin' Rog]

They are getting a lot of flack for sure -- and this may increase as Windows Vista becomes widely used. If their DRM protections are as being reported it's going to be very messy for some.

 

[djwoody]

Sorry Rollin' Rog - I haven't installed anything like Daemon Tools.

This is really puzzling me...

 

[Rollin' Rog]

Can you uninstall WMP11 and return to a prior version that you had no problems with?

 

[djwoody]

Just rolled back to WMP 10 and it says:
"Windows Media Player cannot play the DVD because a problem occurred with digital copyright protection."

Strange because it says this when my DVDs are genuine.

 

[Rollin' Rog]

May I ask what DVDs these are and whether they are burned or original, and were they bought locally?

Also I gave you a link to a DVD codec checker before. Have you run that? This may be a problem with the codec you are using to try to play DVDs in WMP. WMP does not come with a built in mpeg2 decoder for DVD playing. This utility will allow you to set the prefered mpeg decoder -- if you have one that is WMP compatible.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283620

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

Also there may be some issue with the regionalization restriction of the disks being played.

See "regionalization":

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/dvd/DVDwp.mspx

 

[PCG342]

remarks edited.

 

[Billy the Adult]

After installing MP11 I too lost the ability to play DVD's. Now it will direct me to a site that I can 'purchase' the necessary codecs to play DVD's. So I just use the DVD software that came with the pc instead. All other features of 11 are an improvement but this one is a definite step back.

 

[Rollin' Rog]

No PCG342, you cannot suggest that here and your remarks have been edited. Do not post against forum rules -- if you haven't read them, you should.

 

[PCG342]

Christ. "Remarks" makes it sound like I'm being deliberately offensive. 's just a suggestion.