Dvd decoder replacing ?

Discussion in 'Software' started by Flamehearted, Jul 17, 2005.

  1. Flamehearted

    Flamehearted Nibble Poster

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    Hi All,

    Recently I had to reinstall Windows on a friends pc due to problems. The only thing is the DVD player got lost and isnt on any of the original discs.

    Is there a free way to watch dvds on a pc ? I can't watch them in Windows media player as it wants me to BUY (the nerve - lol) a dvd decoder first.

    Any ideas ?

    Thanks,

    Flamehearted
     
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  2. Phoenix
    Honorary Member

    Phoenix 53656e696f7220 4d6f64

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    unfortunatly i dont think there is a legal 'free' way as holywood charges for the software that can decrypt the dvd

    however you can get an OEM copy of Power DVD for like 5 quid
    if you go the legal route
     
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  3. Phil
    Honorary Member

    Phil Gigabyte Poster

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    take a look at www.videolan.org it will play just about anything you throw at it

    below is taken from the front page
     
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  4. Phoenix
    Honorary Member

    Phoenix 53656e696f7220 4d6f64

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    does that play DVDs off the bat phil? i thought it was a more 'we play divx/xvid/ac3 anything else u throw at us joby) would be great if it did! :D
     
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  5. Phil
    Honorary Member

    Phil Gigabyte Poster

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    As far as I know it does Ryan, never tried it for that only for files, looking at the intro bumf it says....

    VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
     
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  6. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    From the FAQ's...

    Does VLC support DVDs from all regions?


    Well this mostly depends on your DVD drive. Testing it is usually the quickest way to find out. The problem is that a lot of newer drives are RPC2 drives these days. Some of these drives don't allow raw access to the drive untill the drive firmware has done a regioncheck. VLC uses libdvdcss and it needs raw access to the DVD drive to crack the encryption key. So with these drives it is impossible to circumvent the region protection. (This goes for all software. You will need to flash your drives firmware, but sometimes there is no alternate firmware available for your drive). On other RPC2 drives that DO allow raw access, it might take VLC a long time to crack the key. So just pop the disc in your drive and try it out, while you get a coffee. RPC1 drives should 'always' work regardless of the regioncode.

    Pete
     
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  7. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    Okay I downloaded it and gave it a whirl. I tried to play my Dave Gilmore DVD but it ran very poorly, stilted in comparison to WinDVD4 neither can play DVD's on my P3 700 laptop smoothly but that is more to do with the age of it (approaching 5 years) than the software.

    It should work for you Flamehearted.

    Pete
     
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