Shoutbox

PowerDVD installs codecs. Good codecs are often independent of the actual software, so yeah, when installing PowerDVD you also automatically enable WMP to play them.

(But you still wouldn't be able to use the many nice features of PowerDVD in WMP of course. And why installing PowerDVD just to play DVD's in WMP anyways? that doesn't make much sense )

Oh and in my experience, WMP shows a total different (wrong) color temperature for some DVD's also. It doesn't respect (changing) aspect ratio's as it should. And the interface, compared to PowerDVD's is very clumsy (try to change scenes, languages, subtitles, sound codecs, camera angles, etc... it is very clumsy, if not impossible.)

in short WMP *beeps* for playing DVD's...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
PowerDVD installs codecs. Good codecs are often independent of the actual software, so yeah, when installing PowerDVD you also automatically enable WMP to play them.

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Cool.

I wonder if you can get these DVD codecs for free, separately? From the web searching I've done, I get the impression that you can't.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/dvdplay.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/buypacks.aspx ¬¬

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And why installing PowerDVD just to play DVD's in WMP anyways? that doesn't make much sense

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Yes it does, if you installed it to be able to play DVDs. That's quite an improvement.

I don't think I should have to install a whole new player application if I just want to watch a DVD on my PC and I'm already used to watching all my videos in WMP.

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Originally posted by WDZ

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
And why installing PowerDVD just to play DVD's in WMP anyways? that doesn't make much sense

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Yes it does, if you installed it to be able to play DVDs. That's quite an improvement.
I don't think I should have to install a whole new player application if I just want to watch a DVD on my PC and I'm already used to watching all my videos in WMP.

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Well, but that's my point... Why using the lacking interface of WMP (and the bad rendering and all) when you have installed a specific dedicated program to play DVD's in the first place. The added option in WMP to see DVD's when you install PowerDVD for example, is nothing more then that, a quick crude option to quickly review something on a DVD (in bad quality) or something.

(This is indeed something MS should sort out with own good and decent codecs or something. But licenses, rights, copyrighted stuff, etc are the things which prevent this I think; hence you need to "buy" the codecs if you don't want to install another 3rd party application (which you need to buy also in most cases))

I suggest PowerDVD, great program for watching DVD's , but i recommend you that you close all programs first before you play the movie.

indeed, closing other programs frees up some more resources for the decoder to do its job. But this goes also for any other DVD playing software as well... (although on today's systems, the hardware buffer of your DVD player and video acceleration settings in Windows have more influence in the playback performance then the open programs you may have running)

InterVideo WinDVD > * kthx.

It is extremely light on CPU (I should know, I can run it on a 500MHz machine perfectly fine), minimal interface.

I like using InterActual Player, purely because it's easy, and it comes with most warner brothers dvds, for free... and most warner brothers films or other film companies, skin it aswell for you, and it's really cool lol...

But I also use, PowerDVD, Windows Media Player and Intervideo WinDVD

were do u get InterActual Player and is it free (im a cheap skate) lol

InterActual Player

:- http://player.interactual.com/

Not free I don't believe unless you are on a Mac