Computer won't play DVD

Question

Hello all -   I had such good luck when I posted a question before, that I thought I would post another question to see if you can help me.  I have a Dell Dimension 5150 computer and am having problems playing DVD's on the computer.    On several occassions I have rented DVDs in hopes of watching them on the computer, and have encountered problems where the DVD player will not read the DVD.  It is as if I never put the DVD in the computer to play. I am hoping that maybe someone has an easy solution to this problem?  I am wondering if I need to buy a new DVD burner or if there is just something I can fix, or is there a program needed for the computer to play these DVD's?  I have been using Dell Cineplayer and only recently started encountering problems.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.

osprey4 · Answer

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling this application? Let me also suggest a freeware DVD program called VLC Media player.

MaximusHQ · Answer

You can also try playing the dvd with windows media player and see if it works. If you get it to play with windows media player, vlc player, or any other application then you can try to reinstall your dvd playing software as osprey4 said and see if it helps. Could it be the discs that won't play are scratched too much or is that not the case? I just replaced a dvd drive in my father's dell as it was not reading music cd's any more, but it could however read dvd's still. After ruling out any software problems and making sure all was fine in the windows device manager, I finally realized the drive itself was just bad. I replaced it and everything works again.

Rule out the software side of it first as it would be a shame to buy a new drive when that might not be the problem. You can also check out your windows device manager to see if it show an exclamation point with the dvd drive and from there you can uninstall the dvd drive and reinstall. Good luck.

Predator · Answer

Just an FYI Max, Windows Media Player cannot play DVD`s with out third party codecs, well let me say version 10 and below, not dug into 11 yet.

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MaximusHQ · Answer

I should have mentioned that Predator, but I figured since BeastyMcgoo already had the cineplayer software installed that windows media player should be able to play it. I learned a while back that windows media player couldn't play my dvd's until after I installed my powerdvd or other dvd software which supplied the codecs. I chime in once in a while when I see people post on similar things that I have gone through before in hopes of getting them to a solution quicker. That's why I like it here, everyone is cool and just like to help out others. Sorry for getting off track BeastyMcgoo, have you made any progress yet?

topsy · Answer

My new Dell inspiron laptop wont play dvd's  is there any help out there.

Kflash08 · Answer

If you are referring to DVD Video (commercial discs that you watch in a standard DVD player), then you need to install a compatible DVD decoder in order to watch such discs. Data DVDs that contain video files will read and playback regardless.

Many 3rd party programs that are capable of watching DVDs do come with a decoder. However, the majority of them are not free. Microsoft did include a DVD decoder with Windows at one time, notably home premium and ultimate editions of Windows Vista and 7, that allowed users to watch DVDs through Windows Media Center or Windows Media Player. Since the release of Windows 8, the decoder was removed due to the declining use of watching DVDs on personal computers, as well as keeping the retail cost of the operating system down.

Storage, Drives & Media

Computer won't play DVD

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