Unable to detect VCD

Question

Hi!

I tried to play a DVD on my laptop recently and it came up this error message:
"Dell Media Experience is unable to detect your VCD. Please ensure that the VCD you have inserted is supported by your drive."

I think VCDs are different to DVDs, however I have played this disk before on my laptop and it worked fine then. Is it possible that I have removed a programme or changed a setting which is necessary for me to play DVDs? I have also tried 3 other DVDs and they have all come up with the same message.

Any help is much appreciated!!!

S. Chensu · Answer

Yeah, I know you need a different thing to play VCDs but I thought the disk was a DVD.  As I said, my laptop's played it before with no message about VCD.  And plus on the actual box it says it's a DVD.

S. Chensu · Answer

Sorry, I know what you're trying to say it's just I'm confused as to why my laptop is suddenly saying this when it hasn't before.  Is there anywhere I can either buy or download one of these porgrammes?

bacillus · Answer

To play a VCD you will have to have something like powerDVD or WinDVD installed.

awaddle · Answer

My computer is having the same problem.  Mine does not say vcd but it does not detect that there is a dvd in the drive.  Any help would be great.   Where do I get the windvd program???  Thanks!

S. Chensu · Answer

If you go to www.download.com and type in WinDVD there then it will come up with a list of places you can get it from.  I think it's one of those trial only things and if you properly want it then you might have to buy it.

esquire · Answer

@S. Chensu wrote:

Hi!

I tried to play a DVD on my laptop recently and it came up this error message:
"Dell Media Experience is unable to detect your VCD. Please ensure that the VCD you have inserted is supported by your drive."

I think VCDs are different to DVDs, however I have played this disk before on my laptop and it worked fine then. Is it possible that I have removed a programme or changed a setting which is necessary for me to play DVDs? I have also tried 3 other DVDs and they have all come up with the same message.

Any help is much appreciated!!!

Yes, there is a huge difference between VCD and DVD! The disc format alone is already different: DVD is DVD based (obviously), but VCD is CD based, i.e., has a playing time of 80min max for a 700MB disc. Windows Media Player can play VCD by default without the need for additional add-on; there is no need for PowerDVD or WinDVD.

Older versions of Windows Media Player require a bit of prompting beforehand: http://www.mesquire.com/faq/computer/wmp/vcd.htm

You can also donwload a trial version of CyberLink PowerDVD, but version 6 is not compatible with Dell Media Experience.

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/trials_1_ENU.html

Message Edited by esquire on 03-10-2006 10:58 AM

S. Chensu · Answer

But then if a VCD can only play 80 minutes max, this cannot include films as they are usually more than 80 minutes?  If this is true then my laptop should play films which should be DVDs?  And it didn't give me Media Player (I have version 10) as an option to play my films on but I will try this anyway.  Thank you!

esquire · Answer

Actually, they can.  The way distributors fit a feature length movie on to VCD disc is to cut it into 2 parts - one part per CD; some movies even spread over 3 VCD discs due to length of the movie (e.g., Gladiator http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/ occupies 3 CD in my collection).  VCD is a highly popular disc format for the retail movie market in Asia due to its low retail price (at the expense of quality).   If you know you have a DVD in your drive, I think you can ignore what the message is telling you about it being a VCD - they are totally different disc formats despite similar in 'appearance'.  The error message could have been caused by the lack of a 3rd party decoder like WinDVD and PowerDVD (required to read/play DVD discs).   Message Edited by esquire on 03-11-2006 12:17 AM

S. Chensu · Answer

Ok, well the films I'm watching are all on one disk so I can assume they're DVDs.  But thank you very much for your help in clearing up this matter!  I have downloaded WinDVD and now they work, yay!

Storage, Drives & Media

Unable to detect VCD

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