HELP -- z71v DVD Problem

A few days back when crossing the pond, I popped in a DVD into my new Z71V and tried playing it through Windows Media Player (the only DVD player that seemed to be installed on my system), only to be told that I did not have a compatible DVD decoder.

I am now more than 2000 miles away from home and without a DVD player. What do I need to do to play DVDs on my z71v? I thought the computer had hardware decoding, but seem to have been mistaken in thinking that.

Since I don't have any of my original installation, etc. disks, what do you reccomend I do to be able to watch DVDs on my machine? Thanks in advance.

 

Windows media player should be able to play DVDs. Did you buy your notebook here and your DVD there or vice versa? If you did you may have run into the DVD regions system. There are different regions for DVDs. The US and Canada is one. Mexico and south of Mexico is another, Europe is another, etc. DVDs from one region cannot be played in players bought from another. There is software like AnyDVD which can get around this. Sometimes hacked firmware can used to get around this as well. Please be advised using non-official firmware will more than likely void the warranty, at least for the drive.

 

Thanks for the post. No, the DVD I tried to play was one that has no region code (it plays in all regions), and have used it on other laptops without a problem, so it doesn't seem that the region is a problem.

 

WMP only has the ablilty to play dvds once you have installed a dvd decoder, this is done when you install asusdvd which comes with your notebook or smilar software, there is also a free plugin somewhere out there on the web, used it about a year ago and worked ok, just cant remember where it is.
Alternately you can purchase the dvd playback utility from MS, just follow the promts thru WMP.
As for dvd regions, you can try dvdregionfree, great utility for allowing playback of any dvd from anyregion, has a free 30day trial so u can try it out and make sure it works ok on your dvd drive.
good luck
a

 

Since you have access to the internet and might not have your Asus CD with the DVD players, you could get some alternative.

www.vcdhelper.com

or was it www.vcdhelp.com

This is a discussion forums on DVD/VCD related topics. It has review and such as well.