No DVD playback with Vista Home Premium (please help)

Whenever I try to play a DVD, I get an error message saying "windows media player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card."

If I click on a link it takes me to this page ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi...&id=C00D1163&contextid=61&originalid=C00D1163) for Windows Error C00D1163 which tries to sell you a new decoder.

The only thing that fixes this problem is running the installer for ATI Catalyst Control Center, and doing a custom installation so that CCC and the card driver are both reinstalled. As soon as I restart my computer though, I start getting the copy protection error again. My DVD player is correctly set to region 1, and I am trying to play legit store-bought DVDs. Why am I having so many problems? I tried reinstalling all of Vista on a new HDD, and the problem remains. I have found little help for this issue online so far, so if anyone here can help me I would be thrilled.

Thanks

 

install VLC player and see if it works

 

I'll give it a try.

 

try VLC for your dvd's

http://www.download.com/3000-13632_4-10717934.html

it's a great program for viewing dvd's, taking screen shots, previewing segments of downloads, etc.

A very useful FREE dvd program

 

VLC player works fine, but I'm still getting the same error message in Windows Media Player and Media Center.

 

Google for Driver Cleaner Pro. Use this tool when re-installing your drivers.

 

Are you playing the correct DVDs for the region your DVD drive is set to? Goto Device manager, right click on your DVD drive and select properties. Then select the DVD Region tab and check it is correct for your region.

Grand Admiral

 

C-c-c-codec. Just stick with VLC.

 

What does this program do? I'll download and take a look.

The DVD player is set to region 1, and the discs I'm trying to play are region one. I can't find a region setting in ATI's software, and I'm not sure how to access the decoder that's being used by media player to see what that's using.

I don't mind using a non-Microsoft media player, but whatever is going on also seems to cause problems with burning DVD-Rs and I don't like it when things don't work just for me. What's C-C-C-codec?

Thanks for all the help so far!!

 

Can someone do me a favor and open up Media Player, goto Tools>Options. Click on the DVD tab and then advanced, and tell me what decoder your Media Player is using for playback. I'm starting to suspect Roxio Creative Suite now of causing my problems, but uninstalling it seems to have left a Sonic decoder still running in the background of Media Player.

 

Nero Audio.

 

I tried to look but WMP-11 has such a crappy GUI that I gave up.

 

LOL. You right click near the top of the window and you get a typical menu set. I noticed last night after reinstalling ATI CCC that when DVD playback DOES work in Media Player/Center, that the advanced button on said DVD tab is grayed out. The thick plottens... Please help me if you have any idea wtf is going on. TY.

 

I still have found no resolution to this issue. Looking for fresh insight.

Thanks again.

 

Erm...

AFAIK, M$ is too cheap to actually include an MPEG2 CODEC with their software. This was the case with MCE, and I doubt they fixed this with Vista Home Premium (ie: Vista MCE).

You can use VLC or Media Player Classic, both work. (and no, M$ would never include these software with Windows because they would be bound to the GPL license, something which they would never do since they are somewhat against open source and would not want to have to give away any code modifications they would make to it).

Oh, I also remembered. MCE needed a "compatible" MPEG2 CODEC. I believe you needed something from the approved list like WinDVD to work with MCE integration...

 

Actually, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate do come with a MPEG-2 CODEC. Mine is just somehow messed up.

 

Just use VLC....

 

Please stop suggesting MPC or VLC. That isn't what 4cefed4 is asking for. I have the same problem and personally I like WMP11.

 

Sorry, I have no better solution than that...

 

Excellent first post on the board. You have great potential to actually be helpful to everyone here

Have you tried reinstalling ATI CCC to see if it temporarily fixes the problem like it does on my notebook?

 

If it is a copyright or DRM issue try installing AnyDVD http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

It removes copyright info, region settings, etc automatically when you insert a disc. It personally worked great for me when some software refused to play DVD's due to copyright issues. When inserting a disc make sure to let anydvd scan and unlock it first before opening any media players.

 

Installing and running AnyDVD worked great. Only problem is I don't know what I'm going to do after the 21 day trial period is over. Paying 50 euros doesn't seem worth it to me to fix something that should work right in the first place.

 

Aargh paranoid copyright protection problems with Microsoft products... now I'm not sorry I suggested VLC multiple times.

 

It seems like installing AnyDVD and then uninstalling it has cured the problems Windows media player and media center was having with DVD playback. Thanks again for the tip.

 

I just burnt a dvd (of a film edited on fcp 6.02) first as a quicktime file and then using dvdsp.

The dvd plays on my G5, my G4 power book and on windows xp pc's. But the audio does not play on Windows Vista.

How to fix this? Would it for instance be better to burn on Toast?

Would be grateful for any assistance on this issue.

 

What player are you using to watch the DVD on your computer with Vista? One thing I sometimes forget is Vista's convenient Volume Mixer feature, that let's you set the relative volumes for every window and app you have open. A couple of time I have set iTunes to be low volume relative to a full screen game I was playing, and forgot that this setting gets saved. I had to use iTunes a few times before I realized why all my music was much quieter there than while previewing in the P2P app. Anyways, it's something to check, make sure media player didn't get muted.