Best DVD player software?

[Insomniac]

As the title says, out of WinDVD and PowerDVD, which one is better and why?

[Lazza]

Media Player Classic for me Inso.

Why? Very reliable and does what it says.

Oh and FREE of course. :)

[hood1971]

Media player classic still needs a dvd decoder installed to play dvd's. I have no idea if there are legal free decoders.

[Mr Snatcher]

Hello, His Excellency :hail: I used powerdvd because it always works and came free with my dvdrom. Also used media player that defaulted with xp. Either one works fine.

[ragingdevil]

PowerDVD XP for me. I like it because it allows me to control the brightness in the video for DVD/SVCD files (my monitor is darker than normal).

[Insomniac]

Well I'm just about ready to give up.

As just about all codecs are licensed, and M$ is too cheap to include them, it's Media Players use any installed programs codecs to play video.

Anyway, I have a couple of Avi's and mpg's that will only play on Irfanview and nothing else.

Not on Media Player standard, classic, Quicktime Pro, Avi Preview etc.

I have the correct codecs installed, so it has me stumped as to why it won't play??

[Lazza]

Hmm, I just select the ones I need from the Kazaa codec pack and hey presto everything works for me. And I mean everything. :confused:

[Insomniac]

I've tried everything, including installing the codecs again.

It did work once, then that was it, and I know the files themselves are okay.

I might try the Kazaa ones I have on CD, although I'm not hopeful! :(

Thanks for the idea though.

[handyguy]

There is a codec pack called FFDSHOW, should be free on the net.

BTW, half my dvds come with dvd players on the disk.

[Insomniac]

Well I've tried the codecs, and they still won't play.

I guess I'll put this down to computer gremlins as I'm totally stumped unless someone else has any ideas.

[EXMagus]

Hey Inso sup. The best is Power DVD, but in order to play your files AVI you might need the latest DIVX player http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=toptab_divx_from_/software/index.php You might try downloading new codecs from microsoft, also the codecs that come with "Windows Media Player Classic", might help you out. =)
And other thing, if you guys can help me out, how come I have some videos: avi, mpgs, etc. and cant play them on my PC, they say they're like 45sec long..!! I tried the videos on other PC's and they play just fine 25-30 min..! Is it a bug..? I have no idea what to do.....plz help... (Inso y are u asking this.? U're damn good)

[Insomniac]

It's been a while and I forgot about this post, but in case it helps anyone else, I ended up fixing mine by using an earlier version video card driver. The latest driver didn't seem to be able to handle a certain refresh rate and play a video file. Go figure eh!

Anyway, ExMagus, if you are still having a problem, try to identify the codec being used by using a program like AVI CODEC (http://avicodec.duby.info/) or G SPOT (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/).

AVI Codec is great as it also supplies a link for the required codecs and filters.

Video formats are an absolute mess, with so many different codecs so someone can licence it and make money. It's too much to expect the one standard.