Why won't they play?

[68dodgeramman]

I ripped a few DVDs to my external HD and they will only play using PowerDVD. They won't play with Windows MediaPlayer, QuickTime or DivX Player. They did play with the PowerDVD 30 day trial player. But now when I double click them they mount up with Virtual CloneDrive and then the PowerDVD registration comes up but I don't want to pay for another player so I'm wondering how to make my other players play them. Thanks.

 

[68dodgeramman]

No ideas? I'm clueless.

 

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

No ideas? I'm clueless.

It depends on what OS you are using. You might be lacking the codecs required for playing DVDs in the other media players.

 

[68dodgeramman]

I've got Windows XP with Windows Media Player 11.

 

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

I've got Windows XP with Windows Media Player 11.

By default XP didn't allow DVD playback in WMP. I believe you had to install a DVD decoder. I'm not sure if this would have been done when installing PowerDVD. It's been ages since I did a clean XP install and watched a DVD via WMP.

Let me clarify a few points here by asking a few questions. Are we talking about standard definition DVDs or HD-DVDs and BluRay discs? How exactly are you currently trying to play such discs? Can you play a disc from your optical drive or does the problem occur when trying to play from your HDD and optical drive?

 

[68dodgeramman]

I'm using standard definition DVDs and I just tried a DVD in the optical drive and it wouldn't play it. So it won't play from the optical drive or the HDD.