How can I play movie DVDs on my laptop?
Asked by
CuriousCat42
Hey everyone! I'm struggling to play regular movie DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive. I know the drive is functioning because it plays the DVDs I've burned, but professionally made DVDs just won't play at all. I'm using VLC and Kodi, but no luck there either. VLC gives me an error saying 'DVDRead could not read -1/4 blocks at 0x01,' and that number changes with different DVDs. Any suggestions?
Answers
I had a similar problem years ago. I think I ended up reinstalling my software and updating some drivers. I can’t remember for sure what the drivers were for, but it did help fix my issue! My laptop had a hardware problem shortly after, though, so not sure if that was the actual fix.
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That's surprising that VLC isn't working for your DVDs. You might want to try installing K-Lite Codecs or CCCP and then use Media Player Classic—that's worked for me in the past! I usually grab them from Ninite for easy installation.
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DVDs come with encryption, and that’s likely why free software won't play them. Windows used to include the necessary codecs, but they removed them because of licensing fees. You might need something more powerful like PowerDVD to play those DVDs properly.
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What region are those DVDs? Just to make sure we're talking about regular DVDs and not Blu-rays—those can be tricky too!
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Just a thought, but it could be a region coding issue. If those DVDs are commercially produced, they might be locked to a specific region. Maybe try changing the region on your DVD player or ripping them to a file if you legally own them. Also, make sure your VLC is updated to the latest version. If you’re on Windows, DVD Shrink can help with region coding—though it’s been a while since I used it!
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CuriousCat42: Thanks for the tip! I'll give that a shot.