On 18/09/2012 10:30, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:24:07 +0100, Janet Tweedy wrote:

It's only a disc from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club - has card play and
lessons so should be bog standard.

So a physical disc not a file you have downloaded.

Does the drawer of the player have any mention of DVD embossed onto it?

If "No" you don't have the required hardware to play a DVD. Stop.

If "Yes" try VLC, as previously linked, to play the disc.

If VLC fails is the disc a commercially produced stammped DVD one or a
short run home produced "burnt" DVD? A home produced DVD might be a bad
burn. Try it in a normal DVD player and TV.

Worth pointing out that external DVD rewriter drives can be had these
days for about £30-40 from Aldi for instance. Amazon is even cheaper:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SE-2...7962027&sr=8-2

Just about anything will do to read a DVD - burning them requires a more
sophisticated drive with buffer overrun protection if as seems likely
your PC is slow, elderly and memory constrained.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 09/18/2012 11:56 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 18/09/2012 10:30, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:24:07 +0100, Janet Tweedy wrote:

It's only a disc from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club - has card play and
lessons so should be bog standard.

So a physical disc not a file you have downloaded.

Does the drawer of the player have any mention of DVD embossed onto it?

If "No" you don't have the required hardware to play a DVD. Stop.

If "Yes" try VLC, as previously linked, to play the disc.

If VLC fails is the disc a commercially produced stammped DVD one or a
short run home produced "burnt" DVD? A home produced DVD might be a bad
burn. Try it in a normal DVD player and TV.

Worth pointing out that external DVD rewriter drives can be had these
days for about £30-40 from Aldi for instance. Amazon is even cheaper:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SE-2...7962027&sr=8-2


Just about anything will do to read a DVD - burning them requires a more
sophisticated drive with buffer overrun protection if as seems likely
your PC is slow, elderly and memory constrained.


My wife's Mac mini has one of these attached. It works fine, but is
rather noisy.

On 18/09/2012 08:42, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/09/2012 18:37, Phil Cook wrote:
On 17/09/2012 16:24, Janet Tweedy wrote:

It's only a disc from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club - has card play and
lessons so should be bog standard.

Windows media player just says that I need a compatible DVD
player/software.

XP was never given a media DVD player so I could just jump to Windows 7
I suppose

You are trying to play a DVD disc on your computer, right?

Then go he http://www.videolan.org/ to download free, open source
video player software. No trackers, no malware, no trackers, no ads.

That is where we started. She said it didn't work.

Not quite where we started. Sorry, I missed the previous recommendation
and JT saying it didn't work.
--
Phil Cook

On 09/18/2012 03:02 PM, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:47:09 +0200, Emery Davis
wrote:

On 09/18/2012 11:56 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 18/09/2012 10:30, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:24:07 +0100, Janet Tweedy wrote:

It's only a disc from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club - has card play and
lessons so should be bog standard.

So a physical disc not a file you have downloaded.

Does the drawer of the player have any mention of DVD embossed onto it?

If "No" you don't have the required hardware to play a DVD. Stop.

If "Yes" try VLC, as previously linked, to play the disc.

If VLC fails is the disc a commercially produced stammped DVD one or a
short run home produced "burnt" DVD? A home produced DVD might be a bad
burn. Try it in a normal DVD player and TV.

Worth pointing out that external DVD rewriter drives can be had these
days for about £30-40 from Aldi for instance. Amazon is even cheaper:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SE-2...7962027&sr=8-2


Just about anything will do to read a DVD - burning them requires a more
sophisticated drive with buffer overrun protection if as seems likely
your PC is slow, elderly and memory constrained.


My wife's Mac mini has one of these attached. It works fine, but is
rather noisy.

Some wives are like that.


Ba-dum dum! Nice one, a real xanthippe.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:56:03 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 18/09/2012 10:30, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:24:07 +0100, Janet Tweedy wrote:

It's only a disc from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club - has card play and
lessons so should be bog standard.

So a physical disc not a file you have downloaded.

Does the drawer of the player have any mention of DVD embossed onto it?

If "No" you don't have the required hardware to play a DVD. Stop.

If "Yes" try VLC, as previously linked, to play the disc.

If VLC fails is the disc a commercially produced stammped DVD one or a
short run home produced "burnt" DVD? A home produced DVD might be a bad
burn. Try it in a normal DVD player and TV.

Worth pointing out that external DVD rewriter drives can be had these
days for about £30-40 from Aldi for instance. Amazon is even cheaper:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SE-2...7962027&sr=8-2

Just about anything will do to read a DVD - burning them requires a more
sophisticated drive with buffer overrun protection if as seems likely
your PC is slow, elderly and memory constrained.

Plus, DVD burning is a lot more complicated that CD burning. It's not
just the difference between + and - type discs. A lot of people don't
realise that a drive that burns CDs and reads DVDs won't burn DVDs.
Drives on the market around the time of XP would only burn one type (+
or -) of DVD and would not handle RW discs at all (they needed to
finalise the disc and make it read only before ejecting it)

If you want to burn DVDs then you need to track down the list of
blank discs that your drive will support (the drive manufacturer's -
as opposed to the PC manufacturer's - web site usually helps). A
particular drive make/model may require a particular issue of firmware
to support a particular make/speed of blank DVD. When buying blanks
from the more reputable online sites you will see reference to the
type of dye used on the disk or the "lead in parameters", for example.
This is all confusing but it matters, particularly if you want to buy
the "50 disc spindles" rather than the extortionately priced 5-packs
in PC World.

If you want to be confused even more, have a look at
http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

In article , stuart noble
writes
First off, try opening it on a friend's machine, or in your public
library. If that works, report back.

Windows 7 won't help :-)

It'll play on my other two computers but I wanted to use it on my laptop
at one of our Bridge meetings or at a friend's house when we all
practise. The laptop will play audio stuff just not visual DVD's.
Apparently this is what XP left out of its make up

--
Janet Tweedy

In article , Martin Brown
writes
Does this DVD actually play on a normal TV connected DVD player?

--
Regards,
Martin Brown


Yes Martin it does. Have tried several programmes but when you shove the
disc in to play Windows media player says i haven't got a compatible DVD
player and I need to buy one from Microsoft.
--
Janet Tweedy

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice writes
If "No" you don't have the required hardware to play a DVD. Stop.

If "Yes" try VLC, as previously linked, to play the disc


Tried that one, didn't work and I ended up with my computer trying to
download something called sweet something or other that wasn't a
nightmare to take off.
--
Janet Tweedy

On 20/09/2012 15:21, Janet Tweedy wrote:
In article , stuart noble
writes
First off, try opening it on a friend's machine, or in your public
library. If that works, report back.

Windows 7 won't help :-)

It'll play on my other two computers but I wanted to use it on my laptop
at one of our Bridge meetings or at a friend's house when we all
practise. The laptop will play audio stuff just not visual DVD's.
Apparently this is what XP left out of its make up


If your laptop won't play ANY dvd, I would think you need a new drive. I
never had a problem with XP playing anything.

On 20/09/2012 15:23, Janet Tweedy wrote:
In article , Martin Brown
writes
Does this DVD actually play on a normal TV connected DVD player?


Yes Martin it does. Have tried several programmes but when you shove the
disc in to play Windows media player says i haven't got a compatible DVD
player and I need to buy one from Microsoft.

Are you sure the computer isn't telling you that the drive can only play
CDs. Will any other DVDs play in your machine?

Can you open the DVD and see the files in Windows Explorer?

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:39:46 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

Yes Martin it does. Have tried several programmes but when you shove
the disc in to play Windows media player says i haven't got a
compatible DVD player and I need to buy one from Microsoft.

Are you sure the computer isn't telling you that the drive can only
play CDs. Will any other DVDs play in your machine?

We don't know and that question has be asked, and left unanswered,
several times. The easy way is to look at the outside of the drive door
and see if "DVD" is embossed onto it anywhere.

--
Cheers
Dave.