06.01.08
Windows XP and DVD
Nowadays, PCs are sold with either a DVD-ROM drive, or a CD-R drive. There are drives that do both, there are even drives that burn both. Either way, those of you with DVD-ROM drives will want to know if you can play DVD movies on your XP machine. XP out of the box won’t play DVD Video. DVD’s video is stored in a format called “MPEG 2″, and you need an MPEG decoder to get the video off the DVD into a format that the computer can show you.
Without yet installing any third-party applications, I popped in my DVD of Fantasia 2000. XP asked me which application I wanted to open the disc with and I selected “Windows Media Player” since it was the only option - the other one being “Do Nothing”. When WMP started I got a message box saying “WMP cannot play DVDs because there is no DVD decoder”.
As a registered user of PowerDVD 3.0, I installed it on my XP machine. After reboot, I got an error about a missing ASPI file, but ignored it. I rebooted again and the message didn’t come up a second time. Update Oct. 16, 2001: After installing PowerDVD 3 under the retail version of Windows XP Pro, this message no longer shows up. The error happened under Win XP Home Edition RC2. I started Power DVD 3.0 and without any hassle, Fantasia 2000 was playing on my PC.
I don’t know the exact reason why Microsoft chose not to include DVD decoding in their XP operating system, especially since Apple includes DVD decoding in MacOS 9 and the soon to be released MacOS 10.1.
Update: Microsoft announced MP3 and DVD support via third-party add-on packs, available on Oct. 25, 2001.
josh said,
June 26, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Then you can rip your DVD using simple DVD ripping tools. These tools copy and convert the .vob files so they can be played on your computer. The most DVD ripping tools can rip you DVD to .avi, .mpg or .wmv files. All these files are compatible with Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker. Excellent!! very informative article.