dvd's don't play

[normabeverley]

Help. Why is it when I try to play a dvd film I get the message 'Real
Player has encountered a problem and has to close' or 'Windows media has
encountered a problem and has to close'?. Music cd's are Ok and I can play
'The Month' free cd-rom with the Sunday Times, that has music and film
clips. What do I need to do? I'm a pc newcomer and don't understand all
the jargon Please help me!!!

Norma

 

[Jerry]

WinXP's Media Player does not include the codecs (software) to play DVDs.
You can go here
http://www.intervideo.com/products/custom/ms/windowsxp/media_pack.jsp and
pay to download their plugin for media player or do a Google search for many
other DVD players available for purchase and download. (Some of them will
let you download them and they will run, as a test, for 30 days.)

Also, Best Buy, Circuit City, or similar have software too.