I tried installing VistaCodecs_v435 but even in admin mode the install
immediately puts up a '7-zip' message box with 'unknown error'. Anyone know
of any codecs that can successfully be installed in Vista that would make
Windows Media Player or VideoLan VLC work?
To play a DVD (ie a disc with videos on it either of the commerical
variety or home brew, not talking about simple data DVD) you need a
MPEG-2 encoder/decoder commonly called a CODEC which stands for
encoder/decoder. Such codecs are LICENSED. Microsoft is apparently too
damn cheap to pay the license fee so does not include one with Vista.
Some basic players which include a MPEG-2 CODEC comes with many, I
dare say most DVD burners, however you may run into a compatability
issue with Vista until they catch up.
While version 9 of Easy Media Creator (Roxio) comes with a player, as
I'm sure Nero's latest suite version does, the playback quality may
not be that great, especially if you have a older under powered PC.
A good DVD Player is Power DVD from CyberLink. If or not they support
Vista yet, I don't know. I prefer it over the Cine player that comes
as part of Roxio, however both have dreadful clunky interfaces that
seem crude to me.
If you are going to play true DVDs off your computer you may wish to
defeat the autoplay function that starts up a DVD automatically when
the disc is inserted then choose the program you want to use to play
the DVD. Not surprising really that some freeware and shareware
players play a DVD's VOB files better then so called DVD specific
software does that you either have to buy or may come with DVD
burners. To play with this method locate your DVD drive in Windows
Explorer, insert the DVD you want to play, if it starts up and you
haven't killed autoplay just stop it, then select one of the VOB files
in the video folder on the DVD then select 'play with' and play in a
BETTER player such as VLC Media Player which is a free download.
Such a method won't support chapters or remote buttons, however such
players often offer more controls that can adjust the playback speed,
size of viewer, etc, perhaps apply filters, adjust colors,etc., so if
your goal is to SEE better playback of DVDs on your PC, this may be a
better method, though annoying since you have to load each video
seperately as you would any other file.
If you make your own DVDs (I've made hundreds) then the best playback
is usually using a set top DVD player hooked up to your big screen tv,
(Plasma wide screen preferred), using a upscaling/upconverting DVD
player that will bump up the resolution from the standard NTSC (USA)
720x480* to a higher level, usually 720p or 1080i. As a alternative
play back on your PC if you have a high end LCD wide screen monitor
like one of the Ultra Sharp Dell monitors which you can buy seperately
which run at 1920 x 1200 resolution.
* in the states the DVD standard is 720x480 interlaced, lower field
first. That simply means DVD videos start out as interlaced with
alternating fields (lower, upper) being displayed in alternating rows
on your tv screen which means some artifacts can creep in unless the
DVD player and/or your tv has a circuit that coverts the signal to
progressive, which eliminates most artifacts resulting from merging
the upper and lower fields in a interlaced video, almost always
resulting in a sharper picture. In fact a 720p (progressive) image can
often be preceived as sharper than a high resolution 1080i
(interlaced) image for this reason. All computer monitors use
progressive scan, but unless you run at a fairly high resolution the
advantage is lost. To avoid skipping, stalling, stutter when playing
back a DVD on your computer you need a fairly powerful CPU and higher
end graphic card for best results.
