HELP!!!Cant get some DVD's to play!

[inzzane]

This one has pissed me off. I am having trouble playing some copied DVD's. I have had no problem with some movies, but others arent detected by the drive. When I insert the DVD's, it shows up as if nothing was input into the drive. (Yes, I have also repeatedly cleaned the drive lens as well). I do not know how they were burnt, or what type of DVD's they are. I know that they are good DVD's because I have can play them on a playstation and have used someone elses Compaq Presario to run them. *of course these were backed up for me by a friend*

I have tried to fix it by deleting the old WinDVD,removing the Drive, and reinstalling the most updated Service Pack. (Compaqs recommendation) I have tried playing them with all sorts of programs to no avail.

I am running a laptop Compaq presario 2110US with Windows XP.

The drive is a CD-RW/DVD player and lists in hardware as:
Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R2312
Ztechware OCDE SCSI CdRom DEVICE

I have tried to watch the movies with:
Direct DVD 5.0
WinDVD 5.0, also tried versions 3.2 and 4.0
Windows Media Player 9.00.00.3008

I have run out of ideas of what to do. Can anyone help??? I dont know a lot about DVD's that have been copied or if it could be a DVD+or- problem, codec, or Decoder. Any help would be appreciated. If you need more ifo, just ask. Please reply.

[pc_dr.j]

I think I got your problem - it's the DVD format in your computer. You see countries all over the world are divided into regions depending on your DVD format. If you live in the USA or Canada, you live in Region 1. I live in Southeast Asia; SEA is Region 3. Region 3 DVDs as a rule cannot be played in a region 1 DVD player and vice-versa; this can be solved if your DVD player is multiregional; that is your DVD player is set to play from all DVD regions. Most likely your playstation and your friend's Compaq has their DVD players set to play mutiregional DVDs. It's your computer that isn't.

Try setting your DVD player to multiregional format; If I recall WinDVD has that feature though I can't recall where since I used PowerDVD for my Dad's computer and my computer doesn't support DVD yet.

Did this help

[inzzane]

Unfortunately this did not work either. I even tried downloading a couple region free players, but no luck with them. It confuses me why it wont work on mine.

[dauss]

if its a new drive its hardware set. software programs can't bypass it. You can change the region on your drive, but you can only do this a limited times before its stuck and you'll have to send it back to the manufacturer to fix it. What you can do is installed a modded firmware so the counter is "frozen". http://forum.firmware-flash.com/portal.php

Since these are copied discs, it could just be that the DVD-ROM drive does not work with certain media. DVD discs are tempermental, and I have found many drives will not read certain brands of DVD(+/-)R/RW/etc discs. While the discs may work for one drive, they simply may not for another.

[inzzane]

OK, it appears you both may have helped some. I went to the site dauss recommended and downloaded DISCinfo. (Nice program BTW) It appears that my drive is region locked and it is showing that it cant read DVD+R and DVD+RW. I checked the other computer and it is set only for region 1, along with his software. So my question is how can I tell if a DVD is a DVD+ type, and is there a software patch anywhere to fix this or will I have to buy yet another DVD drive? (Seeing as how I just bought this laptop not 6 months ago.

[nomaxim]

Have you tried one of the Interactual players? (Interactual or PCFriendly)

I use PowerDVD 3.0 (Too cheap to pay $70 for ver. 5) and I sometimes get a "Unknown Format" or "No Disk in Drive" error. My solution was to use one of these as they will connect to the net when you use them and auto update.

I don't like the connecting to the net bit, but I can watch the movie!

I only have this problem with some of the newer DVD's (I subscribe to NetFlix) and I am thinking it may have to do with the anti-piracy (sp) stuff???

But, then again Rob could be right about the type of drive.

Hell, give it a try!

[inzzane]

No luck on my computer here, and yes it is some of the newer stuff. I haven't found anything to make it read DVD+'s yet, if itsout there. But have tried the other players and a few more. Still no luck. I think Rob is right. Hopefully someone knows how to crack this one. Any way to make a drive read DVD+'s besides buying a new one?Or any way to look at a CD and tell if it's DVD+?

[inzzane]

AARGH, Now I am completely lost. Well, I checked the computer that they all play on with DiscInfo and turns out it cant read DVD+ either, and it is region locked. Which means the DVD's have to be DVD-R, region 1, and they still wont work. He's using WINDVD PLUS version 2.4 and it comes up fine. (unfortunaterly I cant find that version) I have tried version 5 but that doesnt work. Anybody have any clues, or is this some type of new copyright protection?

[inzzane]

c'mon, theres got to be a couple other people who have had this problem with the new DVD's