DVD Player Software for PC

[Jon McElwain]

I am wondering what your favorite DVD playing software is for your PC. My new laptop only came with Windows Media Player. Looking for something a little more robust. Freeware would be GREAT!

Thanks,

Jon

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

best freeware in my opinion - VLC player.

Ed.

[Larry Browning]

+1 for VLC player. Freeware or not it's the best.

Speaking of freeware, gizmo freeware reviews is about the best place to find just about everything there is to know about freeware.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/

[Quinn Granfor]

For a laptop, I'd go with VLC as well.

[Bryan Morgan]

I am wondering what your favorite DVD playing software is for your PC. My new laptop only came with Windows Media Player. Looking for something a little more robust. Freeware would be GREAT!

Thanks,

Jon

What do you mean by robust? Media player in Windows 7 works just fine for playing DVDs. VLC works great too but I wouldn't call it more "robust" or anything... just plays DVDs. VLC plays just about ever media format under the sun though...

[Larry Browning]

What do you mean by robust? Media player in Windows 7 works just fine for playing DVDs. VLC works great too but I wouldn't call it more "robust" or anything... just plays DVDs. VLC plays just about ever media format under the sun though...

That really is a good question.
WMP actually plays music as well and really does a fine job. I use it on my work laptop, in fact I am listening to music using WMP right now. At home I have lots of video files in various formats that WMP won't play as well as DVDs so I use VLC there.
Do you have some specific thing you don't like about WMP, or some function it doesn't do? If not, I would just use WMP, otherwise VLC is a pretty safe choice.

[Chuck Wintle]

+2 for VLC....it is the swiss army knife of media players. I use it exclusively and it will play almost anything regardless of the DRM nonsense.

[Jon McElwain]

Hey all, thanks for the replies! I've been using WMP for quite a while, but the one thing it really seems to lack for me is the ability to fast forward or rewind precisely. It could be that I am missing something. I watch a fair number of woodworking/turning videos and I would like to stop them and rewind just a few frames to see exactly how they did something. I had some software on my old laptop that could advance frame by frame, change the playback speed (watch a two hour movie in an hour and a half), zoom, etc.

Bryan, I suppose when I said more robust, I meant more features.

I'll check out VLC - thanks again for the recommendations!!

[Bryan Morgan]

A lot of the issues with fast forward/rewind have to do with the codecs used in the file. For DVDs (ripped ISOs or off the media) I haven't noticed any issues FF/RW with WMP or VLC. If you get a decent codec pack like Shark or CCCP I find WMP FF/RW way more reliable and smooth than VLC.


I hope I used enough acronyms in this post... Not sure what the minimum amount is when talking about computer stuff.

[Jacob Muldowney]

my $.02 media player classic....looks old school but its not.