Free DVD playing software

[m1ddy]

Afternoon,

 

Our science department are getting a desktop PC so they can play DVDs on their projectors.

 

We need a free piece of software / codec to allow us to play them as I believe you have to pay extra for the DVD decoder in windows media player.

 

I was considering VLC but it seems their might be a licensing issue with some of their codecs being used in a non home environment.

 

What are you guys using?

[PEO]

Afternoon,

 

Our science department are getting a desktop PC so they can play DVDs on their projectors.

 

We need a free piece of software / codec to allow us to play them as I believe you have to pay extra for the DVD decoder in windows media player.

 

I was considering VLC but it seems their might be a licensing issue with some of their codecs being used in a non home environment.

 

What are you guys using?

 

 

Most new desktop machines or dvd drives already come with dvd software, at least thats been the case with ours here.

[cromertech]

Have you taken a look at Free AVS DVD Player

 

Thats the one I've gone for too

[macca]

VLC Video lan

[LeMarchand]

There's also The KMPlayer - I find it a bit more user-friendly than VLC (though there's probably too many options for the average user). Also does screenshots and has a few nice skins. Click on "Download" near the top of their forum.

[Ryan]

Another vote for VLC, plays everything.

[m1ddy]

Yes, I KNOW vlc plays everything...

 

but i wrote in my original post that some of the codecs used by vlc were coded by other people and as vlc is free it is up to the user to pay these people their money for using their codecs...

 

I did check this out on their website

[Ryan]

Let them bill you.

[Gerry]

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack with Media Player Classic.

[FN-GM]

We use media player classic

 

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm

[MikW]

Media Player classic with K-Lite codecs here too, it'll play the majority of DVD's ,however we also keep VLC in reserve as we get the odd one that doesn't want to play.

The added bonus of Classic is that it is a single executable so stick it on a network share and run from there.

[cookie_monster]

I've found that VLC was the most straight forward to package into an msi to deploy.

 

Is KMPlayer easy to package? I also had trouble packaging Media Plater Classic to use with Real Alternative (codec issues with this as well i think).

[LeMarchand]

Is KMPlayer easy to package?

 

Never done it - I just tend to use it for those times when an older laptop has needed a fresh windows install and there aren't any discs available for DVD software.