DVDs not playing

[Sheridan]

Anyone else having more and more issues playing DVDs in Windows 10 these days? We've used VLC for years and have got the latest (3.7) version installed - but we're seeing more and more issues where the DVDs just don't play and VLC seems to just stop working.

 

However, even with another free player (like blaze) the playback is either non existent or choppy/fragmented. This happens on internal drives or external drives, and the external drives seem to be OK as they work when plugged into a Macbook which plays the DVD fine with its inbuilt DVDPlayer app.

 

So it looks like VLC or Windows that's the issue, as the DVDs themselves are either brand new or very new (no scratches!) - and they're all legitimately bought Region 2 discs.

[Jaan]

Anyone else having more and more issues playing DVDs in Windows 10 these days? We've used VLC for years and have got the latest (3.7) version installed - but we're seeing more and more issues where the DVDs just don't play and VLC seems to just stop working.

 

However, even with another free player (like blaze) the playback is either non existent or choppy/fragmented. This happens on internal drives or external drives, and the external drives seem to be OK as they work when plugged into a Macbook which plays the DVD fine with its inbuilt DVDPlayer app.

 

So it looks like VLC or Windows that's the issue, as the DVDs themselves are either brand new or very new (no scratches!) - and they're all legitimately bought Region 2 discs.

 

What region is the DVD Drives firmware set to?

 

https://www.wikihow.com/Change-DVD-Drive-Region-Code-in-Windows-10

[Oaktech]

I'm not seeing anything weird using VLC...

 

I'd have a major issue on my hands if it did as we have a *lot* of video resources on disc still!

[Jaan]

our newer gen pcs don't even have optical drives!

[Sheridan]

DVDs are all set to Region 2 - never changed since day one and they all have 5 changes remaining!

 

Its just recently we've seen this so thats why I'm suspicious of it being W10 related - its happening on 1703,1803 and 1809 so far.

[Sheridan]

our newer gen pcs don't even have optical drives!

 

I wish! Our English and MFL departments still have a good catalogue of DVDs they use.

[Oaktech]

our newer gen pcs don't even have optical drives!

 

All of our PCs still do - it's a spec requirement, but none of our laptops do. I have 10 bookable external DVD writers.

 

We have several resources that run from DVD and one resource that runs from DVD, the DVD gets removed, and then saves it's reports to CDRW in a proprietary format that can only be read back in by that software!

[Jaan]

I wish! Our English and MFL departments still have a good catalogue of DVDs they use.

 

LOL we had the odd VHS and VHS player here.... Students are like, "what's that?" #gettingold

[BOOT]

I have a similar issue, choppy, out-of-sync DVD playback on Win 10 and Win 7. A linux VM on the same PC plays fine. Convert the DVD to MP4 and it also plays fine.

[Sheridan]

We've tried external DVD roms and they don't work - only on the Macs. We've just tried Media Player Classic and that works fine - so it looks like its VLC not reading some of these discs.

[crc-ict]

I've had much better luck with Media Player Classic than VLC for playing DVDs on Windows 10.

 

But them I've never found VLC to be very good with DVD anyway for some reason.

[ComboSmith]

We always use the built in windows media player for DVDs, VLC for anything else. Feels like DVDs have had issues for a while now, not sure if it's drive support or just crappy drives being put in machines since they're rarely used now but I've found them to be very unreliable for a few years now. It can be really stressful if we get a listening exam dropped on us last minute where they want to use a disc. We avoid them as much as possible and will always rip the disc or download a digital version where possible