windows media player help please. wont play dvd's

" Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card."

I get this message everytime i put a dvd in and try and watch it with WMP.
I dont know what to do to fix this issue
HELP

 

Try one of the codec packs available here at AD. Click on the "Downloads" (top of page) tab and select from there. Freebies galore there.

 

Which version of WMP are you using? Update to WMP 11 if not. Every error message has a code number. What is it?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/10/errors.aspx

Codes are the same for versions 10 and 11.

 

Try using VLC instead of windows spywareplayer. Will you still use it after reading this??

http://r-force.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=831&highlight=windows+media+player

A great example of how M$ installs spyware on your PC......

 

Vista ultimate or Premium?

When I had this error I spent some time researching it,
and in my case it was due to a non-region locked firmware
in the DVD player. As soon as I loaded an RPC-2 (locked) firmware
to the drive, the problem vanished.

If this is the problem, there may be other solutions. For example,
Anydvd, third party DVD decoders, VLC, etc,etc.

 

Changing apps doesn't fix the problem, only avoids it.

 

vlc is region free and ultimately configurable and comes with it's own codecs... what advantage is there in using a spyware riddled media player with limited functions?

So we sidestep the matter of "broken by design" M$ spyware.. is there a problem with that?

That's interesting Dave.. Could that be the reason I'm starting to see XP sp3 machines which refuse to play dvd's with WMP but work fine with VLC?

Will try a region locked firmware on the next one that comes through the workshop instead of my fiddly diddly registry hacking to invalidate region check. The whole thing again stinks of hollywood inspired DRM.. region locking being one of the nastiest because it is restricting for no reason whatsoever other than out and out greed. Never thought of the firmware TBH.. good info

 

The question is about how to use Windows Media Plaver, the question isn't how not to use it.

 

Hi Varnull - on my dual boot machine Vista SP1 and XP SP3
it only showed up in Vista. The thing is, home premium and ultimate
are supplied with their own built-in DVD decoder which works in WMP and
media center. I believe the "protection" is enforced when it's used.

XP sp3, not having a DVD decoder by default, it's hard to compare the
two situations.
I have Powerdvd 5 installed and WMP 10 is perfectly happy to use
the dshow filters from that, regardless of the DVD player firmware.

Let me know what you find .