No DVD playback in media player after Pro upgrade with Media Center

adessmith
adessmith Member Posts: 18

Tinkerer

On my Acer R7, I did the upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center in order to get several additional features.
One thing I am still struggling with is DVD playback. It was quite some time after installing the upgrade pack before I realized I cant play a DVD in windows media player. For some reason windows media player identifies the disc as "unknown" and says "this disc is empty" for ANY DVD I insert (using an external drive).

 

Just to make sure it wasnt a drive issue, I found an ISO of a DVD and mounted it on another computer and it plays back fine in windows media player (windows 7). I copied that iso to the R7 and mounted it and I get the same error (unknown disc, and "this disc is empty")

 

DVDs play back fine with VLC and windows media CENTER, but I just dont like those interfaces for DVD playback. I have tried multiple commercial DVDs and none of them will play in WMP.

 

Has anyone here seen this before?

I have tried removing and reinstalling windows media center and media player via "add/remove windows features".
I'm at a loss here. This is not a big enough deal to reinstall windows, but I would really like to get it working.

 

I dont want to purchace windvd or powerdvd when I should be able to use WMP.

Answers

  • Ryanrr
    Ryanrr Member Posts: 831 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    Windows 8.1 Pro does not support DVD movie playback, however Microsoft does provide a Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack that can be purchased to provide DVD playback.

     

    The reason your VLC player is able to provide movie playback is because it has the necessary codecs, while the default Windows 8.1 media player does not.

     

    For more information, view Microsoft's DVD playback options for Windows page.

     

     

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