Best FREE DVD player software?

A

Angus66

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
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I'm looking for a freeware DVD program, and would like opinions as to which is the best.

I'm currently using Win XP Pro, but will probably be switching to Vista 64 in the near future. I would like one that's compatible with both if possible.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
 
VLC will most likely be the most commonly recommended one, yep. I use an older version of WinDVD (v5) but I got that "free" with a Dell laptop nearly what... 7 years ago and I just use it. For some reason it wasn't tied to Dell hardware like a lot of OEM-tied software is so I just keep using it, but obviously it's a commercial product when outside the OEM tie-in situations.

Media Player Classic has the ability to play DVDs as well but it doesn't have the massive feature set that VLC does. It gets the job done, however, and it's just a single .exe file - for what it is, it's pretty damned amazing.

I prefer MPC for all my video file related playback, including downloaded .flv content (Flash videos), but stick with WinDVD for the actual pressed DVD stuff.

As long as you're not going to be installing Vista Business, or Vista Home Basic, you'll have Media Center which can handle DVDs also, it's just not as feature laden as VLC and actual DVD software like WinDVD or PowerDVD will be.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. :cool:

I'm going to try several of the suggested players today & see which one I like best.
 
Another recommendation for VLC. I like how you do not have to install codecs to play back video.
 
mlewis said:
Vista has DVD playback built in.
Click to expand...

Only certain editions of Vista, and to be more accurate, Home Premium and Ultimate - Home Basic and Business don't have DVD playback capability because they're lacking the proper decoder that comes with Media Center.
 
I use MPC, but VLC is probably more widely used. I don't really watch movies from DVDs that often anymore.
 
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