Have installed by new Litey OEM ( JLMS XJ-HD165H) today and it won't play DVDs direct from drive from within XP Media Player. Error message 'compatible decoder not installed'. Yet very strange, when I copy chapters from a DVD movie to the HDD I can play it from there. Can anyone help, must be common problem but can't find relevant thread. Is there a hardware DVD decoder for this drive or do I have to pay to down load something like WinDVD software.

Many Thanks. Please Help Power to the Litey!


Dinger

You do need real DVD Player software like WinDVD or PowerDVD (PowerDVD is better IMO)

The reason that you can play the DVD from your hard drive is because the CSS was removed during the ripping process. Microsoft did not buy a license for a key to unlock CSS for Windows Media Player because that would cost too much, so you need real DVD Player software that is licensed to read CSS so that WMP can use the codec from the real DVD player software.

Thanks dhc014 that's very helpful information indeed, looks like I'll have to part with a few $s (actually £s) unless someone can come up with a free software decoder.

Dinger

PowerDVD XP is really not that expensive. You can get an OEM full version for $15 shipped. Google for it.

Hmmm... that's weird, all Lite-On DVD-ROMs come w/ an OEM copy of PowerDVD XP. Guess you must've bought it from some place other than Newegg.com

Yes dhc014 is right. But try zdnet or cnet for free dvd programs that can possibly handle this. You would be surprised what you can find there in the freeware and shareware section. But I must agree, PowerDVD is the best I have seen. They used to give out older versions like 1.5 and 2.x for free when newer version came out to tease you into liking it and with the hopes that you like it enough to buy the current version. Its worth the $$$ though, they actually did a good job on that program.

When I ever seen that message it, I usually have to find the codec for whatever I trying to watch. Might be a missing codec.

Every Liteon DVD Rom comes with supplied DVD software.

Caveat emptor...unless something has changed recently, those aren't "full" versions of PowerDVD. They usually only support 2-channel sound, and have the Dolby Digital/DTS decoding disabled unless you buy an upgrade pack. I think you can still use the SPDIF passthrough however, which means you can still get 5.1 sound with an external decoder.