Thinkpads Forum

Is there anyway i can play DVD's on my Thinkpad 600, right now im using my External DVDRRW, that i normally use for my desktop, when i put in a dvd, i get a decoder error( windows 2000 isnt able to play dvds due to a insufficent decoder) , and since i lack a couple parts in it( Battery, cdrom, and network card) I cant access the internet, What media player/decoder can i use?

Yeah, DVD decoder software is required to play DVDs. Are you using a plain old 600 or a 600E/X? If you are using a 600, then DVD playback might be difficult if not impossible. You may need to lower the resolution of the screen to 800x600. You also need to have the color depth set to 16 bit instead of 24 bit. If you have a 600E/X, then just make sure the color depth is set to 16 bit. As for software, Google for Media Play Classic or VLC Media player. Both of these programs are free and will decode and play DVDs. I have only tested MPC on the 600 series and have never tried VLC on it.

Try K-Lite, it comes with the Media Player that Stargate199 was talking about...

VLC is perfect on my 600E with WinXP

Hello,

I have never tried VLC, but it's known to be a light and good soft.

Personally, I use Power DVD 3 ont my 600E, and it runs very well.

Note that you can dowload demo version, and install it, then desinstall it. The codecs will stay on your hard disk.

If you use Windows 2000, then you can use Windows Media Player 9 too.

In order to watch DVDs with WMP 8 or 9, you must install this soft :

http://cf.geocities.com/wilouwilou/dvdwmp.htm

And do a modification in the registry (all explained in the previous link).



W.

VLC is probably your best bet for low cpu usage but you can also download DVD Express from this site (Thinkpads.com) for a higher spec 600. Also, if you are using W98 you can use a Margi DVD hardware decoder with their player/driver.

I've been using PowerDVD (I think version 5) for over three years on my 600e with Win98SE, PII 366mhz and 128MB RAM, and it's worked beautifully overall. I also have VLC installed on the machine, but don't use it as much (AVI files on DVD-R's tend to hesitate a lot when played in VLC, at least on my own 600e; I find that I have to copy them over to my HD to get better playback).

-Joe-

P.S. I just took note of what the previous poster said about Margi hardware video decoders. I did buy one at the end of '03, shortly after I bought my 600e, but I ended up never using it and eventually sold it because it turned out that the machine, in its specific configuration, was able to handle PowerDVD quite easily without any outside aid.

I'd say VLC would be your best bet. It seems to run on just about anything.