Wanna watch a DVD on your laptop?

Posted At : 27 May 2007 20:48 | Posted By : Lucas Sherwood
Related Categories: Microsoft

Don't try this at work! It seems that watching a DVD is not something Microsoft thought you would want to do at work.

Ok, so I don't tend to watch DVDs at work, in fact I can't seem to think of a time that I have ever done this but I have however watched a DVD on my work laptop in a hotel room when I am on the road.

Today, when I went to watch a DVD in bed (yes, it was a lazy afternoon and it was cold!) I have no TV in the bedroom so I grabbed a laptop (there are three in the house), I happened to grab my new vista laptop as it has the longest battery life, the others are older and suffer the dreaded laptop battery fade.

In goes the DVD and up pops windows media player - all good so far. And then a warning pops up telling me I don't have a codec for it. Now, this is not new to me, divx comes to mind but not for DVDs on a supposedly advanced OS.

So I follow the link to the MS support site that informs me that "If you are running the Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise you might need to install a compatible DVD decoder before playing a DVD" and then helpfully gives me a link to purchase a DVD decoder. Among my options, I can upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate.

Great... ok, time to grab the mac and long power cord...

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barry.b's Gravatar gee, that seems to fall under the banner of "crippleware".

And yet Mac's only have one client version of OS-X? (two if you count the server)

I'm sure some marketing MS dim-wit thought it was a good idea...
# Posted By barry.b | 28/05/07 01:47
Jensa's Gravatar Yup. Either that or get VLC for free: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ Or maybe even get VLC for the Mac as well? :)

J
# Posted By Jensa | 29/05/07 04:39
Rob's Gravatar see a dvd is a slightly exciting, interesting and creative way to use your laptop hence they would think the people that want to use their window laptop in this manner would the minority.
# Posted By Rob | 29/05/07 12:43
Lucas Sherwood's Gravatar Trust me! I can hear the mac ads echoing in my head almost every day...

why would I want to do 'fun' stuff
# Posted By Lucas Sherwood | 29/05/07 12:55
Laptop hq's Gravatar I don't be likely to watch DVDs at work, in fact I can't seem to feel of a time that I have ever done this but I have however watched a DVD on my work laptop in a hotel room when I am on the path.
# Posted By Laptop hq | 29/05/07 18:32
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