The good news is that as a consumer you can count on the continued availability of VLC as a free DVD (and Blu-ray) playback alternative if you don't want to pay for the Media Center Pack. (If PowerDVD is smart, they'll include both the Metro and desktop versions with Windows 8.) You'll also have an assortment of commercial programs to choose from. funded our Windows 7 compatibility program participation."Īny OEM that includes a DVD player in a new Windows 8 PC will undoubtedly include a licensed DVD Player, such as the Metro version of PowerDVD that CyberLink announced at CES earlier this year.
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In an e-mail to me, one of the core developers of VLC specifically praised Microsoft last year for its assistance, noting that "Microsoft. One alternative is VLC, which I have praised before. No one is "required" to use Windows Media Player-exactly the opposite. In fact, as I noted in a 2010 post, Microsoft has provided financial support for VLC:Īnyone can write a media player for Windows and can build in support for whatever media formats they want. The noteworthy exception is the VLC media player, which proudly bills itself as "a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework." It explicitly lists DVD as a supported format.īut the VLC project is hardly a rogue player. Microsoft, Apple, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, and other companies that make DVD players (hardware and software) have to pay those license fees for every unit they deliver to a customer, which is why you don't see very many free DVD players. Unfortunately, not all versions of Windows come with built-in DVD players. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that Dolby gets at least 50 cents and as much as a dollar for every Windows PC sold. If youve got a stash of DVDs and want to watch them on your Windows PC, you might have hit a snag. The licensing schedule isn't public, but in its annual report for 2011 Dolby revealed that it collected $124 million in licensing fees from Microsoft for the year, with most of that revenue generated from Windows 7. This decoder, which is required for DVD movie playback, has to be licensed from Dolby Laboratories, Inc. Microsoft pays An OEM PC maker who licenses Windows from Microsoft must pay $2 in MPEG-2 licensing fees to enable DVD playback in every copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. The maker of a cheap DVD player sold at Costco pays $2 per unit for the MPEG-2 rights. The pool itself is managed by MPEG LA, which collects and distributes royalties on behalf of the patent owners, under a master license agreement. The licensing rights for the MPEG-2 standard are made up of a pool of patents contributed by their inventors.
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You can try using the third-party AACS dynamic library to make VLC play encrypted Blu-ray discs - if you're looking for a Blu-ray player and don't want to shell out any money, it's worth a shot. Unfortunately, commercial Blu-ray movies will generally be encrypted. VLC also supports unencrypted Blu-ray discs. When you put in a DVD, VLC will skip straight to the menu or the movie itself, skipping all those obnoxious piracy warnings and long trailers.
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Open the VLC application, click the Media menu, select Open Disc, and choose your DVD drive. Just download the VLC player, install it, and pop in a DVD disc. The swiss army knife of media players, VLC plays DVDs and almost everything else out there. Microsoft also thinks streaming services like Netflix are the future - but that's little comfort if you want to watch a DVD or Blu-ray movie on your Windows 8 PC.
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Microsoft removed DVD and Blu-ray support because many new ultrabooks and tablets don't have DVD drives, so they don't want to pay DVD and Blu-ray license fees for every Windows license they ship.