Q: I've just bought a new computer and it does not seem to have any dvd software installed as when I put in the disk Windows Media Player comes up saying that it does not have "a compatible DVD decoder installed on the system" to be able to play a DVD movie. I checked the Windows site and they all seem to want money, are there not any free DVD software packs so I can watch all my old favourite movies such the Godfather and Scarface amongst others? Thanks for your help.
A: Although there isn't a standalone DVD decoder that is free, there is a free solution. VLC is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. The VLC media player does not need a decoder to play DVDs, so its the best free solution for using a computer DVD player with no DVD decoder software. You can download it here: - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/