Free Software to Play DVDs
Monday, June 11, 2007 at 12:51PM By J. D. BIERSDORFER
Published: May 24, 2007
Q. I would like to watch DVDs on my computer with a program that works better than Windows Media Player. Are there any free ones available?
A. Windows Media Player is Microsoft’s free software for playing audio and video files, and it comes with most versions of Windows. You can find plenty of other options.
Start in software archive sites that offer ratings and reviews by other users. Sites like www.download.com, www.tucows.com and www.versiontracker.com link to free programs, shareware and trial versions of commercial software to sample.
AVS DVD Player (www.avsmedia.com/DVDPlayer ) and VLC media player (www.videolan.org) are two of the more popular free DVD programs. Commercial programs for playing DVDs on your computer cost about $50, but they typically offer more features like support for Dolby sound, brightness controls and battery-saving functions for laptops. Free trial versions of InterVideo’s WinDVD (www.intervideo.com/WinDVD) and CyberLink’s PowerDVD (www.cyberlink.com) are available to download.