Windows media player won't play a DVD

dco

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Jan 26, 2010
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Tried to continue watching a purchased DVD on Windows media player 12 today and got this message.

"Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card."

A new driver won't help as I have the latest version of my video card driver. I believe the cause of the problem is a windows update since that's the only change to my computer since this morning when the DVD was working. I've also tried changing some privacy settings in Windows Media player but still no luck.

Anyone else come across this problem?
 

dco

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Jan 26, 2010
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I've downloaded a codec pack just for the sake of it and it still doesn't work which makes sense because the DVD was playing fine without it, then a few hours later the error appeared.
 

thlillyr

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Feb 2, 2010
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ive seen this happen with the softwre called logmein. it install a seconod video driver called logmein mirror driver. the fix is just untistal this driver and dvd playback is restored and logmein still works
 

gstheungeek

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Sep 8, 2012
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I have had this error message repeatedly the last couple days and at least in my case, despite what the message says, it does not appear to be a driver issue at all. I found an alternate diagnosis from Microsoft at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/windows-media-player-cannot-play-this-dvd-because/aa68441f-5edd-49fa-8c38-93cd1fec1944

The gist of the diagnosis is that it is very possibly a sign the optical drive is going bad, or at least needs a firmware update. I have a Samsung optical drive and downloaded a firmware update from their support site. After installing it, the drive played the DVD it refused to play earlier. So, check this possibility out. If the firmware update doesn't do it, your drive may be wearing out - probably from pausing too long, or other strains on the normal play function.
 

partingglass

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Sep 24, 2013
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I had the same 'cannot play this DVD' message on my Windows 7 PC. I found it was caused by installing a free version of Nero. The solution I used was to uninstall Nero, including all traces of it on my hard drive and then re-boot.

But then...uninstalling Nero caused another problem. It deleted the iTunes device filter so iTunes wouldn't import or burn CDs and DVDs. Luckily there's a fix at http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3299. Don't bother removing and reinstalling iTunes - just do the registry change (and hit the Enter key after typing GEARAspiWDM).

And in future, I'll be staying away from Nero!