I'm about to order a DVD-ROM drive that is OEM and won't come with any
software. So I need to find a freeware DVD player. I run Windows 2000, and I
want a freeware DVD player that does not have any adware or spyware in it.
Any recommendations? Thanks.
Depending on the processing power of your computer, you might achieve better
results with an MPEG decoder PCI card. I learned this the hard way!
I
have an old 400 MHz PII, and I figured that enabling it to play DVDs would
be as simple as buying and installing a DVD-ROM drive. This turned out not
to be the case.
Although I find Media Player Classic to be an excellent program for playing
various types of media, it did not work well for playing DVDs on my
computer. After doing some research on the Web and Usenet, I decided to buy
a Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus card. These can be found dirt cheap on eBay.
I bought and installed one, and it made a huge difference. Note, however,
that this card can't be used with Media Player Classic, or any software DVD
player other than Sigma's DVD Station, which can be downloaded from their
Web site.
You can also connect the Hollywood Plus card to your television set, and
play DVDs on your TV. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my Hollywood Plus
card. Sigma also has a newer card called Xcard, which has additional
features and is claimed to have superior playback quality, but I wasn't able
to find the same sort of deep discounts on it that can be found on the
Hollywood Plus.