DVD's played on a computer?

[KillarneyRose]

Hi all, behind-the-times KillarneyRose here with a question about them newfangled DVD thingees.

If you don't have a DVD player (why, yes, in fact I AM the only person in the United States without a DVD player), can you play DVD's in your computer? I guess put them in the D drive or something?

Thanks for your help and patience and for not laughing at me (at least no as I can hear ya)

[The1calledTKE]

Well some computers cd rom are also dvd players but if you don't know the only way you can find out beside looking at the books that came with your computer is stick a dvd in and see what happens.

[decadence]

Yep. Put them in the DVD drive.
So long as it's a DVD drive (or DVD/CD-RW combo drive or something) and not a plain ol' CD-ROM drive you can watch movies on it.

Which erm yep you can tell by following the recommendations in The1calledTKE's post above. I forgot that part.

[Optimist Prime]

movies are supposed to seen on a big screen, so that from where you are sitting in the audeince, the aperances on the screen seem proportional to real life. That makes it easier for people to imagine themselves in the charachters position. Wathcing it on a computer screen ruins that. Not that I think it is wrong to watch on a tiny computer, but you should know the rules that you are breaking. Yay for postmoderism.

[AlphaSigOU]

Many DVD movies include features (such as games) that can only be seen or played on a DVD-ROM in a computer.

Besides, DVD players are dirt-cheap nowadays... when I first bought a DVD player four years ago, it cost me well over $250. Now you can get a DVD player with much more features for less than $100, in some cases as low as $60 for a 'no-name' brand!

[TigerLilly]

If you don't have a DVD handy to try in the drive, just look at your CD drive. If it's a DVD drive, too, it should say so on it. Look for a little DVD-Rom logo.

I see nothing wrong with watching DVDs on the computer if you have a big monitor. If you have a laptop, it really only works if you're just one person watching: any more than that and you have to have it too far away so that everyone can see at a not-too-extreme angle, and at that point the screen's so far away that you can't really see anyway. It makes for a great disctraction on long air trips, though!

[Kevin]

You should need some kind of software to play the DVD as well. Just check download.com and search for some software for it.