[TopAce]

I got a DVD driver for Christmas. Everything works fine except that I don't have any sound. I didn't install anything with the DVD driver, I didn't even have a CD enclosed with it. All I did was to plug it into my comp and see if BIOS and Win can detect it.

All the sounds are turned on in Windows and their volumes are at maximum. I'm using an (I think) updated Windows XP Media Player. Question: Is it normal that I don't have sound because people always have to download a thing or two? Or should I use something other than Media Player? Thanks

[karajorma]

Most DVD drives have a couple of audio connectors at the back which are supposed to connect to your soundcard\motherboard (if you have built in sound). Did you connect the right ones up?

[Fury]

If you're trying to watch DVD-movies, you need a DVD-player. Windows does not come with a DVD-decoder which you need to decode both video and audio. In some cases you may have installed other codecs which may be able to decode video or audio. If your DVD-drive was not bundled with a DVD-player software, you need to get one. The two most popular players for Windows are WinDVD and PowerDVD. Whatever you might be told, DVD-decoders which are free are illegal because of licensing fees.

Most DVD drives have a couple of audio connectors at the back which are supposed to connect to your soundcard\motherboard (if you have built in sound). Did you connect the right ones up?

These were used back in the CD-ROM times to play music from an audio CD directly to sound card without needing CPU. These days the audio connectors are pretty much useless and are slowly disappearing from drives alltogether. You don't need these connectors to play audio CD's or DVD-movies.

[TopAce]

Most DVD drives have a couple of audio connectors at the back which are supposed to connect to your soundcard\motherboard (if you have built in sound). Did you connect the right ones up?

I don't see any cables that might have that purpose. Do I have to buy one, then or my motherboard must have one connected to it?

[Fury]

Read my post above, you don't need to use these connectors for anything. Normally the cables come with the drive though.

[Centrixo]

These objects always come with a label on the top of the device by who its made by, a serial code, and other settings like connectors and jumper settings.

Google the device maker and the serial code, and see if you can find the driver.
after that find something like divx or any software that can run dvd's, dont forget the codecs either.

Atleast thats what i do if im confused about this sort of stuff.

[Shade]

I think Media Player Classic has a builtin DVD player, so that might be worth checking out instead of paying money for the WMP plugins that allow you to do it.

[TopAce]

I simply installed the trial version of WinDVD and it solved the problem. Thanks for all the advice.

[TopAce]

New problem

There are some DVDs that my drive cannot read. Surprisingly, all the other DVD drives that I could try can read everything. Is it possible that I need a plugin or some kind of "decoder" sort of thing to get all my DVDs working? Currently, nearly half of my DVDs are unreadable for my drive, and guess what, exactly those that I want to watch.

Oh, and before I installed WinDVD, everything worked (except I did not have sound). After WinDVD, I had sound but half of the DVDs became illegible.

[Fury]

Probably a limitation in the trial version of WinDVD. Uninstall WinDVD and try again, if the DVD's all work, then it's WinDVD problem.

[TopAce]

I don't think the authors of WinDVD can prevent my DVD drive to read all the DVDs. But it's worth a try to reinstall. Maybe first I will just delete it, restart, then see if the problem's remedied.