# can't watch dvd movies on laptop



## Gusline (Jan 1, 2006)

Hi, 
Ya how come I can't watch my movies on my laptop.
I can on my home computer after I downloaded a program called Videolan, but when I put the same program on my laptop I get an error message saying "Unable to open 'dvd://D"
I have a Pen. 4 Dell Laptop with of course a DVD player, and don't know a whole lot about compters.
Can anyone fix this for me or maybe know of a free program that I can download that lets you play movies on a laptop.
Gusline.


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## blaqDeaph (Nov 22, 2005)

have you tried playing the disc somewhere else? or playing another disc in the computer? is it a dual layer disc (some older laptops can't handle dual layers). the way to check this is look at the size of the DVD, if its 6-7gbs then it's dual layer, otherwise it's single layer.


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## Gusline (Jan 1, 2006)

Oh yes blaqDeaph I have tried playing the discs ( Store purchased Movies) somewhere else and on another computer. They work good. Being a pentium 4 I didn't think I would have to worry if it is a dual layer disc or not?


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## Gusline (Jan 1, 2006)

Oh yes blaqDeaph I did try playing the disc (store purchased movies) elsewhere and play them on other computer? with no problems after i downloaded videolan


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## blaqDeaph (Nov 22, 2005)

it's not whether the processor can support it...its about whether the player actually can read the DL discs. Given that it's a P4 laptop (which would put it 4yrs++ ish), its entirely possible that the DVD drive isn't a DL drive..have you tried other discs? ones that you know aren't DL


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## Gusline (Jan 1, 2006)

Well blaqDeaph you must be right about my laptop. It doesn't even recognize that I put a movie in the drive. So it must be like you say, maybe its not a DL drive. But I don't know for sure whether its DL or not because all my movies say no more than 3.68 gb when i look under properties. So the bottem line is I'll never watch movies on my laptop right? Anyway now I have a bigger problem with the laptop when I boot up it doesn't show any of my icons on the desktop just the greengrass of Windows xp. now what do I do can I just put the XP CD in and just reboot the laptop will that fix it?
Gusline


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## blaqDeaph (Nov 22, 2005)

Nope. Dual Layer support is built into the hardware of the drive. Even Windows VISTA wouldn't help in reading the DL discs. You'd need to change your DVD drive to a newer one for DL support. All this means though is that you can still watch normal DVDs (non DL ones) although most of the newer movies are DL. You should be able to convert between the two fairly easily, there are tools on the net to do just that.


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