If you get a new Windows 8 computer, you might be surprised
to find out that it won't play your DVDs as Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom,
omitted this feature in the new version of the OS. Although optical media is
going the way of the VHS tape, there's a lot of content out there that's not
available for streaming or in compatible video formats. Hare are 6 free apps to
get around the lack of native Windows DVD playback and let you enjoy your DVD
collection.
Leawo’s free Blu-ray Player software acts like hardware
Blu-ray player to play Blu-ray discs, folders and ISO files on PC to enhance
your Blu-ray movie experience. As a quality lossless Blu-ray player software
program, it could help you easily play back the latest released Blu-ray discs
without quality loss. It’s also a free DVD player to play back DVD
discs/folders, an ISO player to directly play back ISO files, a free video player
to play up to 1080P HD videos and a free audio player to play even DTS-5.1
audio in lossless quality. During playback, this professional Blu-ray player
software allows you to select/load subtitles and adjust video and audio. It
even provides detailed playback navigation to let you fully control media
playback. Leawo Blu-ray Player for Mac is also free on Mac OS X 10.6 and later.
Arguably the most popular free and open source utility for
playing a plethora of video and music file formats on Windows and Mac
(including DVDs of course) is VLC. After installing this free program, it will
be added to the context menu in Windows 8, so you can right click any music or video
file to play it. Or you can set up AutoPlay to launch your DVD in VLC when you
insert the disc. VLC offers plenty of playback options for the basic user,
advanced features for the power user who wants to stream the DVD over a home
network, and more.
Another popular free desktop program that will play DVDs on
Windows 8, and virtually every media file that VLC can, is GOM Player. It works
similarly to other media players, and some would argue it provides a more crisp
picture when viewing DVDs. It too has an insane amount of features available to
tweak so you can get the perfect playback experience. It also has an official
remote control app for iOS and Android devices.
GOM isn't open source and I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up
that during the install it tries to install bundled crapware. Usually it's
either AVG or Ask toolbar. Just uncheck the option when installing as Windows 8
already has built-in antivirus protection via Windows Defender, and you
definitely don't need a worthless toolbar like Ask.com cluttering up your
browsers.
Like VLC, KMPlayer is a versatile open source multimedia
application for playing DVDs on Windows 8. And like both VLC and GOM, it
contains its own internal codecs and is able to play virtually any media file
you throw at it. It's fast, and doesn't take up a lot of computer resources. It
was recently purchased by Pandora and has new features to organize video, music,
cover art, and an upcoming app store.
If you're looking for a complete media center program, check
out XBMC. It's free and open source and has a stack community of developers
behind it. The latest version plays DVDs right out of the box from the main
menu. Then you have plenty of options and settings for optimizing quality
playback of DVDs.
XBMC is gaining a lot of popularity as it provides several
ways to enjoy your local digital media collection, stream online video and
music, and it's compatible on many platforms including Windows, iPad, Android,
OS X, Raspberry Pi, the Ouya game console and several others.
Daum PotPlayer is currently in beta and it feels a lot like
KMPlayer, which is no big surprise considering it's from the same developer. As
with the others in this list, it supports DVD playback as well as a large
number of file video and audio file formats. It also supports Blu-ray playback,
so if you're looking for a free program for Blu-ray, PotPlayer is a good choice.
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