When I try to play any DVD on my computer in Windows Media Player, I get a blank screen. I can hear the sound and everything, but no picture. I was told it was probably something with the codecs, but I have no idea about the specifics.

Can anybody help out?

You probably do need a new codec. If you install powerdvd or other DVD software it installs the codecs. I don't know if they come with windows media player. You could try looking on windows update under the non-critical updates section.

Rather interesting. DVDs should be standard mpegs, if memory serves, so they shouldn't need any special codecs. A couple of things comes into my mind: a virus (trojan) has altered your media player exe (this is a standard case, not some rarity), thus rendering it non-working. However, if this is the case, it could also be the video card drivers (poor version or some changed settings), since DVD is played full screen, it's a bit more critical.

It might help to find the reason if you try with some other program also, like WinDVD or whatever you happen to have. If it works, there's probably something wrong with media player itself.

EDIT: Since Media player is designed to play DVDs, I think a missing standard DVD codec is doubtful. However, if you are talking about unofficial DVDs, then it's the probable reason

Get VideoLAN. Its much better than even powerDVD, IMO.

http://www.videolan.org

Can you get screenshots in a reliable manner with this? Such a program would be cool.

Try turning hardware acceleration on or off?

If you use BSPlayer you can get screenshots

I just recalled when you said that, that I had to turn off hardware acceleration to run SolidWorks for my Engineering classes. It kept freezing my comp. I'll check that out.

I wish I hadn't downloaded Windows Media Player 10 now. It made no difference and it just looks annoying now.

Media Player Classic is the best video player, hands down. (You can look it up on source forge)

That was the problem, thanks everyone.

Video Lan is the hotness.

I don't much care for WMP. Hell you can tell--I didn't even KNOW it played DVDs.

Woowoo! Someone else doing Engineering and doing Solidworks too! I feel special! Where are you at if you don't mind me asking?

Engineering rocks.

You probably have tv-out on your video card and your tv-out port is set as the primary monitor in the display control panel, set it to secondary and you should be able to see the movie again.

He already fixed it. Hardware Acceleration was off.

But you should be able to do run it with hard acceleration.

Yeah. It was off. That's why it didn't run.

oooh, missed that

I just started my freshman year, studying at Villanova University's College of Engineering. I am majoring in mechanical engineering.

The best player with a GUI, that is.

Without a gui, mplayer destroys EVERYTHING. VideoLAN, WMP, ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.

Why? Simple.

A. It plays everything. EVERYTHING. Right out of the box.
B. Full subtitle support built in.
C. Will play videos before they are completed. Does this VERY WELL.
D. Will play videos on systems that would never play under any other circumstances. (For example, OGMs on a 750mhz laptop with 120MB ram. No dropped frames, no lost sync at all. Media Player Classic lost sync everywhere. VideoLAN just croaked.)
E. Will play on many operating systems, windows and linux.
F. Only video player I know that will play any video type (including DVDs) in linux console without X system.
G. Not a resource hog, at all.
H. Has a GUI, but optional. Comes standard without.
I. Source fits on a floppy.
J. It encodes. Yeah, that's right. ENCODES. Probably the best way to convert one video type to another. (Unless it is AVI. Nothing beats Virtualdub when it comes to AVIs)
K. Sits in its own directory, doesn't install random DLLs and files all over the place. It doesn't need to. It has its own set of codecs which come with the system. (More of the very rare codecs can be installed from their site in a zip, which is a simple unzip operation and you can play every file in existance really.)

I think that's all

Congrats Man! You'll have a ball! I'm starting my fourth and final year of my masters in civil engineering at the University of Durham. My first two years were common to all the streams of engineering, which is why I've done Solidworks (cool, isn't it?) and other stuff like programming, basic electronics, thermodynamics (ick) and fluid mechanics.

Engineering just rocks.

(Oh, and all your bridge are belong to us)