Toshiba A215-S4747 Lap
ATI X1200 video
4GB
Vista Home Premium
All OS Updates
DVD:
internal: Matshita UJ-850S ATA
external: Memorex 530L v1 USB
All Commercial DVD movies play in the internal device, but none play in the external device. Windows Media Player emits this message no matter what viewer (WMP, Realplayer, etc) is used:
"Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card."
Error number is: C00D1163
The very latest (Jan 2008) X1200 ATI video driver is installed.
It seems to me that I have played commercial movies from this device in the past. I wonder if the Content Nazis have colluded with MS such that recent updates to Vista make playing DVDs impossible from external devices. WTF. Any clues?
The Bigger Problem is that I have been using this external writer with various flavors of Linux lately and with Linux, you just plug almost any DVD device in and it works.
What I had forgotten is that when, in the past, I had successfully used the device it had been with the accompanying edition of Nero 7 for Memorex installed.
This is what Nero 7 had done, previously: it asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the latest versiona and I said 'well, duh' and Nero proceeded to completely remove itself from the computer AND NOT INSTALL ANYTHING ELSE. Now is that impressive, or what? Yea, and you thought McAfee and Norton were wedged...
What all this proves is that the software layer installed by Nero is completely UNNECESSARY. It exists for one reason only: to control your use of 3rd party CONTENT. That's all it's about. Various RIAA-type groups in collusion with Microsoft, Nero, et al are simply insinuating an unnecessary layer between you and your devices in order to control your access of content.
Period end. LONG LIVE FREE SOFTWARE! ALL HAIL LINUX!
