Copy-protection Fail in Media Player Classic on Windows 8

Caitlin Black

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As the title suggests, I've run into a problem with Media Player Classic on Windows 8 - I get a "Copy-protection Fail" message when I try to load certain DVDs.

Now, I must mention that these are not illegal burnt DVDs or anything like that. They're store-bought, and have worked before. In fact, the latest one to have this problem was a disc with 6 episodes of a TV show on it. I had watched the first 3 episodes, shut down and did other stuff, then tried reloading the disc to watch episodes 4 and beyond - when I got that message.

Rebooting the computer doesn't fix it. Now, I know it's not the disc that is broken, because I can get it to play just fine in PowerDVD 10, which I also have on this computer.

I'd like to find out what the actual problem is, as I actually prefer Media Player Classic as a program - except for this one problem.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance. :)
 

Alexys

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The problem is the existence of so-called copy protection on digital media. DRM is inherently fragile, and it doesn't do the job for which it was supposedly intended, either. Instead, it causes crap like this.

As for useful suggestions—uninstall and reinstall Media Player Classic? That's all I can think of, and if it leaves registry entries behind, even that might not fix it. I'm assuming it isn't likely to be a borked region code setting.
 

Jamesaritchie

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I don't use Windows Media Player on any computer, or in any version. You'd be amazed how many problems this solves.
 

Alexys

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If I recall correctly, Media Player Classic is not the same program as Windows Media Player. (I'll take mplayer over either of them, but I can understand how it can intimidate some people.)
 

benbradley

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After the Sony Rootkit thing, I hesitate to put any kind of "media" disc in my computers. I hesitate to install anything. I should be compiling my own Gentoo.

But for playing video I like this VLC thing:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
Simple, fast and powerful media player.

Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams.

Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed:
MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3...

Runs on all platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix...

Completely Free, no spyware, no ads and no user tracking.
Okay, so I made that last part bold...
 

Caitlin Black

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Yeah, I do have VLC as well, and have switched to that in the last couple of days instead of PowerDVD. Mostly because PowerDVD is, for some reason, too quiet. I have my computer's audio set to max, PowerDVD's audio set to max, and yet I *still* have to turn my speakers up to nearly max to get the same volume as I get at half that in VLC (and Media Player Classic, for that matter).
 

Alexys

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I've never heard of mplayer... Is this freeware? And why would it be intimidating?

mplayer is possibly the most venerable open-source media player still in active development. It's most often found on Linux machines, although it's available for multiple platforms. It's intimidating because, by default, it's command-line driven with hundreds of possible switches (there is a GUI, but it's drifted in and out of support a couple of times over the past decade or so and I'm not sure what its current state is). I like it because it's massively powerful and supports a lot of codecs, but then I'm also one of those crazy people who likes command lines. http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ if you want more information.

Unless you're a tinkerer or need to play back unusual formats or troubleshoot broken video files, you'll probably be happier with VLC, though.
 

Caitlin Black

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Yeah, command lines and me don't mix well. :tongue

I guess I'll stick with VLC. Especially as I tried another disc in Media Player Classic (the next one for the same TV show) and it automatically said "Copy-protection Fail blah". So I'm guessing MPC has developed some sort of aversion to the type of copy-protection used on every disc of that entire series? Bah!
 

Caitlin Black

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Okay, so I have a related question.

How do I set VLC to be my default program for playing DVDs? I looked in VLC's settings, and couldn't find anything like this, then went and looked at Default Programs in Control Panel. I found what I was looking for - except that it just gave me the options of Media Player Classic or PowerDVD for my autoplay...

Any ideas? Because if I'm going to be using VLC for DVDs from now on, I'd like it to auto-load when I throw a new DVD in my drive, y'know?
 

Reziac

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<goes off, roots thru VLC>

I don't see anything in preferences to set it as the default. However ... auto-doing anything with removable media is dangerous (if, for instance, that commercial DVD instead contains software -- and I have seen that happen! -- it might automatically run gods know what) and only bad people who hate their computers allow such behavior. ;)

VLC player has an extensive user-guide here:
https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Play_HowTo

VLC did put itself on WinExplorer's context menu, "Play with VLC media player" and "Add to VLC's playlist". This is how I normally access anything with it. There must be an option for this somewhere but I can't seem to find it.

There's always WinExplorer, right-click, Open With, browse... and once you've done used a program, it should be on the Open With menu forevermore.

I used to prefer PowerDVD, but VLC copes much better with disk or file defects -- PowerDVD will just lock up if it encounters a bad spot, but VLC staggers along until it finds good data again (it may appear to be locked up while it seeks ahead, but usually it's not). It has a fairly good gamma correct function too, which is nice since so many DVDs are too bloody dark.
 

Caitlin Black

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Mmm. Well, the reason I wanted to set VLC as the autoplay was because MPC already is set to autoplay, so chucking a disc in will open MPC (which might be a waste of time if the copy-protection fail thing happens).

Eh, I'll figure it out. :)
 

Reziac

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Dunno if this is useful, but anyway:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f217/solved-dvds-wont-play-copy-protection-issue-555290.html

http://lifehacker.com/328091/decrypt-your-dvds-copy-protection-with-dvd43

I'm thinkin' you might have success if you decrypt the DVD as you burn it to a fresh DVD, then you can play the copy. In fact considering the perishability of commercial DVDs, that sounds like something useful to do when someday I rip them all to a media server, if only cuz I hate schlepping disks back and forth.