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What's the best third party program for viewing DVD's on your computer? I know there are certain plugins that allow Windows Media Player to do it, but I imagine there are also independent programs that probably do it better.

Any ideas?

Cyberlink PowerDVD is the best. I've used a few programs, and PowerDVD rocks. Best feature is the ability to grab JPEG stills from DVDs. It's a little on the pricey side ($50) but it's worth it if you want the ultimate. Get it here: http://www.gocyberlink.com/english/produ...?ProdId=28

Thanks for the quick info. I bought the program and downloaded it, but I'm having a problem. Maybe you have a clue. Whenever I put a DVD in the drive, the program locks up as it tries to read it. As a test, I tried to look at the contents of that drive with the DVD in it using MY COMPUTER and then clicking on the drive, and the computer locked up again. For some reason, it does not want to read a DVD in that drive (although it has no problem reading regular CD's). Any ideas?

Good lord. I just looked and the drive is a Plextor CD-R. Does this mean it can only play CD's? Do I need a DVD-R?

If I do, please let me know what I should order.

You are a God.

Dean

You have a CD-RW drive. You need either a DVD/CD-RW drive or a DVD-/+RW drive. That or if you have an additional drive bay a plain old DVD-ROM drive. Since the price of DVD burner drives have come down so much I will recommend one of those to you:

Plextor PX-712A: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdes...326&DEPA=1

Lite-On SOHW-1213S: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdes...950&DEPA=1

Benq DW1610: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdes...623&DEPA=1

The Plextor is probably the best, although they all will do what you want and do it incredibly well. I would recommend buying from Newegg.com because their prices, policies, and shipping speed on computer hardware can't be beat.

Thanks for the info. I went ahead and bought the Plextor that you linked to. I have another question. Do you think I should add the DVD rewriteable in addition to the CD-R already installed, or should I just replace the CD-R with it. Is there an advantage to having both drives?

The only real advantage of having both drives in there is you can do CD to CD copying really easily and it allows you to be lazier and leave two discs in the machine instead of swapping. The DVD writer drive will probably do everything your current drive can do and then some so you might want to just do a swap (slightly easier to install, because you just swap the cables instead of hunting for the 'slave' cables). There should be no real performance problems or anything like that when you have both drives installed so if you have the room in your computer case then you can go ahead and have both in there. It's really just a matter of personal preference - there is no major technical argument to have both drives in or not.

Okay, I went ahead and installed the new DVD-RW drive (replacing the CD-R drive) and it seems to work great! I just watched a couple minutes of Goodfellas on the computer.

Thanks for all your help!

No problem! Glad I could be of service and that your DVD issues have now been solved!