Section 7.3. DVD Movies | Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual

7.3. DVD Movies

If your PC has a drive that's capable of playing DVDsand if you're running Windows Vista, it probably doesyou're in for a treat. Media Player can play rented or purchased Hollywood movies on DVD as though it was born for the job.

Watching movies on your screen couldn't be simpler. Just insert the DVD. Windows automatically detects that it's a video DVDas opposed to, say, one that's just filled with files.

The dialog box shown in Figure 7-18 appears, or at least it does the very first time you insert a DVD. Click "Play DVD movie using Windows Media Player" if, indeed, that's the program you want to play the DVD. You may have other programs that can play DVDs, with their own buttons in this dialog box.

Figure 7-18. Once the DVD is playing, you control the playback using the standard Media Player controls (bottom edge of the window). To switch to a different "chapter," click the button. To change language or parental -control options, right-click the screen; from the shortcut menu, choose Audio and Language Tracks. When you're playing the movie full-screen, the playback controls reappear when you move the mouse a bit.

Now Media Player opens, and your movie begins playing, full-screen. Most of the time, there's nothing for you to do now but watch. But if you're the interactive sort , you can also take action like this:

Switch between full-screen mode and window mode by pressing Alt+Enter. In window mode, the movie plays within the Media Player window, surrounded by the usual controls. The pane at the right side of the window lists the DVD chapters (scenes), which is handy if you want to jump around in the DVD.
Pause, skip, adjust the volume by wiggling your mouse. Playback controls appear for a few seconds at the bottom of the screen, permitting you to pause, adjust the volume, or skip backward or forward, and then fade away so as not to obscure Arnold Schwarzenegger's face.

Alternatively, you can right-click anywhere on the "movie screen" itself to reveal a menu of disc-navigation features.

Tip: For real fun, turn on English subtitles but switch the soundtrack to a foreign language. No matter how trashy the movie, you'll gain respect from your friends when you say you're watching a foreign film.