Playing DVDs on Your Laptop

When a movie DVD is inserted into a computer's DVD drive, it is automatically detected if the software for viewing the DVD is installed. This software is different depending on the manufacturer of the DVD drive, but the software is designed to work just like a stand-alone DVD player with buttons for playing, pausing, and skipping to the next or previous chapters.

Figure 43.1 shows a DVD loaded into Windows Media Player, which features a list of all the available chapters and an image of the DVD's cover. Clicking the Play button starts the DVD.

Figure 43.1: DVDs can load directly on a computer with a DVD drive and the appropriate software.