I tend to use VLC Media Player. Plays pretty much everything as well as DVDs.

I used VLC Player for a long time, but KMPlayer I found alot superior, you mite check it out too.

cheers
Donnie

and don't forget there are some free software for playback of DVd's built into some Dvd's such as Interactual DVD which is available on a lot of early DVD's such as the Die Hard series ...

Hey, just wanted to say thanks you guys. I tried all three players and I think i'm going to stick with the KMPlayer. And although I said I wasn't really picky, after trying these programs I realized that I'm probably more picky then I thought... 

VLC Media player for some reason was really slow, even sometimes getting caught up for over a minute when pushing the "Menu" button. Not sure if it had something to do with my settings or PC, but needless to say it was a tad frustrating to wait around for it to do something after initiating an action.

Home Cinema and KMP seem very similar and I really don't have problem with either other then when I put a DVD into my drive and that window pops up asking which action you'd like to take, neither program is on the list, while VLC and Windows Media Player are on it. I'm willing to deal without this but if any of you know how to remedy this, I would much appreciate it. 

I've decided to stick with KMP at least for the time being as it is a much more visually appealing player when compared to Home Cinema. It seems to have a lot of advanced settings that I'll probably never use, but it is very user friendly and seems to be very quick and responsive.

Thanks again you guys, gave everyone who posted here a Green Arrow! 

Quoting Vittra:

Quote:
other then when I put a DVD into my drive and that window pops up asking which action you'd like to take, neither program is on the list, while VLC and Windows Media Player are on it. I'm willing to deal without this but if any of you know how to remedy this, I would much appreciate it. 

1. Open the KMPlayer
2. Press the F2 button
3. Go to "Association/Capture"
4. In the tab "Association" you can associate file types with the KMPlayer, for example "Video Only", "Audio Only", "All" or just check file types manually.
5. Click the "Apply To System" button.

Quoting widescreenforever:

Quote:
VLC media player won't play back macro encoded DVD's . You have to first install  a program similair to (i.e.) DVD43 that will bypass the macrovison., So VLC isn't for everyone..

If this is true, then Macrovision seems to be very rare, Sir

For VLC played each and every DVD I own or loaned, and that were quiet many.

Quoting bbbbb:

Quote:
Quoting widescreenforever:

Quote:
VLC media player won't play back macro encoded DVD's . You have to first install  a program similair to (i.e.) DVD43 that will bypass the macrovison., So VLC isn't for everyone..

If this is true, then Macrovision seems to be very rare, Sir

For VLC played each and every DVD I own or loaned, and that were quiet many.

Maybe it also depends on the drive used, but I had quite some problems with VLC when trying to play DVDs which use ArCCoS copy protection (for example "Eine schrecklich nette Famile" (Married...with children). From season four on I had lots of hang-ups when I tried to select an episode in the episode-selection menu or when I tried to fast-forward the opening sequence.

Never had these problems with PowerDVD.

Is there a free player that will play HD DVDs