i want to watch dvds on my computer

Benjiboiiiiiii · January 24

I can either buy an internal or external DVD player, are there benefits of either. Or can I use a normal DVD player and a capture card to watch it on my computer?

emosun · January 24

just get an external usb disc drive for the machine

Kilrah · January 25

1 hour ago, Benjiboiiiiiii said:

Or can I use a normal DVD player and a capture card to watch it on my computer?

Copy protection will prevent that from working. As to internal/external... whatever's more practical for you.

aggie113 · January 25

Only benefit of internal or external is ease of use. If your laptop does have a spot for an internal drive, I'd recommend a slot loading blu ray player. These days doubt there is any price difference from a dvd vs blu ray player. VLC software is good enough for watching dvds.

FYI, if your normal DVD player has RCA or S-Video output you could use those without any copy protection affecting the signal. Just not the best resolution, but good enough for DVDs (480p max). This also assumes a capture card that has those input types. There are also software/hardware solutions for removing HDCP protections if using HDMI capture...