No audio when playing DVD's on my Windows Media Player. (1 Viewer)

[Inspector Hammer!]

I don't know why but when I try to play a DVD I get no sound, the video plays just fine but no audio. Curiously I can play CD's just fine, it's only with DVD that I have the problem.

I checked all of the settings on my PC and they are all fine.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? The FAQ's for WMP is of no help at all.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/plugins.aspx

 

[Ken Chan]

If you can see video, you already have a DVD decoder installed (probably); although a different one might work better.

The problem may be that it's trying to play encoded digital audio, Dolby Digital or DTS, through your computer's digital audio out, if your computer has one. And if you aren't actually using that output -- you're using analog speakers or headphones instead -- you won't hear anything.
Which version of Windows is this?

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I'm using Vista.

The thing is it used to work but something somewhere down the line got changed and I don't know what.

I would prefer to see if I can repair it without having to purchase anything.

 

[Ken Chan]

Well first, it appears that WMP 11 "looks at" the sound settings only on startup, so doing a bunch of fiddling while WMP is open doesn't really help.

I have a fairly clean Vista (Ultimate) setup here, with no additional DVD decoders, and it mostly "just worked". If I chose speakers as the sound output, it decoded the Dolby Digital into analog. And if I disabled the Dolby Digital for the SPDIF, it also decoded correctly into digital stereo. With Dolby Digital enabled, it played the bitstream directly (in addition to the lights/indicators on the receiver, the volume control has no effect). Again, these changes were made when WMP was not open, and then restarting it.
The only time I got it to not work was disabling Dolby Digital for the SPDIF while WMP as open. Stopping playback and then hitting play again, I got no audio.

Maybe it's something you installed that is interfering, especially if it used to work? Are you using speakers, headphones, or SPDIF ("Digital Output Device")? Have you tried another "playback device", if you have one? (Right-click the volume icon in the tray, and choose Playback Devices.)

 

[Parker Clack]

Try downloading a program like VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ and see if you get sound from your DVDs. If not then it is something in your sound card setup that got changed.


Parker

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Thanks for the advice guys, and thanks, Parker, I installed VLC and it works great.

I needed a player on my PC because between the audio problem with my WMP and WinDVD never working right right out of the box I had no way of playing DVD's on my PC.

 

[Parker Clack]

Glad to hear that VLC is working great. Just wondering why WMP stopped working. Something in your setup with WMP has the audio turned off because if it where a system audio problem VLC wouldn't work either. I haven't played around with WMP enough to enough how to check out the settings but I am sure it has some sort of options that can we set and maybe the one for the audio is turned off.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Sounds like a Codec issue to me. That's why I posted the link I did. One way to figure out if it's a Codec issue is so search the net for WMP Codec packs.