does it or doesn't it play movies Hi: I'm confused about some of the comments in regards to whether this DVD drive plays movies. Some people claim they can't watch movies unless they upgrade the software and others say they can watch movies (but don't mention whether they had to upgrade the software first). Can someone shed some light for me? Also is it necessary to upgrade the memory to 2GB if one does want to watch movies? Thanks for your help does it or doesn't it play movies Hi: I'm confused about some of the comments in regards to whether this DVD drive plays movies. Some people claim they can't watch movies unless they... » Read More does it or doesn't it play movies Hi: I'm confused about some of the comments in regards to whether this DVD drive plays movies. Some people claim they can't watch movies unless they upgrade the software and others say they can watch movies (but don't mention whether they had to upgrade the software first). Can someone shed some light for me? Also is it necessary to upgrade the memory to 2GB if one does want to watch movies? Thanks for your help « Show Less
1414002
Where did you by the sound drivers and how much?I finally got mine working but before Brian's post. He is correct' as best I can tell, and the problem rests with our computer software. I purchased a " DVD Decoder" download load on line from Roxio (I paid $20.98 but you can get it for a one time only down load for about $15 -if that is what you want). It now plays DVD movies and installs software which is what I wanted. I uninstalled the Hero program from my computer. Happy with the results but I only wish that I had been able to read Brian James post before I purchased the fix. Where did you by the sound drivers and how much?I finally got mine working but before Brian's post. He is correct' as best I can tell, and the problem rests with our computer software. I purchased a " DVD Decoder" download load on line from Roxio (I paid $20.98 but you can get it for a one time only down load for about $15 -if that is what you want). It now plays DVD movies and installs software which is what I wanted. I uninstalled the Hero program from my computer. Happy with the results but I only wish that I had been able to read Brian James post before I purchased the fix.
1414003
Mine plays DVD movies but it doesn't play CDs or software CDs.. weird huh. I updated with the newest firmware but still doing the same. Anybody know what is going on? Please help. Thanks
1414004
clothes horse barb, please read the post right above yours that provides a working solution.
1414005
Many thanks. From experiences with audible I know Nero software (which comes with the drive) is more than difficult. Using James's advice yielded excellent results.
1414006
Has anyone returned this and then purchased a BETTER drive that is fully functional in playing DVDs? Would appreciate advice.
1414007
I use my samsung dvd writer everyday at work to play DVDs. It works GREAT. I only had a problem when I installed the Nero software that comes with the dvd writer. For some reason it deleted the sound drivers for the dvd player only. I still had sound when listening to music from media player but nothing when I put a dvd in. I have an Acer one and it works great for burning cds. I think you will really like it. I had to buy new sound drivers to hear my dvd. I had a great picture but no sound.
1414008
I don't think it is the drive that plays the movie. The drive only reads the data on the DVD. It is the software on the PC that converts the DVD data to "play" the movie. I connected this drive to my desktop that already has a DVD drive I watch movies on. The movie played fine on the Samsung drive. However, I connected the drive to my Samsung NC10 netbook, no movie played. I then downloaded the free open source VLC media player from www.videolan.org to the netbook. VLC plays DVD movies on the netbook fine. No need to pay extra for player software. (Short Answer: The Samsung external DVD drive will play movies fine as long as you have DVD playing software on your PC.) I don't think it is the drive that plays the movie. The drive only reads the data on the DVD. It is the software on the PC that converts the DVD data to "play" the movie. I connected this drive to my desktop that already has a DVD drive I watch movies on. The movie played fine on the Samsung drive. However, I connected the drive to my Samsung NC10 netbook, no movie played. I then downloaded the free open source VLC media player from www.videolan.org to the netbook. VLC plays DVD movies on the netbook fine. No need to pay extra for player software. (Short Answer: The Samsung... » Read More I don't think it is the drive that plays the movie. The drive only reads the data on the DVD. It is the software on the PC that converts the DVD data to "play" the movie. I connected this drive to my desktop that already has a DVD drive I watch movies on. The movie played fine on the Samsung drive. However, I connected the drive to my Samsung NC10 netbook, no movie played. I then downloaded the free open source VLC media player from www.videolan.org to the netbook. VLC plays DVD movies on the netbook fine. No need to pay extra for player software. (Short Answer: The Samsung external DVD drive will play movies fine as long as you have DVD playing software on your PC.) « Show Less
188233
I have only played regular movies successfully ..it would not play DVDs which I converted from tape to DVD.. Vod or mpg format
1971679
You can most definitely play movies on it, I convert everything into .avi files though and noticed that it cannot take full HD, like the very large resolutions even if I thought it would but the lower ones like 480 it can take. But that wasn't a problem for me, there's a free software online you can reduce the size of the movies with. I haven't tried mp4 but the box says it would play. Good luck!
1971680
You can play movies on it, but it is hard to figure out how to do this. Let me explain. I have a USB with 127 movie files on it. I plugged it in to this IVIEW and selected USB as the source. I got the first avi file to play, but I could not figure out to access its subtitles even though the srt file name was displayed. In order to read the remaining 126 files I had to stop the film and then select the USB again. The IVIEW displayed the USB folders much faster than any other player I own. I somehow managed to access a video_ts folder and got that film to play. Again no subtitles could be accessed. When I went back to access some other film files I could not remember what buttons I pushed to view the previous film. There are no instructions from IVIEW on how to use the remote control buttons to access the various video folders. Most of the remote control buttons seem totally useless to me. I pressed every button and it kept saying "feature not available at this time" or some other negative statement. There are many options offered on the right had side of the screen display, but none of these make the film file play on the TV. One would think that selecting the folder and then pressing the PLAY button would work. No it does not. The player seems to have a good brain software with terrible operating instructions and useless remote control. This player does well with avi and other files that are burned on to discs. For my USB film files I always use my Western Digital streamer [the disc menu features work best on the streamer] or my Philips 5990/5992 dvp.
95189
So, it can't burn DVDs to be watched on a traditional DVD player, but can it play DVDs? Also, another customer mentioned that it can't play a u-tube video, is that true?
841021
See, here's the thing. The way it's worded makes it seem as though it burns bluray disc. It plays bluray disc and then allows you to burn dvd disc. I've tried a couple of softwares, including the one that came with it, but still does not burn blurays. Should work with any format going to a cd or dvd, though.
1812743
Hi there K.........how did this unit turn out for you? I've had mine for a couple of years so far, and it plays DVD's great. I gave up on learning how to copy a tape to a disk, but that is the one feature I needed to rid myself of boxes of old VCR tapes. (See my posts dated 2/21/10.) James says I need a tuner, however the inst. book does not mention that. Thanks for the help, Jeanette
1622631
Good question, I was looking for that question and saw yours. I have a 500GB that I assume is no problem. I have read it plays some AVI files and not others, depending on codec.
1779509
It plays everything exactly like a DVD. I have all the DVD menu and bonus features of my movies from the portable hard drive. I asked the same thing before I got it.
1330793
I tried it - when I stopped playing of DVD, switch off and again switch on (no open of disc) then it started to play when I finished before. It is sufficient reply? Roman
545233
Thanks Vito, I have one more question mayby you can answer...The specs on this one say..."Store your music, videos, photos and documents with plenty of space to spare SuperMulti 8X DVD+ with Double Layer Support Play and create CDs and DVDs with this DVD/CD burner drive"...I would like to know if this computer is capable of RE- writing DVDs, or can it only burn them once??? or is this function merely dependant on the type of disk used for any computer??? I am so tecno-challenged!!! Can you tell???Thanksjz
1232668
Just wanted to put my two cents in too! I just received mine last night - I have a 3 TB hard drive connected to it - I got it because not all tvs (or game systems) play all the different movie formats - this thing plays them all - I am VERY IMPRESSED, and based on the fact of seeing two USB ports I'm positive I can hook up another hard drive (the cartoon one for the kids). There wasn't any lag works perfect. If they ever add more options to the home menu that would be a bonus!
615413
Actually I can copy something to a disk, but I haven't tried to watch movies on this drive. The only thing is sometimes it just can be recognized by my laptop. And I have to try several times to make it to be recognized.
555577
I usually just put a regular DVD but will find out and let u know. Btw I bought this DVD player about 4 years ago and it still works great!! No complaints at all.
1156721
Yes, it plays DVD's smoothly, with no jerking. I am sure most games would play fine, with the original 6 gb of ram...but if you want to use a super high graphics game, I would double that ram to 12 gb. It has two slots, so you would need two 6 gb sticks (it has two 3gb sticks in it, factory installed).
2007467
I just put in a DVD of .mpg and .avi files and it played them fine. No menu on the DVD, just files. It brought up a list of the files and you can select which on you wouldl like to play. Good feature.
250064
It plays only DVD format (I think they call it VR mode), not any other video. It plays MP3 music and displays JPEG. That's it.