I was recently indulging in a movie marathon with some friends when I made a rather startling discovery. While attempting to begin a new film I experienced considerable difficulty in getting the DVD to play in my computer. I tried using multiple players and they all failed to recognize the presence of the DVD in my computer. To test my drive I went through and attempted to play 5 other movies in my collection. Every single one played. The only difference in the test movies and the broken DVD is that the movie that failed to play was actually acquired after I “lost” it and paid the replacement fee through the rental service. All of the other movies were purchased by me or for me. After flipping it over to wipe it off I noticed that the innermost ring looks like someone pressed aluminum foil in the middle of the CD during the manufacturing process.
Is there some strange copyright device that I am unaware of? Is the DVD just faulty? I remember hearing somewhere that the inner ring can become damaged due to unsatisfactory storage conditions. If this is the case, why are the other 50 DVD’s on the same spindle completely unaffected?
Does it play in a stand-alone player? Did it used to play on your PC? My bet would be that it has some kind of software copy protection/DRM on it. If it used to play on your PC, there is probably some sort of player application that is supposed to auto-run when you put the disk in. The software for it probably got corrupted or partially removed, preventing it from playing now.
Hold down the shift key when you put it in your PC to see if it plays with auto-run disabled.
Thanks for the help MC$E . After testing it in a stand-alone player I find out that there was nothing wrong with the DVD. I remembered it working in my PC before and after holding down the shift key I got it to play with no difficulties. Thanks for the help.