Please help, I am a newbie,

Purchased and installed a NEC DVD writer/player last week. I am running XP Pro.
Media player 10 reports error for DVD playback and I cannot view movies.
Music CD's play Ok.

I installed and used shrink (great freeware program) to view a DVD without problem. But needs lots of space 4 GB to load a movie onto the harddrive.
My harddrive is only 12GB!

What codec or codec package should I install to play and watch DVD movies using Windows Media player 10 ?

I have downloaded the following packages but have not installed them yet.

The Codecs full and lite
Matroska packs full and lite
XP codec pack
K lite codec pack

Any help would greatly appreciated. (I need to conserve Hard drive space)

Errrr, Maybe if you try a differnt Player to try and play them (Sometimes stuff like that just happens and is weird.... if you want a really light fast free and open source player try VLC Media Player) If it extracts right I would assume you shoudl have everyhitng you need... but you never know with Microsuck... Goodluck

Yes, better to use other player. E.g. PowerDVD, WinDVD - these are shareware or the free VLC Player as KillerJ59J mentioned.

If you DO want to play DVD with Windows Media Player, you'll need to install a 3rd party codec but you'll have to pay for most of them... according to the official WMP Plugin Page.

Also, there are DVD (MPEG-2) decoders in K-Lite Codec Pack (Full) you don't have to pay for and WMP would accept. Just don't install the whole package, only select the DVD decoders while configuring installation.
- Cyberlink DVD decoder [version 6.0.0.1417]
- Elecard MPEG-2 demuxer [version 3.1.190.41018]
- MainConcept MPEG-2 demuxer [version 1.0.0.54]
- Ligos MPEG-2 demuxer [version 4.0.0.77]
- Ligos MPEG-2 decoder [version 4.0.0.77]
- Cyberlink MPEG-2 decoder [version 6.0.0.1402]
- MainConcept MPEG-2 decoder [version 1.0.0.56]

Select these, or try Cyberlink only (multiple decoders may confuse WMP).

Thanks a bunch guys, simply awesome.

Thanks alot,

I will have something working this w/e. WMP, VLC or WINDVD5 ($6 from ebay).