Edited DVD not playing on client's Windows computer

[p0intblank]

A while ago I edited a video for a client. Everything went well until the project was actually, well... done. I edited in iMovie, converted the clip to MPEG-4 and burned it to DVD with free software called Burn. The disc played just fine for me on a couple different machines, but he could never get it to play in Windows Media Player. I told him to install codecs; still nothing.

So instead I burned the DVD again, this time in iDVD. So I'm guessing this time the video format was in MPEG-2. Again, the DVD played perfectly fine when I tested it on two different machines. The client tries to play the DVD in Windows Media Player. Still nothing...

I've told him to download VLC, but he's arguing the fact that this disc should work on pre-installed software on every PC (in this case, Windows Media Player). I do agree with him on that, but let's face it, Windows Media Player is not the best software to use. So my question: What is the best way to go about this? I've tried using Burn and iDVD with no luck (on his end). Any help is much appreciated!

 

[spinnerlys]

Can you play the DVD in your DVD player in Mac OS X (the one that came with the OS) or in a physical one?

I don't know if WMP can play DVDs, but often PowerDVD and other DVD player software comes with a Windows PC, so maybe your client should try that.

 

[Darth.Titan]

Windows Media Player doesn't play video DVDs out of the box. It doesn't come with the codecs for MPEG2. Usually though if the customer has an OEM-supplied player program like PowerDVD installed, the codecs will be there and Windows Media Player will play DVDs. Otherwise they will need to install VLC.

Ask your client whether they've played video DVDs on that computer before. If not, they may not have the software for it. Make sure they understand that the "preinstalled software on every PC" is not always capable of playing DVD video discs. It depends on what software is included by the manufacturer.

 

[p0intblank]

I've successfully played the DVDs on both my Mac and Xbox 360. I think you guys may be right though. It's most likely an issue with Windows Media Player. Why he can't listen to me and just use VLC is beyond me, but I'll try to convince him again.

Please let me know if you have any other ideas. This person is kind of hard to convince...