


If you want to play Blu-ray discs, there’s a codec pack of questionable legality (and hit-and-miss functionality) available. VLC’s a handy program to have on any new system, anyway, as it’s capable of opening virtually any audio or visual file format, including quite a few that Windows Media Player can’t handle. When you want to watch a DVD, open VLC and-with the DVD in your drive-click Menu, then Open Disc.

Fortunately, there’s a free, fast way to get DVD playback in VLC, a powerful media player from VideoLAN. If you’re upgrading to Windows 8 or built your own PC from scratch, you’ll actually have to download software to watch DVDs. Option 2: Download VLC VLC plays DVDs, and it plays them for free.
