DVD Player Software

Your COMBO drive only writes CD's. It is very specific as to which DVD's it will even read. See below.

Drive Information
------------------
Drive : HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4481B
Type : Combo Drive
Firmware Version : E106
Buffer Size : 2 MB
Date : ?
Serial Number
Vendor Specific : H.L.D.S.2004/06/22
Drive Letter : D:\
Location : 0:0
Mechanism : Tray
Read Speed : 48 X
Write Speed : 48 , 40 , 32 , 24 , 16 , 10 , 8 , 4 X

Read CD Text : Yes
Return C2 Pointers : Yes
Read CD-R : Yes
Read CD-RW : Yes
Read DVD-ROM : Yes
Read DVD-RAM : No
Read DVD-R : Yes
Read DVD-RW : Yes
Read DVD+R : Yes
Read DVD+RW : Yes
Read DVD+R DL : No
Read BD-ROM : No
Read BD-R : No
Read BD-RE : No
Read Digital Audio : Yes
Read CD+G : No
Read VideoCD : Yes

Write CD-R : Yes
Write CD-RW : Yes
Write DVD-R : No
Write DVD-RW : No
Write DVD-R DL : No
Write DVD+R : No
Write DVD+RW : No
Write DVD+R DL : No
Write DVD-RAM : No
Write BD-R : No
Write BD-RE : No

Dear Brother,

Good Morning.

Thanks for the reply. Sir, as you said that the combo drive is very specific to DVD's, it will read. How can I check this? Also do inform how I can resolve the problem.

Regards

Is the drive recognised by the system? you could have a BIOS issue.

yes, ok, you can press the button on the front, open the bay door, load your disk and close it again, but does your OS software recognise that there is something loaded into the drive?

Can you play CD's ?

Dear Brother,

I can play vcd, acd's but only issue is DVD. It has recognized the DVD once using PowerDVD software but could not play properly.

DVD's were checked in ther system and are fine.

Now, if u could help me. Please.......

Hitachi Combo Drive...

HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4481B

Unfortunately the Hitachi website doesn't offer a driver for this model. You can find it here, however. You may have to register to download, but it's free.

DriverGuide
http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=662962

If you need player software, here's a pretty good free one:

VideoLAN VLC

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

And there's always Windows Media Player...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx

If you need to buy a player, the InterVideo player works very well.

InterVideo

http://apps.corel.com/lp/ivi/index.html

You don't say what operating system you are using. This driver and player software should all work ok on Windows 2000 and XP. If you have Vista, you may need to search for a driver, as resources for Vista are inclined to be scanty. Windows Media Player should work on any modern Windows OS, and it's a free download.

If you are using Linux, you may have to search for a driver, although the VLC player works well on Linux. If you were using Mac OS, you'd already be watching movies.

Thanks dear for the valuable reply.

The driver was laready downloaded by me, yesterday morning. Howver, I thought as the device was working fine with VCD, so its means driver is working and so I didnot try to load the driver again.

I have cross checked in my system the version is also same.

I am using Windows XP as my OS.

Hope I had answered your querries.

Now if you can further support me, it will be very nice of you.

Assuming that you have a DVD player software correctly installed, may I suggest that the DVD Laser LED is either defective or out of alignment....(two Lasers are on a lot of such devices, one for CDs and one for DVDs, not a lot of people actually know this!!! BenQ manufactured DVD burners and Combos are a good example of this type of device.)

Return DVD Combo to shop for replacement or refund!!

I have heard that DVDs sold in Asia (for example) are not compatible with players sold in the US... and the converse is also true. Is there any possibility that this could be a problem??

Bill

I think you are on to the real problem here. I will bet it is a region problem. His combo drive firmware is probably set for region 1 and his DVD's are another region. Here is a quote from wikipedia about region codes.

"Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which means the drive allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces the DVD region coding at the hardware level. These drives can often be reflashed with hacked or Australia and New Zealand (hardware region coding prohibited by law in these countries) RPC-1 firmware, effectively making the drive region-free. However, this usually voids the warranty and can render the drive inoperable if something goes wrong"

The article goes on to say the some of the freeware media players are region code free and ignore the hardware lockdown. VLC is a great example of that. Try using VLC and that will tell you if it is a region code problem.

I was of the opinion (maybe wrongly) that when you play a wrong region DVD, you actually get a message telling you that that is the problem. At least that is what I have seen on my PC.

There is a software called AnyDVD available on the web for little money (€49) which I do believe allows you to play any region in any region.....if that really is the problem.....

Here is a link:-

anydvd

I sincerely believe that is NOT the case, or the original poster would have mentioned any error messages, surely?

Dear Friends,

Good Morning.

I had tried by best with all the solutions provided by all of you.

Any region DVD is also not responding. The problem is that the DVD is tried to be played, the message comes:

No DVD is there in the drive.

Regards,

Hi, have you tried a data DVD in your new drive? If not try and see if your drive recognizes that. Just as a test, try Media Player Classic. Its a standalone file that doesn't require a codec to play a movie, there is no installation to run. Its self contained in a single .exe file. If it works, you'll know the problem is with your software configuration. Here is the link to download Media Player Classic.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_players/media_player_classic.cfm/v6_4_9_0

Hope this helps.

Then I am 95% certain that the DVD Laser is defective or maladjusted, but the other Laser for the CD operation (an entirely different laser, usually not even in the same housing as the DVD laser) is OK. This is why one works, the other does not!!

I had a very similar occurrence some years ago with a BenQ DVD Burner device that I eventually had to throw out completely as it was eventually most unreliable and caused me to throw umpteen half burnt discs out.......It was repaired once under warranty for that fault, but of course the next time it happened, warranty was gone!!

I replaced it with an Optiac that is very reliable now for some time and burns any CD or DVD that I place in it, cheap or expensive.

The only difference between you and I is that I had problems with a Burner and you had problems with a Combo, otherwise it was the same problem.....

I always buy reliability as far as possible, so the name BenQ will never ever be bought again in this house for ANYTHING at all!!!

I was a little upset with them before anyway as I have a Slide Scanner from Acer (the old name for BenQ) and if the lamp ever burns out, I can throw the whole thing away as spare lamps are not supplied anymore by BenQ.......like what do they know about customer service??? Answer:- NOTHING!!!!! The scanner is really, really good......just unsupported.

So be warned about BenQ = cheap and nasty and little support.

Dear Andy,

Thanks for the confirmation.

I had already decided yesterday evening that I will change the DVD drive.

Your mail had further help me to take the decision.

Thanks again.

Looking forward for more disuccions.

Me and the rest of CR4 too.

Have a good weekend!

I do agree with Andy that there is a good possibility that the DVD pickup laser is bad or maladjusted, however I build and repair computers for a living & have seen this problem a number of times and certainly on older combo drives when you start to experience non recognition of DVDs it is a high probability that the pickup laser is going bad or is bad. In my experience when installing a new combo drive in an existing computer if the drive is recognizing Cd's and not DVDs it is a software or firmware issue, that is why I recommended the media player classic because if it is one of those two problems light will more often than not allow the recognition of the DVD. Once in a while you will get a defective combo player but it is much more common that non recognition of DVDs is caused by software or firmware (if the system your putting combo in has not had a prior DVD-rom installed and working). If you haven't replaced the combo yet give the media player classic a try, if you have and experience the same problem try classic & if that does not solve the problem there are other fixes I can pass on to you. Hope you get it figured out. Let us know how everything works out good luck Tim

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_players/media_player_classic.cfm/v6_4_9_0

I am having a problem with a newly installed dvd r/w drive. It replaces an old IDE drive that had died. When trying to play a movie, it shows, Intall NET3. frameware and will refuse to operate. If you can tell where to look on the web for a detailed answer I would appreciate it. Sincerely, Cliff Register bakacowboy@yahoo.com