I have not been able to get the system restore disk to work on installing drivers for my DVD player. Every thing works fine on my laptop, but whenever I try and play a dvd it comes up with the error, that i need a software or hardware DVD decoder. What is the diffrence between software and hardware? Do I need both? Where can I find a decoder to play DVDs on my system. I tried toshiba web site and no luck, and HP wont help since I bought the laptop used. It is a XE3 Omni book, with 850 P3.If anyone knows of sites to download this software.Please let me know.
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you need a decoder to play the format that dvd movies are stored in one such decoder is power dvd wich is a software decoder the other type of decoder is a hardware decoder eg real magic hollywood plus or a creative labs dxr2 decoder. the differencebetween the two is the software decoder uses your cpu to render the display overlay and video whereas the hardware uses a processor on a seperate piece of hardware to do the decoding of the movie. costs more for the hardware but it is worth it. theydo make them in a pcmcia form for a laptop too. however for just getting this working you should call toshiba and ask them how you reinstall the software decoder that came with the laptop. some movies come with thier own decoding software that gets installed when you try to play the movie mostly called pc-friendly dvd player you could try this I hope this awnswer is satisfactory to you have a good day
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Windows ME with toshiba DVD player