DVD

I recently bought DVDs in South East Asia, and find that while I could play the discs on a living room DVD player but not on my computers.
The Discs are not even recognized in the drives by Windows Explorer.
I would like to know whether this is normal, if not I would return the Discs for a refund, because I bought them mainly for watching on my laptop when away from home.
Also is there a way to solve the issue.
Thanks for any suggestions.