If you have a Windows 7 computer and are trying to play a DVD, you may receive the following error message:
Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because analog copy protection cannot be enabled on the output display. Try installing an updated driver for your video card.
Hmmm. You probably think this is crazy because your computer is brand new or you have a fairly new graphics card. So what exactly is the problem?
Well, you will only see this error if you have a Windows 7 computer with two monitors (multiple monitors) that are either different or have different resolutions in clone mode (same desktop on both displays)
One video monitor may be 1080i interlaced and the other does not. In this case, Windows Media Player will not be able to change the desktop resolution and therefore enable content protection.
Why is this exactly what prevents Windows from enabling content protection? No idea! Unfortunately this is the case! Pretty crazy, yeah!
Fix Windows Media Player Cannot Play DVD
Here’s how you can fix it so that you don’t see this error message again:
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1. Right-click the desktop and select Screen Resolution.
2. Go ahead and select a resolution supported by both monitors. You may need to lower the resolution of one of the displays for this to work. Now try playing your DVD.
The second way to solve this problem is to use only one monitor instead of two. You can do this by going back to “Screen Resolution” and selecting “Show desktop at x only”, where x is the number corresponding to each display.
Of course, this is not ideal, but you may only have to do this while playing a DVD. Then you can reactivate the second monitor.
Finally, you can also fix this problem by using both displays in extended mode. Just press Windows + P and select Extend.
This basically means that the desktop will be expanded from one monitor to the second rather than cloned. If you still have problems, check out another post of mine which has other fixes for WMP not playing DVD. Enjoy!
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