Can't play DVD

[Daz]

I have a Comaq PC here and recently had to reformat the HD. After doing so I obviously lost any software preinstalled for playing DVDs. So I downloaded trial versions of PowerDVD, EasyDVD and WinDVD and with each one I get errors. PowerDVD gives me an illegal operation when I start it up, EasyDVD thinks I don't have a DVD in the drive and WinDVD says cannot create overlay. I've reduced the screen res as suggested in their FAQs but still same error.

Can anyone help!

[setarip]

Try installing and using the free DVD player (DVDPLAY.EXE) found on the Win98 installation CD...

[Daz]

Thanks for your help. I found a link here explaining what to do - link however when I run dvdplay.exe I get this error message

The following errors have occurred:

*The following DVD-Video streams did not render properly
- video stream
- subpicture stream

*Windows cannot show the DVD title on the monitor because the video port in your computer is not working correctly. You need to have a TV connected to your computer.
(Error: No combination of intermediate filters could be found to make the connection.)

What's that mean?

[setarip]

The very last part of that DVDPlay.exe message was, "Do you wish to continue?" - Did you select "Yes", and what happened?

[Daz]

If I hit yes it then says
DVD player has encountered a macrovision violation and cannot play this media...