I can't get DVDs to play on multiple computers - help!

I'm the video person for my company of about 2,000 employees. There are probably more than 1,500 computers and laptops. I'm not sure how many of these have DVD drives in them.

Once a quarter or so, I produce a DVD with a video message from our CEOs. This gets distributed to anywhere from 40-200 employees, depending on who the video is supposed to be viewed by.

Most occasions, I use Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD to produce the videos and then have it export out to DVD where it saves the files in a location I choose inside a VIDEO_TS folder, which I then either allow it to burn to a DVD or use Nero to burn it later.

Sometimes for certain photo slideshows with music, I'll use ProShow Gold to assemble the slideshow and then export it to be burned onto a video DVD.


Due to the nature of my company, the I.T. department wipes all new computers upon arrival and builds and loads them according to their protocol. In most cases, they don't allow the playing of DVDs. This functionality is only restored at the request and requirement of the end user on a case-by-case basis.

So, when someone who has had the DVD playing functionality restored to their computer tries to play one of my DVDs, sometimes they have a problem with the computer requesting a codec. Most of the time, I point the I.T. person to the K-Lite Codec Pack and sometimes that solves the problem. Sometimes it doesn't.

I'm convinced the wiping of the computer of their original install and then a later "reinstallation" of the DVD playing software and drivers is what leads to this problem. But I'm not going to get I.T. policy changed anytime soon.

My solution is to tell the users that it is far better to play the DVD on a regular DVD player as that will make it look and run better, especially if they're going to show it at a presentation, rather than running it through their computer. Sadly, many of them want to only run it on their computer, plus we don't have many DVD players around the company yet.


So, what I'm asking is, what is the best way to make a DVD that is playable by the most computers, and what codecs should I tell the I.T. department to install on a regular basis with all new machines?


Thanks,
robertusm

For home brew dvds (made by you not pressed commercial discs with encryption) then I would say that vlc would be a great software player as it has it's own internal codecs so no external codecs are needed.

I do not recommend installing any codec pack. Usually causes more harm than good.

FFDShow will decode most video and audio and is just a set of directshow filters that won't muck with your system.

Thanks for the replies. I've already sent an e-mail to the I.T. guy I talk to the most and requested he look more closely at VLC.

If it works, we'll have to see about getting that named the standard rather than WMP, which I think is going to be hard to do.

No problem. Since this is a business project I'll have to charge you a $100 consultation fee though.

See, there's this recession thing going on. Times are tight, everybody's cutting back.....



Thanks for all your help. I'll try to remember to come back and let everyone know how it works out.