External optical drive won't play movie DVD

Question

External optical drive won't play movie DVD

The SuperDrive on my very late 2009 MacBook (OS 10.5.8, Leopard) died, and I got a well-rated CD/DVD player/writer, Samsung SE-218BB) instead. It is meant to be compatible with my Mac. It works with things like Disk Warrior, but recently, I tried to play a video disk and got the message "Utilization error. A valid DVD player could not be found (-70012)." I've read a lot of other messages about this same error and have done what was recommended (throwing out the appropriate plist file from DVD player, for example). The messages were for other Mac models and/or versions of OS X, so maybe there is some advice that is specific to my Mac that would pertain? By the way, the DVD does show up in the Finder in a generic kind of way (that is, I think it is the kind/manufacturer of the disk,but it certainly isn't the name of what is on it), and when I click on that, it opens a bunch of separate files that don't seem to have much to do with watching the movie.

I also tried one of the tips given in the DVD Player manual (dragging the file to the DVD Player icon. All that did was make the DVD disappear. I had to restart,, with the mouse "button" (really not a button) on the Mac pressed, which released the DVD from the external drive.

I don't think the problem's with the hardware, since I can play Disk Warrior in it (that opens automatically after I insert the DVD. So what's with the movies? I've checked Software Update, and my software (DVD Player 7.7) is up to date for my Mac and OS version. I don't even know whether I should be using DVD Player for movies. (I haven't tried a music DVD, but I suspect that should open in some other app.) I don't remember playing movies on my computer when the internal SuperDrive was still working, so I can't make that comparison.

I hope you can help me. I'd be very sorry if I had to give up on playing the DVDs I now have. My VHS/DVD player-recorder used to be just fine, but my cable company set it back up wrong when they installed a new cable box, and now they want $50 even to look at it, so for now (until I find some company, say, the manufacturer of the player, that can tell me how to set it back up) the only way I can play and burn movies is with my computer.

Thanks,

jenny

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 21, 2014 11:56 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 26, 2014 8:20 AM in response to jennywren1420

I have discovered, no thanks to Samsung techs, what the problem is, and it might be revealing for others, as well. It seems that DVD Player, which is the app Apple provides in OS x for (naturally) playing videos, doesn't work with external drives if the computer has an internal drive – even when, as in my case, the internal drive is dead.

I have learned, however, of the existence of a couple of alternative, free applications that run video and audio disks with external optical drives, and one of them, at least (VLC), seems to be widely acclaimed. Does anyone know whether bypassing DVD Player could be a bad idea? There were some gripes from one or two reviewers about awkwardness with playing audio DVDs with iTunes, but I'm not sure what they meant when they said that you have to click on individual items in a selection. Would that mean, for example, having to click on each movement of a Mozart trio? That I couldn't play an entire album's contents of another kind of music without clicking on each song?

Getting the internal optical drive replaced would be prohibitive, even if the parts could be obtained, so I guess I'm stuck trying to deal with the external drive I have and finding the best replacement for DVD Player that I can find. The interesting thing is that the drive works beautifully with a MacBook Air I tried it with, so I guess that is because the Air doesn't have an internal drive?

Wouldn't you think that Samsung techs would know all this? The one I spoke to told me to make sure that my system preference for CDs and DVDs was set to open automatically with DVD Player and sent me all kinds of FAQs, plus a way to get an RMA number for a return. Not a word about difficulties with Macs having an existing internal drive. And all after spending a very long time talking with me about what was going on, what the error message was, and so on. I guess the message hasn't gotten to them.

I hope this information will be helpful to someone.

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