mojave dvd player won't open dvdmedia files ......boo!!!

.dvdmedia files are not the proper format that DVD players would typically read. Proper DVD file structure consists of AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders with .ifo,.bup and .vop files inside.

.dvdmedia files are usually created by DVD rippers so that's why there would be compatibility issues. Apple's Quicktime and stock apps are limited to playback specific formats and nothing else. To save space and get similar results, it is better to rip them to x264 or MPEG4. You will get small files around 700MB-1.4GB with nearly the same quality as a 4.7GB DVD.

However, VLC Player, is able to play any and all video and audio codecs available and will play 99% of the stuff you throw at it. It is open source free software and I think it is essential on any Mac. On Windows computers, you can install codec packs system wide that allow you to play every file type in the stock Windows Media Player or any other similar players on your machine. Apple does not allow codecs to be installed like this neither on macOS nor iOS. Everything is contained inside each .app package.

> .dvdmedia files are not the proper format that DVD players would typically read.

The OP isn't asking about burning a DVD to play in a standalone DVD player like you would get at Best Buy. Ever since at least Mac OS X 10.6, you could have a folder, eg. "MyMovie", that contains a VIDEO_TS folder, and then rename that folder "MyMovie.dvdmedia", and macOS/OS X would treat it as a bundle. If you double click on it, it will launch the built-in DVD player app. That functionality is gone in Mojave. I guess when they re-wrote the DVD player as a 64-bit app, they left out that feature.

> To save space and get similar results, it is better to rip them to x264 or MPEG4.

> You will get small files around 700MB-1.4GB with nearly the same quality as a 4.7GB DVD.

Space is cheap. Space is not a concern. Leaving them as .dvdmedia files lets you access ALL of the features on the DVD, including subtitles, foreign language audio, and video other than the main movie.

Install VLC Planer (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

Start VLC

Select File -> Open File

Click Browse to find your .dvdmedia file, select it, click Open, click Open again

Should start right up with DVD menus and everything.

Hope that helps!

Yes you can play them!

In the Dock click on the dvd player icon.

A viewer window appears.

Now in the menubar click on 'file' > 'open DVD media' .

Than look for your .dvdmedia file.

You will see an VIDEO_TS in this file.

Select this. Than click 'Open' in the right corner below.

There you go!!

You must not be running Mojave - that's how DVD Player did work in every previous version of macOS/Mac OS X.

I couldn't do it unless I changed .dvdmedia file into a folder. This is trivial but a pain if you have hundreds of DVDs (my entire PAL collection):

In Finder on .dvdmedia file right click, Show Package Contents and copy the VIDEO_TS folder into a new Folder with the same name that your VIDEO_TS file had. (Keeping the same name isn't necessary but lessens possible confusion.) Then delete the .dvdmedia file which has lost all its content. Your new Folder will play fine in DVD Player

Original DVD's (in my case region 2) have no problem with the new DVDplayer. But movies/slideshows I created myself with iDVD and FotoMagico, which I gave the extension .dvdmedia won't play as before. You have to open them with the menu bar as I described.

Not sure why you would give them that extension rather than running through the encoding with iDVD (which will result in a playable and burnable media file). Having said that, once they've been encoded and burned to a DVD, you do need to run them through a converter - I've always had to (and my go-to app was/is MPEG Streamclip).

Are you trying to play a video DVD disk in your optical drive? What kind of files are they?

I'm able to play commercial, home created and disk image video DVDs with Mojave.

What app created those files?

Are these movies you created or commercial movies which you copied or downloaded? If it is the latter, then there are the DRM/copyright issues which we are not allowed to discuss here.