Playing DVDs on My Laptop

Yesterday, I stayed inside my apartment all day long. I didn’t get any studying done, but that’s okay with me.

After months if not years of hesitation, I finally installed the VLC Media Player on my MacBook. The purpose of this installation is to make the DVD drive on my laptop compatible with multiple region codes. It used to be that I could only watch DVDs of one region code on my laptop due to copyright restrictions, despite my extensive library of DVDs originating from different regions.

I Googled the info, found the software, watched a few introductory videos on YouTube, and finally downloaded it on my computer. Initially, I was a bit concerned that this software could be harmful to my computer, but it seems to be running just fine.

I’ve developed my DVD collection mainly since I migrated to Singapore 21 years ago. I’ve bought them primarily for the purpose of learning foreign languages, including English, French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, and Cantonese, but I own a few discs in Japanese, too.

I could play DVDs on my existing DVD player hooked to my TV, but I wouldn’t be able to listen to the audio with my earphones, because neither my TV nor my DVD player has an earphone socket. Now that I can play them on my MacBook without worrying about region codes, and listen to the audio much more clearly with earphones or wireless earbuds, I’m ready to watch them in earnest for much more effective language learning.

Granted, we are living in the age of streaming services, so it might sound a bit anachronistic that I’ve gone to all this trouble just to be able to watch DVDs. But that’s not entirely the point. Firstly, I really don’t want my entire DVD collection to go to waste, just because I have Netflix. Secondly, there are numerous movies I possess on DVD that are not yet available on streaming platforms. I believe that streaming and DVDs can complement each other as alternative sources of entertainment, and I will continue watching Netflix and DVDs as the fancy takes me.