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There are plenty of media players around that support lots of formats, and I'm a big fan of VLC. I currently have version 1.1.0, which I think is still the current version.

The trouble is that I quite often want to watch a DVD that was written by a set-top DVD recorder. These things may be called "Sonata" format, though I was never quite clear what that term means. These disks seem to confuse most media players. The Media Player Classic version included with QuickTime Alternative hangs. VLC thinks a bit, then refuses to play. Quite a few media players crash.

Which is odd, given that set-top DVD burners have been around for quite a while now.

Can anyone suggest a free (preferably open source) media player that can play these disks?

The Windows built-in media player is not an acceptable answer. Even when it's supposedly uninstalled, it still manages to hook into stuff where I don't want it, connect to internet services I've spent ages trying to tell it not to, and other malware-like crap. When you finally get it to stop running every time you double click on a drive in My Computer, the last think you should do is run it for any reason, giving it an excuse to start taking over your system again.

EDIT

On Linux, Kaffeine (the KDE4 media player) seems to handle these disks OK. I'm still looking for a Windows solution, but hopefully this at least means there is no patent issue that prevents open source applications from supporting these DVDs.

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weird never seen a set-top dvd recorder what brand is it? – user33788 Jul 12 '10 at 21:28
I used to have a cheap Medion one. May still have - can't remember whether I packed it up or gave it away. These days, I don't even have (or want) a TV. If I want to watch one of these, it's because someone else gave me a recording. Once I had to deal with one from a DVD camcorder, but ripping them isn't a problem. Watching them without that hassle is the problem. I do have a DVD player with HDMI that connects to my monitor, but thats a hassle too. Can't use the same monitor for two devices at once. – Steve314 Jul 12 '10 at 23:29
If you browse the DVD, what files show up on it? Maybe play the files on the DVD manually using VLC? – Moab Jul 13 '10 at 18:05
@Moab - There's a VIDEO_TS folder and a VIDEO_RM folder. The VIDEO_TS looks like the standard thing from any DVD. The VIDEO_RM contains (on the disk I'm looking at now) VIDEO_RM.BUP, VIDEO_RM.DAT and VIDEO_RM.IFO. VLC can play the .VOB files from VIDEO_TS (except VIDEO_TS.VOB itself which, at 2K, obviously doesn't hold any video). However, the VOB files are split at 1GB boundaries - having to manually restart the player four times in a recording is pretty annoying. – Steve314 Jul 13 '10 at 19:23
I use to use Power DVD (5.0 6.0 era), it could string the vobs together for continuous play, not sure if newer version can still do that or not. I am willing to bet if the ifo, bup and dat files were in the TS folder VLC would play it. – Moab Jul 14 '10 at 0:31
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