Playing DAT Files with Windows Media Player

This section describes a tutorial on how to play DAT files directly with Windows Media Player.

The real audio and video items are stored as DAT files in the MPEGAV directory on the VCD. You can actually copy a DAT file from a VCD and store it on your computer hard disk, and play it later. Here is what I did to save a DAT file and play it directly with Windows Media Player.

1. Insert my VCD into the CD drive.

2. Copy D:\MPEGAV\MUSIC03.DAT to C:\temp\MUSIC03.DAT.

3. Start Windows Media Player. Click menu File > Open and select C:\temp\MUSIC03.DAT. This audio and video item plays.

4. Click menu View > Skin Mode. You will see the audio and video item played in a very nice looking smaller window.

Windows Media Player Skin Mode
Windows Media Player Skin Mode

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Format

 Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Players

 Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Rip Music

 WAV Audio File Format

 MP3, MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, Encoding Format

 Burning MP3 Music to Audio CD

 Windows Sound Recorder

 ISO 9660 Standard for Data CD

 Recording Data on CD

VCD (Video CD) Standard

 What Is VCD?

 Movie VCD File Directory Structure

 File Directory Structure on an Example Movie VCD

 Playing Movie VCD with Windows Media Player

Playing DAT Files with Windows Media Player

 DVD (Digital Video Disc) Standard Format

 TOC (Table Of Contents) on CDs

 IsoBuster - A Nice CD GUI Tool

 MPlayer - The Movie Player

 vStrip - Rip and Manipulate DVD VOB Files

 mpgtx - Manipulating MPEG Files

 CD/DVD - File Name Extension and Format Types

 References

 Full Version in PDF/ePUB