Viruses can now infect your computer via DVDs – but viruses aren't the only problem faced by DVD-loving PC fans, as Angus Kidman reports.

Published in The Bulletin, November 13 2001

If you've purchased a new PC in the past year, chances are that it included a DVD drive, allowing you to play DVD movies directly from your PC. If it's a notebook that can be easily plugged into your television, or a PC with a high-definition screen, it's tempting to use this as your main means of watching DVDs. Movie studios have been quick to recognise this trend, and many DVDs include features, such as built-in games or screensavers, that will only work on PCs. However, there's a downside to all this convenience. Last week saw the first reported incident of a computer virus being distributed via a commercial DVD disc.

US consumers who purchased a DVD featuring episodes of cult cartoon series The Powerpuff Girls soon began complaining in online forums that their PCs were being infected with a virus. A month after the DVD hit the market, Warner Bros withdrew it from sale, confirming that a virus known as Funlove was indeed on the disc.

While the DVD in question was only released in the US, fans with "region-free" DVD players from other countries are likely to have ordered it on import. Warner plans to issue virus-free replacement copies. The Funlove virus has been in circulation since 1999, so users with up-to-date antivirus software are unlikely to have been affected.

Viruses aren't the only problem faced by DVD-loving PC fans. Just a day after Microsoft launched Windows XP (which has built-in DVD playback facilities as a key selling point), Disney confirmed that a recently released deluxe DVD edition of its 1937 classic Snow White was unable to be played on computers running either Windows XP or its predecessor, Windows 2000. Instead, the DVD either plays back with garbled audio or displays a message saying that adequate copy protection isn't in place.

The exact cause of the problem isn't known, although Microsoft said the glitch comes because the PC "is unable to read certain data" on the DVD. A software patch to fix the problem also has been made available, though many users have found it easier to use another DVD software package rather than the built-in XP option. Others have gone for the even simpler expedient of reverting to a loungeroom DVD player, which so far doesn't suffer from these kinds of flaws.