OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Watching Videos with DVD Player

iTunes can't play video DVDs as it can music CDs. But DVD Player can play DVDs. If you insert a DVD into your Mac, DVD Player automatically begins playing it full screen. Press Esc to get to the menu bar and other controls. (You can set DVD Player to not play a DVD automatically by deselecting Start Playing Disc in the Preferences dialog box: Choose DVD Player⇒Preferences or press +, [comma].)

In full-screen mode, a set of playback controls appears near the bottom of the screen when you move the pointer or press a key. There are controls such as Rewind, Forward, Play, Pause, and Stop, plus volume settings, DVD menu navigation, chapter navigation, slow-motion playback, frame-stepping, viewing angle (for DVDs that provide that option), and subtitles/closed captioning). You also can see a scrollable list of chapters if you move the mouse to the top of the screen.

When you're not in full-screen mode, a playback control panel appears with similar controls as the full-screen view's onscreen controls. That panel looks like the kind of remote control that comes with your physical DVD player, as shown in Figure 15.6.

The Control, Features, and Go menus in DVD Player's menu bar also give you access to these capabilities. Plus, the menu bar offers some capabilities not available in the onscreen or panel controls. For example, you can choose Features⇒Enable Parental ...