Because some staff need to play DVDs in their classes, we have a few external DVD drives available for checkout.  They are "plug and play" on MacBooks as long as you use a USB-A to USB-C dongle.  In some cases you may need to power the dongle with your charger.  


Physical Setup

  1. Connect the DVD Player and Power to the Dongle.
  2. Connect the Dongle to the USB-C port on your computer



USB Power Error

Depending on the USB-C dongle, you may get an alert that the USB accessory needs power:

If this happens, please open a help ticket and we will get you a different dongle.


Grey Screen Error

For some DVDs, the MacOS DVD Player application will only show a grey screen and not play.  This seems to happen on homemade DVDs.  To play it please open the VLC application:


And open it with File -> Open Disk...

You should now be able to play your DVD.