If yours didn't work, I can't guess why it's broken. At the office with some dozen laptops, W10 and the DVD drive, VLC Player worked fine. As to Apple, many models don't come with the drive today.
Something's amiss, but there is no issue here so I'd let someone else make an attempt to sort it out.
What is the point of putting a DVD player in a laptop that is designed not to work? It purposely doesn't work so you spend $15.00 on a Windows DVD player that also doesn't work. I can't watch movies anymore on my HP laptops no matter what I do. I've tried VLC and God knows what else and nothing works. The DVD always STOPS. I take a lot of road trips with my husband and a DVD player in my laptop is important to me. I'm done. Buying an Apple next time.

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