In case you find yourself in the pickle of needing to play DVDs, but you don’t have a disc drive, USB DVD players work when connected to a Steam Deck.
I messed up at multiple points in my life if I’m relying on a Steam Deck to help me play DVDs. But that’s where I’m at, having gotten rid of practically every device I owned over the past few years that could play discs.
The Steam Deck cannot play DVDs by itself, so to revisit our collection of discs, I had the idea (one that I’m far from the first to try) to connect a no frills, USB-powered DVD drive to the Deck’s TV dock, then run the discs with the VLC media player app. I’m equal parts proud and embarrassed by this hacky setup. You don’t need to feel bad for me!
This method, as you might have assumed, is about as far from an elegant user experience as it gets, especially if you’re trying to implant it into an entertainment center. Actually using it without tearing your hair out involves either using a mouse connected to your Steam Deck, or painstakingly remapping VLC’s mouse and keyboard commands to a controller.
