What hardware do you need to open and watch videos on your computer?

Generally, when you buy a computer, it should come with the hardware inside to watch videos. What you are missing if your having any problems is probably the software. To watch any videos online your going to have to have adobe flash player, which you can download online for free, just google it. If it is a video that is not online, but from other type of source, you are going to need Windows Media Player. However, Windows media player does not play all video file types. I would suggest downloading realplayer off of the internet. It has played all video files that I have ever used, plus it seems to work better anyway. If you are trying to watch videos off a CD or DVD, then yes you do need some hardware. A DVD-ROM drive is what you need, and if you have a laptop or netbook without a built in DVD-ROM drive then you will have to buy an external DVD-ROM.