Why can I play my DVD in Linux but not in Windows?
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Why can I play my DVD in Linux but not in Windows?
Hi,
Don't know if this is the best forum to be asking this, but it's vaguely Linux-related, so maybe someone can help me.
I've got a DVD of Walk The Line - all legal, brand-new, from a reputable store. On Linux it works perfectly, but Windows is unable to play it. Could this be because of some anti-piracy measure they've put on it which only newer software can read?
More details: it works on Totem Player 2.3.2 running under Fedora 9 32-bit. On PowerDVD 5, under WinXP 32-bit, I get the error message "Error Code 80040216: An Object or Name was Not Found".
On a 64-bit machine, also running WinXP, Power DVD 5 gives the same error message as above, and InterVideo WinDVD 5 plays the movie but the colour is very distorted.
Anyone who wants to gloat that Linux "just works" better than windoze - understandable, but I'd prefer to get to the bottom of why that's true!
Don't know if this is the best forum to be asking this, but it's vaguely Linux-related, so maybe someone can help me.
I've got a DVD of Walk The Line - all legal, brand-new, from a reputable store. On Linux it works perfectly, but Windows is unable to play it. Could this be because of some anti-piracy measure they've put on it which only newer software can read?
More details: it works on Totem Player 2.3.2 running under Fedora 9 32-bit. On PowerDVD 5, under WinXP 32-bit, I get the error message "Error Code 80040216: An Object or Name was Not Found".
On a 64-bit machine, also running WinXP, Power DVD 5 gives the same error message as above, and InterVideo WinDVD 5 plays the movie but the colour is very distorted.
Anyone who wants to gloat that Linux "just works" better than windoze - understandable, but I'd prefer to get to the bottom of why that's true!
I think you hit it on the head with "some anti-piracy measure". Microsoft has been in bed with alot of movie makers for a while, to shove their Draconian DRM stuff down peoples throats. Since it is illegal (yes, actually against the law), to play a DVD on Linux, the DVD decoder Linux uses doesn't have the DRM hooks in it. Windows does...of course, the DVD player software makers for Linux give royalties to both Microsoft and the movie makers, which is why they have a 'licensed' player.
Thanks for your reply TB0ne. But then, how has my DVD ended up with DRM that Windows can't handle? It would make much more sense if the situation were reversed. The 64-bit machine I mentioned is less than a year old, so surely it should include any new DRM stuff. Wouldn't surprise me if MS had completely F'ed up the implementation
Try a non proprietary dvd player under windows (VLC Player), and see if that works. Also under windows, try holding down the shift key before it reads the disc, that way it does not 'autorun' so no drm shit can try to load itself into memory. I hate autorun anyways.
The only issue I have with VLC is that even up to now, it closes if you try to skip from chapter to chapter, I would have thought they would have fixed that issue already
VLC works! Thanks for the tip. Disabling autorun doesn't work, but never mind. I'm still not clear why software I've paid for can't read a legally bought disc, but free software has no problem.. one more strike against MS and DRM I guess. Maybe I'll try and make copies of the DVD out of spite :P
VLC works! Thanks for the tip. Disabling autorun doesn't work, but never mind. I'm still not clear why software I've paid for can't read a legally bought disc, but free software has no problem.. one more strike against MS and DRM I guess. Maybe I'll try and make copies of the DVD out of spite :P
If you paid for software, ask their technical support.
Maybe I'll try and make copies of the DVD out of spite :P
Thats what I do anyways. One other interesting thing is that software players such as PowerDVD, WinDVD, and VLC, you can actually skip passed all the stupid copyright warnings and trailers and go directly to the root menu of the dvd, but you can't on set top boxes. So it is interesting that most of the time software players will still check for regional restrictions, but from what I have seen, it ignores PUOs (Prohibited User Operations). Pff!
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One other interesting thing is that software players such as PowerDVD, WinDVD, and VLC, you can actually skip passed all the stupid copyright warnings and trailers and go directly to the root menu of the dvd, but you can't on set top boxes. So it is interesting that most of the time software players will still check for regional restrictions, but from what I have seen, it ignores PUOs (Prohibited User Operations). Pff! 
