I bought There Will Be BLood (TWBB) 2-disc collectors edition DVD yesterday and I'm having trouble playing it on my linux machines. It worked fine on Vista on some HP laptop with HP's quickplay and VLC, but it won't play on xine nor VLC on my linux boxes. Other DVDs of mine play just fine... which means I have the necessary software (libdvdread, etc.) for those to play correctly.

If I put TWBB in, xine immediately says it doesn't have rights to open up the dvd. The text output at console says libdvdread can't seek to block or something like that.

I tried it on another of my computers and the discs couldn't play on XP with VLC or linux with xine.

Funny thing is the special features disc gets to the menus and I can play the story of petroleum, but not the trailer or teaser.

Is this a more powerfully encrypted DVD? or just a dirty lens/disc?

I think libdvdread allows programs to navigate menus and so on, but doesn't provide the functionality required to decrypt DRM'd DVDs. You should also install libdvdcss. Disclaimer: this software might not be legal in all jurisdictions. For this reason it is often not found in distribution repositories.

You might need to install the GNU C Compiler and build it from source if you can't find a package for your distro. The source is available from the link I provided.

Thanks, but Leon the Professional and Ronin both play fine already on my box. And they are both are proper DVDs I bought at legit stores, so I have the necessary software installed. It's just TWBB that I have trouble with.

Do you have libdvdread installed already then? I think some DVDs are region free - even legitimate ones, in which case you won't need it to play them. There are also some alternatives to libdvdread, but they may play only some regions. libdvdread is region independent.

Of course, it might be a codec thing...

Hmm... interesting bit on libdvdread.

I think libdvdread is compiled into the xine I have installed on my computer (Slackware 12's xine). The only extra thing I had to install was libdvdcss of course.

I only mention libdvdread because that's what's mentioned on the terminal when I have a problem.

something like that. But I guess it could be a problem with something else but libdvdread is the one that reports the error.

I just don't know if TWBB is more powerfully encoded that it's out of spec? or if TWBB is just a bad disc? Or perhaps I have a bad drive.

Anyone have the DVD and have problems playing it?

I read somewhere else in this forum that a particular set of Cowboy Bebop was mastered wrong so maybe this is one of those.