Hi All,

Recently purchased lite-on 20X dvd/burner LH20-A1P186C. I'm using xine engine / Kaffeine on kde / suse 10.1. After some IDE cabling problems (which can hardly have anything to do with what follows), it seems to have installed fine.

I've only tested playback with a few dvds so far, and hit a problem:

The first dvd (which came as magazine giveaway, I think) plays back fine.

But other dvds fails. These are a couple of movies from a packaged set, store bought (not rented). Kaffeine says:

"The source can't be read.
Maybe you don't have enough rights for this, or source doesn't contain data (e.g: no disc in drive). (Encrypted or faulty DVD)"

I assume, since the other one played, that it can't be "rights" related?

I can only think of three possibilities:

1. It is a region thing - so how do I read and / or modify the DVD region settings. NB: both the failed media and the drive were purchased locally, in australia (i.e. region 4, I think), but I've read that internal dvd drives are often sold with no region setting.

2. Encrypted or faulty dvd? These films play fine in my standalone dvd player, so I assume the dvds cannot be "faulty". I suppose it could be encryption if there was some standard implemented in DVD players that has to be enabled for pc internal drives? But that would be a very common problem, and google should have caught that, and there'd be similar threads here.

3. I'm probably completely missing the point (this feels the most likely).

regards.... andrew.

Hi.

It looks like Kaffeine can't play CSS encrypted discs (like most store-bought discs). Is DeCSS installed?

Dave

I have this problem on Slackware 12.0; I think it is dirty/scratched
DVDs, mostly from Netflix. I've done a few experiments and sometimes
all it takes is to brush off the disc. I could be more systematic
about it if I had a stand-alone DVD player.

Make sure at the minimum you have all the necessary libraries
installed.

Joel

I think ilikejam is right - you need to install libdvdcss to enable DVD decryption
Legal nonsense means that this is not distributed with most distros, but here's a link for you, from google:
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7527984757.html

Thanks,

I went for tredegar's article (good article), and installed libdvdcss2. DVDs now play.

Sorry for wasting your time on what must be a really common problem. I wish the need for all this pty. codecs &c nonsense could somehow be made more explicit, eg having, in every distro's CD1 readme.txt file, a link like tredegar's to tell one where to go to learn (for educational purposes only) about such "legally questionable" steps. I suppose that would destroy western civilisation.

DeCSS was not installed. Am I correct to assume I'll not need it?

Thanks again.

regards.... andrew.

Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM and the American software patent system.

No, you'll not need DeCSS installed. Apologies, I should probably have specified libdvdcss in my post.

Having an explicit MEDIAREADME or somesuch file in the install discs isn't a bad idea. Don't know if linking to a DMCA infringing project is in itself an infringement, though...

Dave

Hi!

I had the same problems when I first tried to watch DVDs under linux.
I guess the best solution is to give mplayer a try. Worth it.
You can download it from http://www.mplayerhq.hu.
I just love this player.

cheers

From Hungary, eh? I wonder where MPlayer's from

The only app I've come across with full DVD navigation is the old-skool xine-ui front end to Xine. I've got a lot of love for MPlayer, but not particularly when it comes to playing DVDs.

Dave

Usually on SuSE it should go fairly smootly.
1. Install Smart package manager.
2. Add and update channals:
3. Use search for Kaffeine, Xine, Divx, Xvid, Win32
4. Install updated packages
5. Grab the latest libdvdcss package from http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/SuSE/ and install it with YaST to play encrypted DVDs

You must be all set by now

Hi SlackerLX,

Thanks for that. Actually, the reason I managed to miss installing the libdvdcss package in the first place was because I originally had no dvd drive in this machine, so set up the multimedia a year ago just to get sound/streaming type content going.

For this, there were a couple of excellent sticky threads by redazz in the suse forum, "entitled How to enable multimedia on suse10.1 / susu10.2". Or something like that.

When I bought the dvd drive I had not expected it to playback at all. When it partially worked, I assumed dvd playback had to be covered by the xine &c install I'd done last year. So, if there was an extra needed to cover (what still seems like a completely redundant) encryption standard for commercial dvds, it would have to be a really common problem.

Because (not knowing whether or not CSS existed or what it might be called) I didn't easily find any discussion of this either here or by google, I concluded it might not be a common problem, so I made the post rather than going on what looked like a fishing expedition.


I'm making this (long) post now because my feeling is that there's a distortion introduced due to the software patenting issues referred to a few posts above, so that searching directly is too much compromised by what the various authors think they can get away with at law?

I've seen a thread at my LUG on an Eric S Raymond argument that these pty. Codecs issues will be the "death" of linux unless the whole community gets behind a standard CD packaged set of licensed binaries which can be SOLD separately. YUK. If that were to happen it'd be a slippery slope to the ultimate perfidy of handing back the desktop to Bill and his ilk, with no prospect of another linux around the corner to save us.

Software patents are more often than not an empty threat, and the legislation has been well and truly perverted to that end. Patents, especially software patents, are handed out like primary school achievement badges, but when tested in court my recollection is that at least 75% are found to be invalid (USA). (or >50% here in Australia). Meanwhile, corporations typically instruct their staff not to check for relevant patents when developing new products, so everyone ends up infringing patents here and there, not the least those folk who ripped off the gui from apple (who ripped it off in the first place from Xerox). Which just proves the obviousness (a patent prerequisite) in so many of them. (As far as I'm concnerned, all of the non-obvious work on audio compression techniques, say, had been done by the 1970s).

There is a pervasive double standard, and this whole nonsense really does work to slow the community down and more broadly to help larger players suppress competition from smaller players. Multimedia is not a one-off, and the game will surely be played over and over again in coming decades. The present linux response seems to be to pass the risk over to someone who isn't worth suing, with the resulting communications problem - How do those who can be sued get the word out without infringing? At the moment, everyone who's new to linux has to figure this out for themselves, and the only real answer I know to that is "forums".

Arguably, this is far too hard for the mass market pc user base to get their heads around. So those incumbents who would control the world's desktop (with frightening prospects for monopoly pricing, privacy, freedom of speech and all that jazz) are still getting away with it today. People understand that installing windows does not give you a useful computer, because you need to install applications. So there should be no in principle obstacle for the masses given they can get the OS and all the appns they'll ever need in one bite, and only have to retrofit a few codecs.

One problem is that we do not feel safe enough to tell them openly and clearly that that is the case. The other is to ensure that the install process is trivial on every distribution - it needs to be a "single key stroke".

Even if those things could be achieved under present conditions, it's still a poor compromise to be routinely undermining the rules (no matter how awful they are). The OPEN community needs to develop a strategic response, with the long term goal to have the legislation fixed, or else establish precedent for some decent loopholes. When the status quo is so demonstrably screwed up, how hard can it be?

The strategic future of linux may well depend on how the community handles this interface with the pty. world.

regards..... andrew.

Andrew!

Every lock has a key,
Every puzzle has an answer,
Every trouble has a solution

Our task as OS community to keeps our ears sharp, eyes open and be always on a crest of the wave as we always are. Because we believe in sharing of knowledge and information.

BTW, Every lock has a key - or lockpick
Cheers

Hi Slacker LX,


Must play with that. On topic as always...

There are several locks that don't have keys. (Think: canals, stuff growing on your head, and rugby union forwards). Others?

And not every trouble has a solution. There are so many examples, Iraq being a vogue case in point, where no one (on any side) feels there's a solution.

But I agree that every puzzle has an answer (by definition).

Actually, at the risk of being relevant, my dearly departed dad (looking at the world we're in) often used to remind me that: There doesn't have to be a happy ending. (i.e. my generation is so used to everything working out that we've forgotten how to fight for what's important).

Just because linux ought to succeed, doesn't mean it will. Since getting on board, what amazes me the most is the chasm between the public's perception of linux and the reality. I feel there's a great deal of complacent reliance on the "better product" aspects of linux and insufficient attention to winning the war in the marketplace.

But I suppose what you had to say was pretty cool!

regards.... andrew.

Don't let me start with that subject. And by the by, it definitely has THE solution. But for that you MUST have OPEN MIND. Just an example for you, my open source friend .

I used to supervise the security network for Japanese Embassy. Me, consul and vise consul were checking the guards stations. And one of the guards wanted to play a smart ass by asking "funny" question. He said: "What if some cat comes along and crawls under the gate?". And vice consul answered with question, just to let that guard think: "What does a cat need? And what do people need? When you answer that you'll know what to do!"

But let's stay on subject!!
I'm happy you solved your DVD problem. For another, If your box has no DVD player and you, let's say, download DVD image from whatever source, you could always create virtual DVD and mount it to play whatever movie you wish!

Hi SlackerLX,

I'd seen your location, so confess I wasn't really aiming for fair.
If I ever want to mount a virtual dvd, I'll have to look that one up.

Good night, and thanx for your help. Well it's good night here anyway.

regards.... andrew.

If you ever need one:

Creating virtual CD/DVD