I have been trying to install some DVD software, I found some simple sounding instructions at http://www.linux-sxs.org/multimedia/dvdplay.html

I had some trouble and I got this message:
configure: error: conditional "HAVE_XV" was never defined.
Usually this means the macro was only invoked conditionally.

I also found some supplemental information here in this forum that said I would need xorg-x11 and upon attempting that install it gives me these messages:
error: Failed dependencies:
fontconfig-devel >= 2.1 is needed by xorg-x11-devel-6.8.1.903-2
xorg-x11-libs = 6.8.1.903-2 is needed by xorg-x11-devel-6.8.1.903-2
xorg-x11 < 6.8.0 conflicts with xorg-x11-devel-6.8.1.903-2
I downloaded the fontconfig rpm and attempted to install it and I still receive that same error message. What do I do?

Why did you reply with this website about some Linux Award? It has nothing to do with the question that I seriously need help with

If you actually read the website that you were given, it is about a piece of software called Mplayer which is a DVD and movie player.

Next time, try reading a little beyond the first sentence on a web page eh?

HINT: look at the menu bar on the left, there is a button called "DOWNLOAD".

I apologize. I did read it and it does seem better than the one that I was attempting to install before. However, I got this error message at the end:
Playing dvd://1.
libdvdread: Could not open device with libdvdcss.
libdvdread: Can't open /dev/hdd for reading
Couldn't open DVD device: /dev/hdd

Can you tell me what I may have done wrong?

Did you install libdvdcss so that you can play encrypted DVD's. Also is /dev/hdd the right DVD device?

I installed the libdvdcss when I was trying to install xine. Do I need to move it to the Mplayer directory? How do I check my configuration of the /dev/hdd?

did you install mplayer and libdvdcss both with ./configure --prefix=/usr. You can also have a gui with mplayer by --enable-gui configure option. It helps alot when you read the readme and install files when you install.

The devices are listed in /etc/fstab. I just realised you are using Fedora Core, in the future you can save yourself time by installing packages for Fedora using yum or apt and a good repository is freshrpms and another is fedora.us. APT and YUM automatically resolve dependencies, so installing a package would be as simple as doing,
$apt-get install mplayer
or
$yum install mplayer

I tried the command:
yum install mplayer
and it couldn't find anything to install
Do I have to download a different file first?

you need to add extra repositories in your /etc/yum.conf. Take a look at this page for instructions on how to do this. You can also search on google for repositories. The good ones in my opinion are freshrpms and dag.

I am still getting this error message:
Playing dvd://1.
libdvdread: Could not open device with libdvdcss.
libdvdread: Can't open /dev/hdd for reading
Couldn't open DVD device: /dev/hdd

If you open the file /etc/fstab and paste the output here, it may help us in helping you.

Type this in the terminal to see if it makes a difference

ln -s /dev/hdd /dev/dvd

im not sure hdd is your dvd drive you'll have to supply that right dev entry.

I never did get this to work.
I actually never got any DVD player to work on my Fedora2 system.