I tried to play a dvd in vlc today and it would not play - had some error - and too long to write out the message so wondering how to get it to work or how to get correct codecs or whatever the issue is?

You should know better! Could you ever play DVDs? What did the error refer to, specifically? Is this only for some DVDs?

look - you don't have to be nasty. why should i know? I never tried it before. I figured vlc was a media player. i use it on a live feed music site only. the dvd's played on my old macs years ago so i know they work. for you information - i do not watch dvd's generally but i have a couple of stuff of an old english tv series and also about viticulture a friend of mine made. my dvd player blew out when we had a major transformer blow in out area a month or two ago. everything else was fine but the dvd player pooped out. since i have x series tp's i used my wife's dell linux machine. so that is why i tried it. smp did not work either and another i did not remember. so i posted here. if vlc can't do such things then ok - now i know JC don't be a freakin jerk. if i knew i never would have asked. thanks for your extremely diligent help.

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I type that you should know better because you ahve been a member of this site for a few months yet your question contains nothing which could help somebody help you.
You even have reputation points, so you know what you're doing, yet you give no help to anyone trying to help you.

Missing “libdvdcss”, perhaps?
Most silver DVD videos are ‘content-scrambled’, and need to be ‘descrambled’ when you play them.

However, given that the scrambling and descrambling keys and algorithms are supposed to be “military-grade state-guarded secrets” (so to speak), nobody but the privileged insiders should be allowed to find out exactly how they work. (For more info, see “DeCSS - Wikipedia”.)

Having said that, ever since the content-scrambling scheme was defeated, the “industry” has been trying to introduce more and more tricky content-protection techniques to their most “valuable” DVD releases. Consequently, some DVDs may be particularly hard to successfully play on Linux, or, by extension, on anything but official DVD players.

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Thanks luvr. i looked at vlc wikipedia page and it does seem to say it should be able to play dvd formats. go figure. eh?

I recall having problems getting VLC to work some months ago. However, to the best of my recollection, the following sequence of Terminology commands got it fixed and working:

sudo apt install vlc
sudo apt install libdvd-pkg
sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Best of luck with them.

Well, actually, that’s not actually a complete lie, since (without help from ‘libdvdcss’) VLC does play unscrambled (copies of ) video DVDs on Linux.

Wow, just wow!
If you had taken the time to either read more or actually provide more information in your posts you could have learned something or, at least, been able to watch DVDs.

how do you install it is that is needed and unistall if it messes stuff up?

man i hate to mess with this for the lousy dvd's. just not worth it. better to get a cheapo dvd player....

thanks again my friend

Stuff can generally be installed with: sudo apt get xxxxxx

And removed with: sudo apt remove xxxxxx

More information on apt options available with: apt help (no need for sudo on this command)

As with everything else in life, sometimes you have to know when to give up, but it can also be a useful learning experience to persevere. I would recommend persevering to get VLC working. If it's any encouragement, I was able to it playing DVDs some months back using the sequence of commands I gave in an earlier answer on this thread.

I'm also encouraged (or not) by a comment from a YouTube video which said that when playing with Linux, you have to be prepared to risk Borking (damaging beyond repair) your system. That's quite liberating! Remember that there's nothing that can't be fixed with a re-install!

273 why are you being such an a$$hole to me. not worth my time dealing with you. troll

thanks bob.

You're most welcome. Let me know how it works out.

found this

https://itsfoss.com/play-dvd-ubuntu-1310/


there were a number of issues and i had to try it 4x but it seemed to work.

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