hi,
I have a strange problem using my external DVD player (freecom usb2) on a debian (DEMUDI) linux with kernel 2.4.21-rc8. The problem is most DVD's I can't play. Mplayer shows the movie verry crappy (even if I use caching) and vlc doesn't open the stream. My kernel is compiled with the needed usb modules (usbcore,ehci-hcd,usb-storage,scsi emulation) +the freecom usb2-ide bridge driver.
I tested it with 2 kernel's one without the freecom driver and the other with, but same results. If I try to play the movie with my internal DVD than it's no problem (so the libs and other software are configured fine). The movies have been played on the external under windows, no problem. DMESG tells me that the usb port is using the 480Mb/s transfer raid and I can see the device correct with usbview. I tried the hdparm tool to tweak the device a little but it tells me /that the device is not support by hdparm, same with setcd and regionset. Syslog tells me that there are I/O errors while reading sector ....

can someone push me in to the right direction

Thx

could you try measuring the actual transfer rate you are getting (like copy over some large files from a DVD-ROM or something - a CD-ROM may even do if u have no DVD-ROMs).
It could also be that your internal DVD player is using hardware decoding on your graphics card, whereas your external one can't .
I'm no expert on DVDs, but if you try it maybe you will have a better idea of the problem.

did you try using xine to play your dvd's? that is the best video player in my opinion, but getting the right codecs for the xine dvd decoding is tough. say so if you want me to explain.

I just copied over a CD containing one file of 680 Mb it took 2.15 min. dont know if that's a normal transfer rate. If I look at the activety led I can see that the drive is not reading with a constant rate(2 times a minute), that wasn't the case with the cd copy.
It would make sense that the external is not using my video card to decode the dvd, but is it in the hw of the drive ? Can I force it to use the card to encode? I think mplayer with the -vo option but I'm not sure. Well I'm going to dig my self in to some man pages and give xine a try.

Thx 4 the help

Does anyone know how to determine wich encoding is used on a dvd ?

Thx

well, if your cd copied over in 2 minutes I think we can safely assume the drive's ok: my internal CD drive takes 6 minutes to do that.
as for the encoding on the disc, I'm not sure how with a computer, but most dvd players (i.e. hook-up-to-TV type) will be able to tell you (i think - mine does anyway)

Well I spended the whole day trying to get the device properly working and I think I can conclude that the drive starts acting strange at the moment I use a encrypted dvd. Even vob copy has problems copying the file and I ended up with I/O errors. So I deceided to take the drive apart (the freecom external dvd looked like a full size dvd player) and like I thought it was just a regular lg ide dvd drive. So I switched the drive (the internal is now mounted in the freecom casing). And the new internal dvd drive is working without any problem. My external has stil the same problem. So I think it's safe to asume that the problem resides in the kernel freecom usb2-ide driver. Think I'm going to use the casing to mount a large ide hd in to it :-).
If I can give anyone good advice: Don't buy a Freecom external device. The drive itself is expensive + you need to buy an additional data cable (90euro) and it doesn't work well under linux at the moment.

If anyone succeeded in getting a external freecom dvd working without any problem let me know. I deceided to give it up untill I know how to develop device drivers, and that can take 4 ages :-).

Anyway Thx 4 the help

Cheers