I've been working with an HP Pavilion ze4125 laptop for the past few days, trying to get all the hardware working properly. My current problem is the DVD/CDRW drive. CD playing works perfectly, without any special settings. DVD playing does not work at all, not with Xine, Ogle, or mplayer. Clearly, the problem lies in my system's configuration. Any help would be much appreciated.

Muvio,
I could not get xine or mplayer to work properly on my Compaq 2170. However, Ogle works just fine. I followed the instructions on the Ogle home page--http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/. I use SuSE 8.2, but the RedHat rpm's installed just fine. I did enable DMA for the drive to smooth out the playback.
Zane

Here is what the Ogle output looks like:

Using scd0:
[root@ulcer /]# ogle /dev/scd0
libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.8 for DVD access
libdvdread: Could not open /dev/scd0 with libdvdcss.
libdvdread: Can't open /dev/scd0 for reading
ERROR[ogle_nav]: faild to open/read the DVD

...and using hdc:
[root@ulcer /]# ogle /dev/hdc
libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.8 for DVD access
libdvdread: Can't open file VIDEO_TS.IFO.
ERROR[ogle_nav]: faild to read VIDEO_TS.IFO

I think these combi drives are a challenge. Ideally to use the cd burner the drive needs to be set up with scsi emulation and depending on the distro you are using it may have done that.

Once scsi emulation is in place I lost the ability to play back audio CDs even though I reset the /dev/cdrom link to /dev/scd0. My alsa audio still works fine for mp3 and streaming off the internet.

I started a poll in the slackware group a couple of days ago to see if anyone had a single combi drive playing audio cd, dvd and burning CDRW and have not had any takers.

If you have a choice I think I would opt for two separate drives and set the burner up with scsi emulation.

I will watch this thread to see if someone comes up with an answer.

You may need to create some symlinks to your DVD/CDRW. When I installed SuSE it created a link from sr0 to /dev/cdrecorder. I linked that to /dev/dvd and set that device in the preferences for Ogle. You might want to install the oKle GUI for Ogle and look under File-->Preferences.
When you want to play a DVD, go to File-->Open disc to get it started.
Zane

I think I am using SCSI, as cdrecord outputs lots of "scsi" stuff:

[root@ulcer /]# cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 Jrg Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.24
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial libscg transport code version (schily - Red Hat-scsi-linux-sg.c-1.75-RH '@(#)scsi-linux-sg.c 1.75 02/10/21 Copyright 1997 J. Schilling').
scsibus0:
0,0,0 0) 'QSI ' 'DVD/CDRW SBW-161' 'SX09' Removable CD-ROM
0,1,0 1) *
0,2,0 2) *
0,3,0 3) *
0,4,0 4) *
0,5,0 5) *
0,6,0 6) *
0,7,0 7) *

Muvio,
What distro are you using? Linux always sets up cd burners with scsi emulation. I have had no problems accessing my combo drive for data or audio CDs, burning, or DVD's once I set up the links I described in my previous post.
Here are the entries for my DVD/CDRW in /etc/fstab:
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
SuSE sets up the mount points for removable media at /media instead of /mnt.
My drive model is listed as a QSI CD-RW/DVD-ROM SBW-241.
Zane

i also hane not had any problems with my hp running mandrake. i did have problems with dvd until i installed ogle like previous poster said.

An added note: I cannot mount DVDs. (CDs mount fine.) Mount says: "mount: No medium found".

Are you trying to mount a data DVD or a video DVD? As far as I know, video DVD's are like audio CD's--they don't have to be mounted. Data DVD's and data CD's do need to be mounted.

Zane

yeah you dont mount dvd's, just play them wit the media player. make sure you have libdvdcss,and all otehr depencies

The DVD I tried to mount was a data DVD. And I have libdvdcss.

I think I might try upgrading my kernel... it's about time I learned how to compile one.

how is redhat on that hp?i got slack on my ze5170

Red Hat has worked fine, with the exception of this DVD problem.

A quick summary of some new things I've tried: running the 2.6.0-test3 kernel, and Mandrake 9.0. I still get exactly the same problems as before.