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04-21-2004, 12:24 PM
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#1
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Slackware 9.1
Posts: 24
Rep:
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Does Xine play DVDs?
4 questions so I know whether to bother trying to fix it, there's enough to do to get this system working.
1. Has anybody ever played a DVD with Xine?
2. Has anybody played a DVD with Xine on slackware 9.1?
3. Has anybody in Europe played a European DVD with Xine?
i.e. legitimate playing of the right DVD in the right area
4. Has anybody in Europe played a European DVD with Xine, on Slackware 9.1?
That should at least stop me wasting my time. It has the feel of very dodgy software.
I have a dual boot PC, and DVD's play fine on Windows XP.
Symptoms:
Xine crashes on most DVD's at launch.
For a BBC DVD I have, it will play the intro (copyright notice and BBC logo + tune) then crashes. Mostly no error message. Often it hangs in a crashed state, once it hung KDE and I had no way out other than to reboot. Once it said it couldn't read the DVD (except it had just played me the opening 30 seconds). These symptoms are the same in both Gnome and KDE.
At no point do I ever get to see a DVD menu.
When started in KDE there's a startup panel that sits in the middle of the screen for about 45 secs, then eventually disappears.
It plays audio CD's fine.
Xine-check seems to give sensible output.
There's nothing obvious to set in config.
The faq talks about libdvdcss, which I can't find on my system, but I think it's only for people who want to play out-of-area DVD's, which I don't.
Not sure about my version:
- It's available both within KDE and Gnome. In Gnome it's called gxine, which has v0.3.3, but that's just some kind of front end to Xine.
- In KDE it has a control panel that says xine-ui version 0.9.22, but that's just another front end
- The docs and stuff are all in directories called 1rc0a, maybe that's the engine version.
Anyway, Slackware 9.1 is not old, and I downloaded it a week ago, so it must be a fairly recent version.
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04-21-2004, 12:28 PM
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#2
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LQ Guru
Registered: Jan 2001
Posts: 24,149
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Re: Does Xine play DVDs?
Quote:
Originally posted by chasn
4 questions so I know whether to bother trying to fix it, there's enough to do to get this system working.
1. Has anybody ever played a DVD with Xine?
2. Has anybody played a DVD with Xine on slackware 9.1?
3. Has anybody in Europe played a European DVD with Xine?
i.e. legitimate playing of the right DVD in the right area
4. Has anybody in Europe played a European DVD with Xine, on Slackware 9.1?
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1. Yes.
2. Yes
3. No, not in Europe.
4. Same as Question 3.
I don't like Xine. I have better playback using mplayer on Slackware to tell you the truth.
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04-21-2004, 12:29 PM
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#3
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Senior Member
Registered: Nov 2002
Location: Birmingham UK
Distribution: Various
Posts: 1,736
Rep: 
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xine needs libdvdcss to be installed in order to play dvd's
I'm fairly sure that regional limitations don't apply to dvd's under Linux
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04-21-2004, 12:46 PM
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#4
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Slackware 9.1
Posts: 24
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally posted by salparadise
xine needs libdvdcss to be installed in order to play dvd's
I'm fairly sure that regional limitations don't apply to dvd's under Linux
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This is what the FAQ says:
"To be able to play back encrypted dvds you need to have libdvdcss installed on your system (please check if this is legal where you live)."
And a little later:
"Some versions of libdvdcss can play back DVDs from other regions than the RPC-2 DVD drive is set up for, but this usually means a cryptographic attack (which takes time) has to be used to access the DVD."
I take this to mean that it's for people who want to cheat the system (not that it's a system I approve of, but there you go, the law's the law, and we voted the guys in that made it).
All I want to do is play legitimate DVD's for my player in my zone.
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04-21-2004, 12:55 PM
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#5
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Member
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Paris, France
Distribution: Arch x86_64
Posts: 221
Rep:
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I live in europe, i watch DVD (zone 2) with Xine using libdvdcss.
Well, im not on slackware but i suppose it's all the same.
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04-21-2004, 12:55 PM
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#6
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Senior Member
Registered: Nov 2002
Location: Birmingham UK
Distribution: Various
Posts: 1,736
Rep: 
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you still need libdvdcss
it's not about busting the regional code
it's about there being no legal dvd player for Linux
the japanese consortium that controls dvd's won't allow it
so the players are shipped without the bit of code
libdvdcss
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04-21-2004, 12:59 PM
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#7
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Member
Registered: Nov 2003
Distribution: Ubuntu 7.04
Posts: 241
Rep:
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Most dvds are encrypted and in order to play them back they must be decrypted. Most windows based dvd players do this. I don't think the libdvdcss software is breaking the law, they just want you to take the burden just in case there's some law or the other in your country/region.
If you own the dvd you legally have the right to play it so you wouldn't be breaking the law, as far as I would surmise.
I don't think any consortium has a legal right to hinder the success of another product (linux). I doubt they could do anything to you, or that they would attempt. Even companies such as Microsoft don't go after the individual. Any concortium would be hard pressed to prove you doing anything illegal if you legally bought the DVD.
I am thinking about using a Linux box as a MM computer system. Hardware is cheap and reliable these days and Linux is getting better--still has some major rough spots--but, better it is getting.
Last edited by Jimbo99; 04-21-2004 at 01:05 PM.
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04-21-2004, 01:34 PM
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#8
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Slackware 9.1
Posts: 24
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally posted by salparadise
you still need libdvdcss
it's not about busting the regional code
it's about there being no legal dvd player for Linux
the japanese consortium that controls dvd's won't allow it
so the players are shipped without the bit of code
libdvdcss
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OK, thanks, I didn't understand this. Ho hum, now I have to learn how to install a library - bang goes another couple of days.
Incidentally, you'd think that if that's the cause of my problems. that xine would be able to say something like 'libdvdcss not installed' or at least 'dvd not unencrypted' instead of just crashing in a heap.
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04-21-2004, 01:50 PM
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#9
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LQ Guru
Registered: Jan 2001
Posts: 24,149
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Quote:
Originally posted by chasn
OK, thanks, I didn't understand this. Ho hum, now I have to learn how to install a library - bang goes another couple of days.
Incidentally, you'd think that if that's the cause of my problems. that xine would be able to say something like 'libdvdcss not installed' or at least 'dvd not unencrypted' instead of just crashing in a heap.
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libdvdcss is a cinch in Slackware.. if you can't find the precompiled .tgz for slackware, get the tar.gz source file and its literally as simple as:
./configure
make
su
make install
Probably have to run ldconfig to update the shared libs and if it still can't find it, it was probably placed in /usr/local/lib and you can just create symlinks from /usr/lib to point to /usr/local/lib for the installed lib's, etc.
Cheers.
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04-21-2004, 02:02 PM
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#10
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Senior Member
Registered: Nov 2002
Location: Birmingham UK
Distribution: Various
Posts: 1,736
Rep: 
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the makers of dvd compatible Linux media players have to be careful
there's no point in inviting law suits
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04-21-2004, 02:18 PM
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#11
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Slackware 9.1
Posts: 24
Original Poster
Rep:
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OK, thanks guys - that fixed it.
It didn't take long to find out how to install a library after all - I got a Slackware package of libdvdcss from linuxpackages.net and ran pkgtool.
It went so quick I thought it had failed, but it's very small.
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