mplayer - play dvd's stored on harddisk
 

Hi,

I've just started using debian, and installed a couple of programs including mplayer. The problems is that I don't know how to play dvd's that i've decrypted to the harddisk. I've searched google and this forum for an answed but only found a command like "mplayer dvd://" which tries to play the dvd currently in my dvd-rom.
So does anyone know a command which plays a DVD (VIDEO_TS) folder located on a harddisk?

Regards,
Darn dao

One method is to rip your dvd to an iso image, then mount the image using the loop back device. Then configure mplayer to use /dev/loopx (x>=0) as its input device. This also works for xine player.

You will need a kernel with loop back support compiled in.

Mad.

Oke,

I'm using debian for a couple of day's now, so i'm a bit new to all this. I've checked /dev for loop device with the "ls -l loop*" command. This gave the following result:

loop0
loop1
...
loop7

Are these the loopback devices you'r talking about?

I've checked the mplayer man page for the command which sets the input device. When I enter the command "mplayer --cdrom-device /dev/loopX", mplayer gave me the following error:

Playing /dev/loop3.
File not found: '/dev/loop3'
Failed to open /dev/loop3

Is this because I have not mounted anyting yet?

After some searching I found mkisofs to ceate iso files. What command do I need to use to create an .iso of an VIDEO_TS directory?

Regards,
Darn Dao

Create an empty directory, for this example I'll call it dvd. Move the VIDEO_TS directory and its contents to the dvd folder, then simply run

then mount the image , usually you need to be root for this

The mount point I have used here, /mnt must exist for this to work.

HTH

Mad.

it's all a lot lot lot simpler than this...

sopy whatever you want (preferably VIDEO_TS completely to whereever you want. then just play it:

mplayer -dvd-device /home/chuck_norris/wherever/ dvd://1

simple as that.... just pretend it's a dvd still!

thnx acid_kewpie that did the trick.

madluther, i'm trying your method too, but when I want to make a .iso mkisofs gives me the following error:

mkisofs -dvd-video -v -o /home/username/dvdname.iso /mnt/temp/DVD_NAME/

Scanning /mnt/temp/DVD_NAME/
Scanning /mnt/temp/DVD_NAME/video_ts
mkisofs: Unable to make a DVD-Video image.

I decrypted the dvd using vobcopy and the -m option.

Regards,
Darn Dao

You can play vob files with mplayer. Type "mplayer dvd.vob". It will then play the file. If there are multiple vob files, you will have to make a playlist.

If you want to use loop device with mplayer you will have to use losetup first. You can use mount but it can be too much work finding what loop devices is your image.

Here's a howto that shows how build a compliant iso for dvd video

Mad.

Old thread. But I found this on a google search. And it answered a question I had. I can confirm the above still works on a Ubuntu Karmic install.

However, you don't get to use the DVD menus with the above command. It just plays title 1 (dvd://1). I had to try dvd://4 until I actually found the main title on my DVD files.

I suggest the better option is to use GNOME Mplayer and choose

File-> Disk->Open DVD from folder with menus

This allows you to select a VIDEO_TS folder from the HDD and it plays it like a DVD - with menus.

It took a few years for Mplayer to include DVD navigation ability. The main developer that wrote Mplayer did not want it in for some odd reason. Since he left, DVD navigation slowly got included. To use Mplayer's DVD navigation use dvdnav use the following command.

mplayer -nocache dvdnav://

Of course, if you are using a pre-compiled package of Mplayer, you have to make sure that the maintainer includes it. Also if you are compiling Mplayer your self, you have to include it.

A short hand command to use "mplayer -identify [file]" is "midentify [file]". It comes in handy if you need to know what title is the main movie with out going through the sloppy menu system. Another command to know what title for the DVD is the main movie is lsdvd.

Thanks for the tip. Was exactly what I needed, not what I searched for :)
But the "mplayer -identify [file]" command still plays the file whereas the wrapper shellscript only outputs the info. For my distro (Kubuntu) it was not on the path but under /usr/share/mplayer/midentify.sh