I am just wondering if there is a really easy way to start watching dvd movies in Slack 9.1 I have installed the drive and made a link from the /dev/?? to /dev/dvd and put it in my fstab. I can now mount it and use it to look at the contents of a dvd.

I noticed that I am using scsi emmulation for my dvd, as well as my cd writer.... does this make any difference to watching dvds???

When I load up Xine and try to load a dvd there are lots of individual files I tried to load them but I either get the message No demuxer available or maby you dont have rights to this device.

I have been looking around at other posts but there doesn´t seem to be much specifically for slack on this.

Correct me if I am wrong!

But either way any help/helpful links would be wicked.

Thanks
Adam

For watching DVDs it's a good idea not to have ide-scsi emulation enabled for that drive. You'll need to remove 'append hdb=ide-scsi' from /etc/lilo.conf where hdb is your DVD-ROM drive. Then run 'lilo -v' as root and reboot. As for watching a DVD with Xine, post the error message your getting. So far it sounds like you might need to change some permissions.

First of, in your fstab, did you put in the correct entry for your DVD drive? Better still, why don't you post your fstab here.

In Xine, have you configured your DVD device to point to your DVD drive? Right-click Xine and select Preferences. And just so you don't miss out anything, make sure you select the highest level of details. I can't check it out now coz I'm at work.

And another thing, you don't need to mount a DVD in order to view it. Just play it with Xine.

I have the same problem:

(1st error)
- xine engine error -
Input plugin failed to open mrl 'dvd:/'

(2nd error)
The source can't be read
Maybe you don't have enough rights for this, or source dosen't contain data
(eg: no disk in drive). (/dev/cdrom)

Hey Nis, thats for your reply... why is it bad to have scsi emmulation for the dvd? Just wondering, also I was trying to play the dvd as root so I don´t think its really a rights issue...



Azmeen here is my fstab

/dev/hda8 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda7 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda6 /mnt/red ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat noauto,users,rw,exec,unmask=000 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/backups vfat noauto,users,rw,exec,unmask=000 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/dvd is a -----------> to sr1 (as its current scsi emmulated)

I had look at in xine and dvd is setup for /dev/dvd .... btw if I dont mount the dvd before I load up xine it doesnt show me the contents of the dvd in xine...

Any other info you need... just ask!

Thanks for the helpl
Adam

I could not get any of my dvd's to play on Slack until I installed libdvdcss and libdvdread both of which are located here.

Thanks Projekt2 I have downloaded them and will give it a go installing them tonight!

Adam

mplayer

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/dload.html

it owns me.

Your fstab seems just about right in structure... However, some things that are incorrect:
unmask is actually supposed to be umask

And I'd recommend you replace owner with users for yoru DVD, CD and floppy drives so that normal users can use them.

And get those DVD libs as suggested by Projekt2... they're definitely needed for DVD playback.

You no longer need libdvdread to watch DVD's from Xine because it is built into Xine, but you still need libdvdcss to watch encrypted DVD's. Also you should not mount your DVD if you want to watch it from Xine. After you start Xine, just press the button on the interface labeled DVD.

You will still be able to watch DVD's if you are using ide-scsi on your DVD drive as long as you have the correct device links and pointers. However, the performance will not be quite as good as it would be using the ide-cdrom driver.

Thanks Azmeen I will make those chanages... should make things a big simpler although I have just been trying as root to get it working!!

Still havent!


Thanks Rodrin that should save me trying to install everythink I can possibly find in Internet in the hope that it works!!


I am off to find a copy of libdvdcss with some nice instructions on how your supposed to install it in Slackware 9.1

Adam

****For anyone else reading this there is an interesting read on the subject here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&artid=28*****

In terms of removing the append=ide-scsi from LILO, it is still in mine. However, I have a DVD/CDRW combo drive. If I remove the line from LILO, would that make my CDRW portion of the drive stop working? I was under the impression that CD burning required SCSI emulation.

Ah, yes - you have the same issue as I do. I have two laptops (Slackware 9.1 and Redhat 9) both of which have DVD and CD-RW combo drives.

Reading the info above (and info from the xine-check program) the ide-scsi interferes with the dvd DMA transfer that xine would otherwise use. The best way to fix this appears to be dual-booting the SAME KERNEL with and without the append= line. On the other hand, my P4-2.2GHz system probably doesn't need the DMA speed boost, where my Slackware-Celeron-1.0GHz system probably does.

I will post back here if it works (in case nobody else wants to deal with the pain).

Is this perhaps a Xine specific issue? I am using Ogle without any problems currently. Then again, my laptop runs at 1.1 Ghz on battery and that may be fast enough to negate any problems using the scsi emulation mode.

I don't think it's a "problem" as much as a recommendation from xine-check. I've used xine without having DMA and using SCSI emulation, and no, I've not had problems either, but from a performance perspective, it could probably be "better". [ that said, I haven't tested either way - and that's one thing that the dual-boot testing will accomplish ].

Anyway, it "works", though I will admit that this solution is a bit of a pain in the ass.

Edit lilo.conf (I don't have Grub on this system) ... basically create a second entry that's identical to the first, except this one has "label=Slack_DVD" and does not have the "append=" line.

log in as root and
~# cd /dev
/dev# ln -sf /dev/hdc dvd
/dev# ls -l dvd cdrom
[...] dvd -> /dev/hdc
[...] cdrom -> /dev/sr0

So, now I've got a dual boot with and without SCSI emulation. xine-check runs without a DMA warning (as it otherwise did), and if I want to record a CD, I reboot. (Again, admittedly, a pain).

Either way, I hope to get some actual benchmarking for the difference on my Celeron-1.0GHz laptop. Then I'll start to look into hardware accel drivers for my cheap video processor.