Hi all --after nearly a week of DVD frustration the problems turned out to be incompatabilities between XINE and my Panasonic (Matshita) UJB 845-s (and possibly other Dual Layer writeable drives) --(it works on Windows however).

So we can also rule out problems with the Graphics cards

I tried my old Pioneer drive (the one that came with the laptop) and that worked fine.

I tried an External USB IOMEGA DVD writer (also with DVD-RAM support) and that worked fine so the DVD-RAM support isn't causing a problem..

DVD playing worked fine on a Server where I've got 4 DVD writers (2 X SONY DRU, 2X LG).

So although I can't prove it evidence shows from the hardware I've tried that out of 7 devices the only one that didn't work was a device with Dual Layer write capability.

I'd be greatful for any others using Dual Layer WRITE capability --esepcially LAPTOP users to post

1) SUSE release
2) Device.
3) Whether DVD playing works or not.

(Note Panasonic stuff is often especially for OEM brands marketed under the MATSHITA name).

As of now I'm 100% convinced it's the XINE I/O routines are screwing up when using Dual Layer Writeable Drives. Libdvdcss doesn't report any problems.

So PLEASE POST (only for Dual Layer WRITE capable drives)

To avoid confusion -- I am not talking about problems with actual Dual Layer DVD's themselves but the DEVICE --pretty well all DVD ROM's etc are capable of reading modern dual layer DVD Movies.

So if you have a Dual Layer DVD WRITER that XINE won't work with then that's what I want to see.

Cheers

-K

Hello 1kyle,

I am running SUSE 10.0 RC1 now and I can play DVDs on my NEC DVD RW ND-3520AW without problems.

regards

-B

Kyle,

I have a Panasonic UJ-845S (recognized as a Matshita, of course, by my Mandriva LE 2005).

I have noticed that libdvdcss cannot decrypt DVDs.

This is surprising, as you've mentioned that libdvdcss worked for you. Can you confirm this?

Looks to me like either there is some nasty bug in libdvdread/libdvdcss or a dvd writer firmware upgrade is needed.

Cheers,

Albert.

Kyle,

As I wrote, I had a similar problem although not using Suse, with libdvdcss unable to extract keys with my Panasonic UJ 845.

It appears that the drive had never had its region set. I used regionset (http://linvdr.org/projects/regionset/) and set the drive to region 2 (my region). Now libdvdcss does not complain, and Xine seems to work.

So I would suggest you check whether your drive has had its region set, and if not, set it to whatever you prefer and retry reading DVDs with Xine.

Hi I have a iomega usb dvd writer and am struggling to get it working. Just wondered what drive you have and how did you get it working?

Thanks