On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, John Pettigrew wrote:

If neither Windows nor linux will play the disc through to the end, that suggests to me that either your DVD drive is broken or (more likely) the DVD is defective. Have you ever played DVDs successfully in this computer? If so, are other DVDs still working? If they are, return your new DVD and get a new copy.

I have another DVD with me which I could play well in both the OSes. Shall check with the same again. I must report the kind of error. The DVD starts to play well but after a while, it starts jittery playback and HDD hangs for a while while swapping. After that the jitters turn to pause till the point when ultimately playback stops. Has anyone else on the list experienced this kind of behavious in Linux? Or windows? Seeking in windows/Linux is horribly slow. Plus, I may be leaving for UK [from India] and I plan to take my CPU along with me. Now, shall my DVD drive work in UK? Thanks and regards, Rohit Rohit ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56792108 G9,F-1,Chandivali : SDE : TLSI : 9821394599 AT bplmobile DOT com This mail was sent using Linux. You can safely open any attachments. The note below, if any, is compulsorily added for non-mahindrabt recipients. ********************************************************* Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ********************************************************* Visit us at http://www.mahindrabt.com

On 11/12/2003 08:04 PM, Rohit wrote:

I must report the kind of error. The DVD starts to play well but after a while, it starts jittery playback and HDD hangs for a while while swapping. After that the jitters turn to pause till the point when ultimately playback stops.

It sounds like it gets bogged down with error correction. Do you see any error messages on F10? I pretty sure it is a bad DVD.

Plus, I may be leaving for UK [from India] and I plan to take my CPU along with me. Now, shall my DVD drive work in UK?

In Windows, after you change the region code (only 3 more to go). In Linux, yes. -- Joe & Sesil Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Web Address: http://www.mydestiny.net/~joe_morris Registered Linux user 231871 God said, I AM that I AM. I say, by the grace of God, I am what I am.

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Derek Fountain wrote:

You missed the all important piece of information: what software are you using to play the DVD under Linux?

Thanks for asking a relevant question.. I was playing DVD on Linux using mplayer which is home-built using libdvdnav and libdvdread [not libdvdcss]. The playabck starts, and then becomes jittery, and then pauses intermittently and finally hangs after two minutes of play. mplayer directory in my home directory does have corresponding dvd-keys directory which has entries for my new DVD. Also, when you asked me that a Linux app shall not ask me to set the regiion code for the DVD drive, are you suggesting that it might be better to always use mplayer/Linux to play DVDs? This is the default case with me for watching movies otherwise - but this is just the second DVD of my life and I am having problems regarding probably DRM. Please suggest how I can go about it. Regards, Rohit ********************************************************* Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ********************************************************* Visit us at http://www.mahindrabt.com

I was playing DVD on Linux using mplayer which is home-built using libdvdnav and libdvdread [not libdvdcss]. The playabck starts, and then becomes jittery, and then pauses intermittently and finally hangs after two minutes of play.

The fact it starts playing at all means the data is being processed properly. Your decoding set up is clearly working. The fact the processing stops is most likely because, as others have said, you have a faulty disk. Check the surface of the disk for grease or fingerprints - that can be a cause.

Also, when you asked me that a Linux app shall not ask me to set the regiion code for the DVD drive, are you suggesting that it might be better to always use mplayer/Linux to play DVDs? This is the default case with me for watching movies otherwise - but this is just the second DVD of my life and I am having problems regarding probably DRM.

Yes, I never put a DVD into my Window box these days. If I want to use the movie under Windows for some reason, I rip the disk under Linux then play the decrypted files under Windows. --

eatapple core dump

----- Original Message ----- From: "Derek Fountain" To: "SuSE English" Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 10:21 AM Subject: Re: [SLE] DVD playing problem

...

I bought a Disney DVD of the famous movie Lion King last night but I am unable to play it on my Athlon/SuSE combination. The movie starts fine but starts having problems after 2:49 min/sec of playback. Slowly the movie hangs and there is nothing I can do to play it further. Same happens on Windows where powerDVD does not play it to the end.

You missed the all important piece of information: what software are you using to play the DVD under Linux?

...

The first time I tried to play it in windows, I got a notice - "This movie is regionally restricted and can be played back only in South East Asia or China". I selected SE aisa [being in India] and playback started from my DVD drive - but then it got stuck. Plus it also said something to the sense that I could play it only at 5 devices/locations? What does that mean? How would a DVD know it? Or change itself to know that it has been played at N places?

It means you need to set the region of your DVD drive under Windows (which you did, otherwise it wouldn't have played at all). You can only set it 5 times - the drive stores how many times you've changed region. This is all irrelevant to Linux, since all Linux DVD playing software does the decoding itself, instead of asking the drive firmware to do it.

<snip> This clarifies the mail I wrote earlier. If the DVD is run under Linux, the encoding is ignored. LW999

In a previous message, Rohit wrote:

The sign DisneyDVD or something else, may not work on your computer

A warning for us all - I didn't realise that Disney were being so stupid about standards. John -- John Pettigrew Headstrong Games john@headstrong-games.co.uk Fun : Strategy : Price http://www.headstrong-games.co.uk/ Board games that won't break the bank Knossos: escape the ever-changing labyrinth before the Minotaur catches you!

The Saturday 2003-11-15 at 13:29 +0530, Rohit wrote:

...

A warning for us all - I didn't realise that Disney were being so stupid about standards.

Stupid about standards, but smart about money. It is making their hard-earned DVD money safe from us rippers.

I'm sure somebody will find a workaround. But as I'm not a cracker, I won't know. :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

However, I am a proven idiot. I thought I could watch the movie for free before my wife [who is planning to reach UK this Monday] reaches him with the deliverable.

No, you are not. You simply tried to see a movie in your computer, and it should have worked.

Hmm.. so a lesson for us all. Not to buy CDs/DVDs which do not carry the "Compact Disc", or "VCD <circle>" or "DVD <circle>" mark. These disks are guaranteed not to play on computers, at least not in a normal manner, not through standard methods.

By the way... some music groups/companies use copy protection schemes on their audio CD, usually adding errors to the sound stream that make copy imposible, but that should play "normally" on audio boxes - except that some times the quality is impaired, and some computer readers break down, if my memory is correct.

I have the following with me. P:U:L:S:E , Indian Ocean's KANDISA and now this DVD. None of these carry the standard mark and none of these shall play directly on the computer. In PULSE, they have mangled the FAT, so I have to copy the avseq01.dat to my HDD first and then watch. On this music CD, I have had to rip the WAVs and then convert them to MP3, to be able to hear it without machine hanging for 10 seconds or so, after every minute of play - due to deliberate filesystem errors. And on this DVD, I am just unable to play it to the end. Last night, I tried to use a ripper - and it gave me one hour of movie in a broken MPEG stream, instead of 1.5 hrs. I shall try tonight whether mplayer can play this. Actually it does, but seeking is disabled. Mplayer crashes without notice. I think I shall try to use mencoder, compress data, rebuild indexes and then hope to seek. Funny exercise, and what a waste of time.. This mail is not to encourage rippers, but to intimate unassuming people [like stupid me] not to waste money on non-standard DRM in case all you have got to play these things with, is a computer. -- Rohit ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56792108 G9,F-1,Chandivali : SDE : TLSI : 9821394599 AT bplmobile DOT com This mail was sent using Linux. You can safely open any attachments. The note below, if any, is compulsorily added for non-mahindrabt recipients. ********************************************************* Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ********************************************************* Visit us at http://www.mahindrabt.com