Playing DVDs

[Old-Polack]

o-p .....  are you running KDE3 or KDE4?

If KDE4, without making any further changes to your applications can you play both DVD and Audio CD on BOTH optical drives?

I'm using KDE3, and can play DVD only from the DVD burner, the other optical device is a CDROM. Audio disks will play from either drive. VCDs will only play from the CDROM, with either SMPlayer, MPlayer, or Xine. VLC will allow to change the drive, and media type before choosing play, so plays VCDs from either drive.

[Georgetoon]

Open a terminal and at the prompt enter;

[polack@fatman ~]$ gmplayer -really-quiet dvd://      <Enter>

The movie should play without the MV warning showing. If that works, use the Menu Editor to change the Mplayer Command: entry to include the -really-quiet flag. It should read;

Command: soundwrapper gmplayer -really-quiet %U

Mplayer plays DVDs on whichever optical drive is designated the DVD drive. Unfortunately, there is only one slot for that designation in the Preferences configuration window, so one must choose which physical device that is.

Are you sure that you are choosing Mplayer, and not KMPlayer? Mplayer should not need any GStreamer files to operate correctly, as it has it's own mplayer engine. KMPlayer is a front end for any of the GStreamer, MPlayer, Ice Ape, or Xine, engines.

OP, this worked! Thank you!:)

I have no way of configuring KMPlayer because I'm not running it and I don't see it in the repository. I'm running KDE4. perhaps it's not available for KDE4?

[Was_Just19]

o-p .....  are you running KDE3 or KDE4?

If KDE4, without making any further changes to your applications can you play both DVD and Audio CD on BOTH optical drives?

I'm using KDE3, and can play DVD only from the DVD burner, the other optical device is a CDROM. Audio disks will play from either drive. VCDs will only play from the CDROM, with either SMPlayer, MPlayer, or Xine. VLC will allow to change the drive, and media type before choosing play, so plays VCDs from either drive.

Thanks ......  it was only after moving to KDE4 that I began to experience the problems with two drives and only one working fully at any time.

I am beginning to think it may have something to do with the changes to kio_slaves or such ...

@georgetoon
Kmplayer is not available in the repository for KDE4 that I am aware.

regards.

[Georgetoon]

@ Johnboy. thanks for the KMPlayer info.

@OP. As always, many thanks for all your help!:)

[Georgetoon]

Well, I'm scratching my head this morning.

I booted the system , placed a DVD in drive one and started MPlayer. It wouldn't play. I placed the DVD in drive two and it came up. Same thing for SMPlayer.  


One time it lays in Drive one only, then the next startup it plays only in drive two.
In DragonPlayer, it appears to make no difference.

[Georgetoon]

Update --. Yep, that seems to be it.

Boot up, drop the disk in drive one, start MPlayer. No go.  Pull out DVD, drop in drive two, start MPlayer, it plays.

Then I shut down.

Then...

Boot up, drop the disk in drive two, start MPlayer. No go.  Pull out DVD, drop in drive one, start MPlayer, it plays.

[Old-Polack]

Well, I'mscratchng my head this morning.

I booted the systm , placd a DVD in drive one and started Mplayer. It wouldn't play. I placed the DVD in drive two and it came up. Same thing for SMPlayer. 


One time it lays in Drive one only, then the next startup it plays only in drive two.
In DragonPlayer, it appears to make no difference.

I would guess that this is a direct result of how udev works, and the fact that your drives are SATA. With IDE/ATA each drive is fixed as to it's location and designation by it's connection in the IDE drive chain. With SATA each drive is seen as a SCSI device, and designated by it's order of discovery, at boot time. This will only get worse as the new kernels will see even IDE/ATA drives as SCSI devices, so everything will get a sd(x) or sr(n) designation, and nothing will remain fixed in nature. Each boot is a new adventure.

This is why UUID numbers have replaced /dev/<whatever> designations for partitions. What was, for years, absolutely fixed and reliable, has become random/floating and unreliable.

[GOTHBITES]

Well, I'mscratchng my head this morning.

I booted the systm , placd a DVD in drive one and started Mplayer. It wouldn't play. I placed the DVD in drive two and it came up. Same thing for SMPlayer. 


One time it lays in Drive one only, then the next startup it plays only in drive two.
In DragonPlayer, it appears to make no difference.

I would guess that this is a direct result of how udev works, and the fact that your drives are SATA. With IDE/ATA each drive is fixed as to it's location and designation by it's connection in the IDE drive chain. With SATA each drive is seen as a SCSI device, and designated by it's order of discovery, at boot time. This will only get worse as the new kernels will see even IDE/ATA drives as SCSI devices, so everything will get a sd(x) or sr(n) designation, and nothing will remain fixed in nature. Each boot is a new adventure.

This is why UUID numbers have replaced /dev/<whatever> designations for partitions. What was, for years, absolutely fixed and reliable, has become random/floating and unreliable.

WoW thanks for the heads up After 5 years withe the same reliable system Im making an another one upgrading from 754 to maybe a 939 so Wish me luck lol

[Georgetoon]

Here's the neat thing I found last night.  I dropped a DVD into drive one and it would not play with SMPlayer when I hit the "Play DVD" option.

However, when I went to the File menu, to open a directory.  I simply navigated to the DVD directory, selected it and the movie came right up!  I toggled the D D menu option and it came up.

So, I'm able to play DVDs in either drive with DragonPlayer or SMPlayer.  With DragonPlayer, it's automatic...both drives are found and recognized.  With SMPlayer, I just need to be aware which method is going to work...opening a directory or just having the disc n the drive that's recognized.  Not a big deal.  I'm sure thigns will be refined and updated as PCLinuxOS and KDE4 move forward.

[Georgetoon]

OP, I'll give that solution  try. bt, something happened. I placed a DVD in drive one this afternoon nd it wouldn't play in Drive one.  it played in drive two this time. No matter how I changed the settings, the drive qould not play in drive one. both drives were set to /dev/dvd.  Now, I'm confused.

/dev/dvd is not determined by the video player settings, but by the link in the /dev directory. Only one drive can be linked to dvd. A second drive can be linked to dvd0, dvd1, or dvd2, but not dvd. To see which drive dvd is linked to;

[root@fatman ~]# ls -l /dev |grep dvd          <Enter>
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root   root             3 Jan 30 14:30 dvd -> hdd
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root   root             3 Jan 30 14:30 dvdrw -> hdd

For the cdrom link;

[root@fatman ~]# ls -l /dev |grep cdrom          <Enter>
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root   root             3 Jan 30 14:45 cdrom -> hdc

Some older apps/players are hard wired to /dev/cdrom or /dev/dvd. Others will allow one to designate the actual device, skipping the cdrom or dvd link. In my case, for MPlayer, I can  set the devices as such;



and the player still works exactly as desired.

OP, I revisted thsi thread and opened konsole andenteredthose commands and got the folowing:

l /dev |grep dvd
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root            3 Feb 22 18:23 dvd -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root            3 Feb 22 18:23 dvdrw -> hda
[mark@MARKD ~]$ ls -l /dev |grep cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root            3 Feb 22 18:23 cdrom -> hda

Everything reports as hda.

[Old-Polack]

georgetoon:

While the links may point to the same device, obviously there are two actual devices. Either change the links, or specify the correct device directly, as is shown in the screen shot.

[Georgetoon]

georgetoon:

While the links may point to the same device, obviously there are two actual devices. Either change the links, or specify the correct device directly, as is shown in the screen shot.

I've tried every combination and it doesn't work.  Ironically, regardless of how I link or name the second drive, when I simply point to the directory in SMPLayer, the DVD plays. Not always, some DVDs (like Disney) are temperamental. A bug in KDE4?? or maybe just me.

[Old-Polack]

georgetoon:

While the links may point to the same device, obviously there are two actual devices. Either change the links, or specify the correct device directly, as is shown in the screen shot.

I've tried every combination and it doesn't work.  Ironically, regardless of how I link or name the second drive, when I simply point to the directory in SMPLayer, the DVD plays. Not always, some DVDs (like Disney) are temperamental. A bug in KDE4?? or maybe just me.

I tend to doubt there is any connection with KDE; either 3.5 or 4. The xine and mplayer engined players are totally independent from the DE, with any DE specific apps being just a front end for the underlying third party application.

Hmmm... that leaves... what was the other choice?   

[Georgetoon]

georgetoon:

While the links may point to the same device, obviously there are two actual devices. Either change the links, or specify the correct device directly, as is shown in the screen shot.

I've tried every combination and it doesn't work.  Ironically, regardless of how I link or name the second drive, when I simply point to the directory in SMPLayer, the DVD plays. Not always, some DVDs (like Disney) are temperamental. A bug in KDE4?? or maybe just me.

I tend to doubt there is any connection with KDE; either 3.5 or 4. The xine and mplayer engined players are totally independent from the DE, with any DE specific apps being just a front end for the underlying third party application.

Hmmm... that leaves... what was the other choice?   

sigh..yep...gotta be me.

[Georgetoon]

But here's the problem again. Lemme see if I restate it (and more clearly), it results in some other approach.

I drop a DVD in drive one and it plays with Dragon Player.  I then try to play with SMPlayer and it won't play.   Even though SMPlayer has the drive lnamed/linked as /dev/dvd or dev/hda.  

when I drop the DVD in drive two, SMplayer picks it up and plays it.  Provided I've opened with DragonPlayer first

it's as if when Drive one is the start of the process, DragonPlayer works but the other players don't...until I drop the disk in Drive two.

Or am I repeating myself?