[plug] Watching DVD's under Linux

[Peter Wright]

On 31/05 14:16:46, Craig Ringer wrote:
[ Dave Buddrige wrote: ]
> >However, I plan to run it on GNU/Linux - probably Debian.  I would like
> >to use it to watch DVD movies.  I note that there are several Linux/DVD
> >projects; does anyone know how mature these are.
> 
> Xine - results vary (dvdnav problems common)

I've only used Xine (for a couple of years now), and have found various
little glitches with it, none serious however. Generally you'll have no
problems watching the actual _movie_, but you _may_ find handling the DVD
menus somewhat dicey - dvdnav is the name of one of the DVD "plugins" for
Xine that handle menus - it's probably the most used DVD plugin for Xine.

(Note: the builtin "dvd" plugin for Xine does _not_ handle CSS decryption,
nor DVD menus, nor quite a few other things. It's only good for playing
unencrypted DVDs.)

It's pretty straightforward to install Xine for Debian - one of the core
Xine developers makes the Debian packages, so it's generally very
up-to-date. Basically just:

# apt-get update ; apt-get install xine-ui xine-lib xine-dvdnav

The only minor detail is that the dvdnav plugin developers tend to lag
behind Xine releases by a week or so - for example, the current release of
Xine is 0.9.10, released about a week ago, but the dvdnav developers
only released a corresponding 0.9.10 dvdnav plugin a couple of days ago :-).

Terribly slack of them, I know *grin*.

> Ogle - results vary (sound problems; dvdnav issues)

I haven't ever tried Ogle - all the reports I've heard indicate that it's
not in MPlayer or Xine's class for raw performance, although Xine has
lifted quite a bit of code from it. I think the dvdnav plugin at least was
originally part of Ogle.

> Mplayer (haven't tried it yet but I hear good things)

Everything I've heard indicates that while the developers behind this
project are decidedly unpleasant and arrogant pricks, they're smart enough
to justify at least some of their arrogance - and they've produced a very
capable bit of software. They're not as smart as they think they are, of
course, but that's a common problem with alpha geeks. :)

MPlayer is probably the best performing option for playing DVDs under
Linux. I know Xine (which is GPLed) previously borrowed at least the
subtitle handling code from MPlayer, believing MPlayer was also GPLed
(it's not). In fact, MPlayer has a rather surreal license of its own which
forbids redistribution in binary form - which means (at least in theory)
that you can't get binary packages for MPlayer.

Try both MPlayer and Xine at least and see which one you like best. You'll
probably have to build MPlayer from source, but you shouldn't have too many
problems with it.

> None, IMHO can be called 'mature' really,

Depends what you call "mature", I guess.

> and your results will vary depending on which DVD, studio, DVD-ROM drive,
> etc you use.

This is certainly correct.

> >Alternately, any suggestions on laptops up to the value of $2,500 that
> >support Linux are much appreciated.
>
> Look at the ACPI4linux devel list archives, etc for the models you're
> interested in.

Dave, there is one detail that you should be aware of regarding DVD drives
which could be a problem if you intend to play lots of multiregion DVDs.

Some DVD drives (especially for laptops) are region-locked in the firmware,
which generally means that you can change the region five or so times and
then it's locked.

You can read a bit more about it here:

http://www.inmatrix.com/drives.shtml

If you're considering a particular DVD drive model, try to find out if it's
region-locked in firmware first.

> Craig Ringer

Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/
I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means.  It means we get to
keep all our old mistakes.  -- Dennie van Tassel