Linux & Dvds

[Chris L.]

I have installed redhat 7.2 and finally got xine to work by rpm. I was excited because I have never gotten it to compile before on other platforms. So, I rushed out and got a dvd and when I start it, it says that it won't play encrypted dvds!

What am I supposed to use to play my dvds or is there any way to get xine to do it?

Thanks,
Chris Lynch

[Chris L.]

Hey, nevermind! I tried it again and it worked!

[Jomboni]

I installed xine but I can't figure out how to open the dvd or whatever I may have to do in order to watch it. I also installed videolan and it works quite well - the sound is perfect but the video is ever so slightly choppy, but I want to try xine to see if that ever so slight choppiness will still be there...

[Jomboni]

Actually I can't figure out how to play any kind of video under xine....

[kormoc]

Easy way. Open console, type:
xine /path/to/movie/avi
and it will play it. or you can use the playlist editor to open it.

[Chris L.]

It's very simple if you have redhat 7.2. Just go to www.freshrpms.net (http://www.freshrpms.net) and download the xine and libdvdcss rpms (in the Redhat 7.2 Enigma section).

After installing those, all you have to do is make a symlink to your dvd drive. For example, if your dvd is on /dev/cdrom, then (as root) issue " ln -s /dev/dvd /dev/cdrom ".

Then, type " xine " to launch the program and click the d4d button and click play. It should work!

[Jomboni]

Well, I had already had the program set up (I went to freshrpms) I just couldn't figure out how to play stuff. That symbolic link worked, and what's more, playback is perfect! Thanks a bunch!

[wazhang]

"After installing those, all you have to do is make a symlink to your dvd drive. For example, if your dvd is on /dev/cdrom, then (as root) issue " ln -s /dev/dvd /dev/cdrom ".

Then, type " xine " to launch the program and click the d4d button and click play. It should work!"

I have tried the above suggestion, but have *not* been able to make my DVD drive work--to play DVD.
I installed the two rpms from FreshRPMS all right, I think. But I ran into problems when I reached the step of making a symlink. I keyed in the following suggested command as su root in a console:
ln -s /dev/dvd /dev/cdrom
but is only given the response that "dev/cdrom already exists"!!!!
So I try "ln -s /dev/dvd/dev/cdrom"(no quotation marks). This time, there is *no space* betweeen /dev/dvd and /dev/cdrom. While a Xine window did come up when I typed xine at a prompt(as su root, however), I could not make it play any DVD!
It says that it cannot find the DVD drive or something like that!!

It would be nice to make the DVD drive play DVD in Linux.

PS> I am using RH7.2, and my DVD drive is the master, the only device, on the secondary IDE channel.

Regards.

[ 24 October 2001: Message edited by: wazhang ]

[eXtremist]

the format of the ln command is:

ln -OPTION TARGET LINK_NAME

therefore, the correct syntax would be

ln -s /dev/cdrom /dev/dvd

not the other way around.

[bdg1983]

If /dev/cdrom already exists, then find out what it is linked to.

ls -l /dev/cdrom

If it isn't linked to /dev/dvd, then

rm /dev/cdrom

ln -s /dev/dvd /dev/cdrom

Of course all of this is in the documentation (how-to and faq's) at xine.sourceforge.net

[Jomboni]

extremist is right... I forgot to mention I had to switch that around before it'd work right.

[p2]

I've found it better to link /dev/dvd to /dev/hd* . Now all I need to do is get my dvd card to display an image to the tv thats not green.....

[aagiv]

I'm usually just a lurker, but this thread has been very helpful to me. I now have Xine playing DVD's, but the quality is quite poor: i.e. the picture skips and the messages in the terminal indicate that it is skipping quite few frames. What kind of hardware is necessary for good DVD playback? My computer played DVD's pretty well in Windows, but I suspect that my hardware may be borderline. I have a 533 MHz Celeron with a 2MB ATI Mach 64 video card.

[Jomboni]

It's definitely your hardware. I don't know if you have hardware mpeg decoding that made it work well under Windows, but I'm pretty sure it's not yet supported under Linux :( so you just need a real fast computer.

[Dave Anderson]

Originally posted by Jomboni:
<STRONG>It's definitely your hardware. I don't know if you have hardware mpeg decoding that made it work well under Windows, but I'm pretty sure it's not yet supported under Linux :( so you just need a real fast computer.</STRONG>

It is supported, though I'm not sure if it's through Xine. I thought Xine supported the Hollywood Plus decoder with a plug-in.

Anyway, the Netstream 2000 by Sigma is supported under Linux - both TV output and monitor playback with hardware decoding.

[Ksmith- Tx]

great thread- I have been trying to install this also.. got the lib file done (I think) but when i try to /configure the Ui file it says i need to install the Lib file 1st (before xine-ui can compile set the 'LD_Library_Path to install dir' how do i do this and why do i need to or make sure path is in the xine-config file.. How do i check this??? thanks.