Comprehensive Multimedia & Video Howto

[ford126]

I followed all the instructions, but Mplayer/vlc don't recognize an encypted DVD.
I installed all required packages, e.g. libdvdread4,libdvdcss2,non-free-codecs,w32codecs,etc,etc
I checked with "regionset" that my DVD player is set for Region 1.
My DVD player reads data CDs, data DVDs and non-encrypted movie DVDs with no trouble.

I'm running Natty 11.04 on a Dell Inspiron 530, purchased in 2008.
The same problem with old DVDs and newer ones, commercial ones and ones that I got from Costco (transfer of old super-8 home movies).

When I try to play one of these disks and select "no DVD menus", VLC complains
Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "/dev/sr0".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/sr0'. Check the log for details.


I had exactly the same problem with Maverick and Lucid. I hoped upgrading would help.


If it is any use, here is the output of 'lshw -c disk' (with an encrypted DVD in the drive)

 *-cdrom
       description: DVD writer
       product: DVD+-RW GSA-H73N
       vendor: HL-DT-ST
       physical id: 1
       bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/cdrom
       logical name: /dev/cdrw
       logical name: /dev/dvd
       logical name: /dev/dvdrw
       logical name: /dev/scd0
       logical name: /dev/sr0
       version: B103
       serial: [
       capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r
       configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc

Been at this for many days now, and am out of ideas.

[ubuntu-freak]

I followed all the instructions, but Mplayer/vlc don't recognize an encypted DVD.
I installed all required packages, e.g. libdvdread4,libdvdcss2,non-free-codecs,w32codecs,etc,etc
I checked with "regionset" that my DVD player is set for Region 1.
My DVD player reads data CDs, data DVDs and non-encrypted movie DVDs with no trouble.

I'm running Natty 11.04 on a Dell Inspiron 530, purchased in 2008.
The same problem with old DVDs and newer ones, commercial ones and ones that I got from Costco (transfer of old super-8 home movies).

When I try to play one of these disks and select "no DVD menus", VLC complains
Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "/dev/sr0".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/sr0'. Check the log for details.


I had exactly the same problem with Maverick and Lucid. I hoped upgrading would help.


If it is any use, here is the output of 'lshw -c disk' (with an encrypted DVD in the drive)

 *-cdrom
       description: DVD writer
       product: DVD+-RW GSA-H73N
       vendor: HL-DT-ST
       physical id: 1
       bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/cdrom
       logical name: /dev/cdrw
       logical name: /dev/dvd
       logical name: /dev/dvdrw
       logical name: /dev/scd0
       logical name: /dev/sr0
       version: B103
       serial: [
       capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r
       configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc

Been at this for many days now, and am out of ideas.

When did you last perform a fresh install of Ubuntu? Something restrictive may have been installed at some point and is hampering things even now. First of all though, try playing a DVD in a brand new Ubuntu user account.

[olddavew]

Re my problem with DVD's.
Tried a fresh install of 11.10 and all the updates.
Followed the How To and tried to play a DVD, no joy.

Went through a second time.
This time it loaded several programs including VLC, gimp etc. This did not occur on the first run through.
No errors shown on either run through.

Still no joy. Movie Player says that there is no decryption software, VLC reads the DVD title then stops.

I can play a couple of region 2 DVD's which I assume are not encrypted but not others.

Any advice would be welcome.

Regards Dave

[ubuntu-freak]

Re my problem with DVD's.
Tried a fresh install of 11.10 and all the updates.
Followed the How To and tried to play a DVD, no joy.

Went through a second time.
This time it loaded several programs including VLC, gimp etc. This did not occur on the first run through.
No errors shown on either run through.

Still no joy. Movie Player says that there is no decryption software, VLC reads the DVD title then stops.

I can play a couple of region 2 DVD's which I assume are not encrypted but not others.

Any advice would be welcome.

Regards Dave

Did you come here right after a fresh installation or did you install anything before following this howto? I tested a few of my DVDs and didn't have any problems, plus the menus worked in Totem as well.

[olddavew]

Hi I initially installed 11.04 from a CD and allowed the updates for that, then installed restricted extras then installed libdvdcss2.
I was able to play Story of Steam and Cream ( authorised story ) but not Hairspray, Harry Potter or Fraggle Rock.
I then found your How To guide and followed it to no avail so I allowed the update manager to change to 11.10 and tried again, this time it added several programs eg. VLC, gimp etc.
I still had the same result with the DVD's.

I decided to start from scratch and burnt a new 11.10 and installed that as a new installation, (so getting rid of all the possible problems which may have been hiding away) I did this while connected to the net to allow the installation to update while it was in progress.
Next I copied the instructions from the How To to a Writer document and closed Firefox.
I then followed the instructions and saw no errors but the same results occurred.
I decided to run through the How To again but this time did not visit the GetDeb site.
On initiation of the second command my installation then downloaded VLC, gimp etc.
I don't know why, or even if it should have.

The same results followed, Movie Player still says:
Could not read DVD. This may be because the DVD is encrypted and a DVD decryption library is not installed.

As far as I can see, I have followed the procedure, however, have I?

Regards Dave

[jamesisin]

Does this howto not function with the PowerPC version of 10.04? I'm throwing errors all over the place.

W: Failed to fetch http://packages.medibuntu.org/dists/lucid/Release  Unable to find expected entry  free/binary-powerpc/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

[jmate24]

This is for those of you using Ubuntu studio 12.04 Beta 2:

sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo sed -i "/^# deb .*partner/ s/^# //" /etc/apt/sources.list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get -y --force-yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras non-free-codecs p7zip-full acroread vlc libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 faac faad cd-discid cdparanoia aacplusenc gtkpod lame cdrdao aacgain normalize-audio vorbisgain arista soundconverter exfalso winff devede openshot cheese gconf-editor lsb-core sound-juicer thoggen banshee mplayer2 gecko-mediaplayer oggconvert ffmpeg libdvdnav4 dvdrip todiskgui tovidgui avidmux regionset build-essential debhelper fakeroot

[ubuntu-freak]

This is for those of you using Ubuntu studio 12.04 Beta 2:

sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo sed -i "/^# deb .*partner/ s/^# //" /etc/apt/sources.list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get -y --force-yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras non-free-codecs p7zip-full acroread vlc libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 faac faad cd-discid cdparanoia aacplusenc gtkpod lame cdrdao aacgain normalize-audio vorbisgain arista soundconverter exfalso winff devede openshot cheese gconf-editor lsb-core sound-juicer thoggen banshee mplayer2 gecko-mediaplayer oggconvert ffmpeg libdvdnav4 dvdrip todiskgui tovidgui avidmux regionset build-essential debhelper fakeroot

Just so people know, aside from a couple of pointless additions and personal faves, this command will change the default Firefox audio/video plugin and installs Sound Juicer instead of Rubyripper. I don't recommend Sound Juicer as it rips CDs too quickly and leaves your songs with terrible artifacts. Just stick with Rubyripper or even Rhythmbox.

[jamesisin]

Sound Juicer as it rips CDs too quickly and leaves your songs with terrible artifacts. Just stick with Rubyripper or even Rhythmbox.

I thought Rhythmbox used the same backend for ripping as Sound Juicer?

Any comment on my G5 problem above?

[jmate24]

Just so people know, aside from a couple of pointless additions and personal faves, this command will change the default Firefox audio/video plugin and installs Sound Juicer instead of Rubyripper. I don't recommend Sound Juicer as it rips CDs too quickly and leaves your songs with terrible artifacts. Just stick with Rubyripper or even Rhythmbox.

you can no longer find rubyripper in the repos in 12.04.

plus, in gconf-editor you can adjust how paranoid the cdparanoia is the best one is repair)16

also you may want to try banshee or clementine.