Playing dvds with Ubuntu 10.4

Hi all, I just upgraded my comp to run 10.4 and now I'm looking for the program to play dvds on it.

I've done a few searches but ran into dead ends.

 

I use Totem, kaffeine is a kde based one, mplayer also. I think VLC exists too. Lots of options, check your package manager

 

Top left menu called Applications; scroll down to Sound & Video and see list of media players. For instance, mine are:

Brasero Disc Burner
Movie Player
Pitivi Video Editor
Rhythmbox Music Player
Sound Recorder

I can't imagine you don't have a DVD player already installed, but if you don't, go back to top left menu Applications and scroll down to Ubuntu Software Center and click it. Menu pops up and in right pane choose "Sound and Video" category. Scroll through the list, alphabetically, and find one that looks interesting. If you don't like it, remove it, then repeat the process as many times as necessary until you find what you like...it's FREE (as in choice, as well as beer!)

 

RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs

[noparse]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs[/noparse]

 

Thanks for the responses. The problem was a dead dvd player.

I couldn't figure out why my dvds were not auto playing when inserted.

Didn't occur to me that my dvd drive crapped out. :banghead

Oh well, it was about a 7 year old NEC burner and I got my $$ worth out of it.

 

Okay, getting weirder. Tried several different dvd drives and none of them work.

They all work in other computers.

I reverted back to 9.04, a system that I'm more comfortable with.

I have a cd rom drive set to master and the dvd drives set to slave. Am I doing something wrong?

 

If you hook the DVD drive alone will it work?

Who is the manufacturer of both of the drives?
:confused

 

I just tried them as the only drives in the comp and I'm getting further, but still not there yet.

The NEC drive will spin up and detect the dvd, but I get an error message looking for suitable plug-ins.

The 2nd drive is a Sony, and that also works in the same manner, that is if they are the only drives hooked up.

I'm running 9.04 and using Totem, if that helps any.Thanks.

 

bigfurrykid, did you install libdvdcss ?

 

Pretty sure I did. One site gave me pretty detailed instructions.

Opened up applications, terminal and then pasted what I copied and still no luck.

I'm sorry to say that I abandoned Ubuntu on that comp and reinstalled XP.

Still have Ubuntu on my spare system though.

 

in ubuntu your best bet of having a stable dvd playing program is vlc just open disk with no menus this can sometimes get in the way of starting a movie

 

Does your DVD work now that you have reverted back to Windows? How come you just don't dual boot both os's or run Ubuntu using wubi?

I had some dvd playback issues with 10.04 and it had to do with installing libdvdcss.

here is the command necessarry to install

Code:

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 libdvdnav4 vlc

I took this from the following post http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683&highlight=libdvdcss

I prefer to use xine in ubuntu but you must install the above code first.

Code:

sudo apt-get install gxine libxine1-ffmpeg

Also you could try Linux Mint instead of Ubuntu, it's built on top of Ubuntu but seems to have better multimedia support.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

I also use a Fedora remix that has xine installed right out of the box which I like alot. It actually worked better for me than Ubuntu 10.04 when it came to video. http://fcoremix.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/lucky-13/

Just note that if you dual or tri boot you must install Fedora before Ubuntu because of a difference between there boot loaders. I run windows Vista, Fedora Lucky 13 and Ubuntu 10.04 all on one pc but they have to be installed in the order listed for all os's to boot. (Windows, Fedora, Ubuntu) It's also best to create your own partitions manually which you can do with your windows disk at the time of windows setup or you can also use the Linux Live cd's partition manager or if windows is already installed you can use the linux cd to shrink windows and install Linux next to windows.

Little bit off topic but something to think about! I prefer having 2 different os's installed therefor you can use one while trying to trouble shoot & fix problems on the other which brings me back to my original question.

Does your DVD work now with windows installed? I have to assume it did or you would'nt have windows installed.
Corey

 

That command is very out of date now. libdvdcss2 ceased showing up in the package manager on version 10.04, and won't show up unless you have installed it previously or have certain non-free PPA's enabled.

The current method to get libdvdcss2 installed on Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 is below. libdvdcss2 will not install automatically, but the script to install it is included as part of libdvdread4.

Open the Terminal and type

Code:

sudo apt-get install vlc libdvdread4

After libdvdread4 is installed, run this command next

Code:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

 

thanks for the update!

 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats