Ubuntu

unable to play dvd's

Asked by sandra mclean

i've got a dell laptop with ubuntu 7.04 installed, updated it to 7.10, dvd's wont play and never have,
totem says it's unable to read from the resource
so, i installed mplayer, but this doesn't work either, says it's crashed
says mplayer interrupted by signal 11 in module unknown ( i did click and drag dvd icon to mplayer, but otherwise nothing was happening) then notice to debug comes up saying mplayer has crashed
please help
thanks
sandra

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arochester (arochester) said : 		#1

The thing which prevents most commercial DVDs from playing is libdvdcss2 (Illegal in the US!!!)
Have you installed ubuntu-restricted-extras which I think may have it. Other than that I think it is available from the Medibuntu repositories.

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#2

well, i'm very new to ubuntu and the totem player suggested i report this as a bug,
so this is what i've done, sorry to waste your time, so i'm now concentrating on getting the totem player working, but also don't know what or how to install 'ubuntu-restricted-extras'
sorry
thanks for the help though

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#3

the error report is referenced as
Bug #179981 in totem
just in case you're interested
thanks
sandra

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Bill George (billgeorge) said : 		#4

get "libdvdcss"

get "vlc"

Together they make it possible to play DVD's.

If all else fails, there is also "AcidRip dvdripper" which turns the film into an ".avi"

I have had limited success using Totem or Mplayer with DVD's.

Seems crazy that you can watch DVD's unhindered with Windows but not with Linux ...

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#5

thanks, now for the feeling totally computer illiterate bit!
how?
cheers
sandra

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#6

I'd suggest following the directions on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats. Pay special attention to the part about Medibuntu. It's not very obvious but you need to add that repository to install libdvdcss2. There are legal issues around that so you should make yourself aware of the situation.

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#7

thanks,
i followed the instructions re restricted areas and typed instructions onto terminal
then i installed libdvdcss2 as follows
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
but when i restarted and tried to play a dvd, i still got the 'cannot read from this resource,
totem doesn't have necessary plug ins to read from resource'
any clues what to do next?

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#8

I'm not familiar with that method of install libdvdcss2. Usually you follow the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu process. It's possible that it didn't get properly installed the way you did it. I'd also suggest not using totem. Vlc is much better. I don't know why it's not the default. You might also want to install ubuntu-restricted-extras and the various gstreamer codecs but those should not be necessary for DVDs.

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#9

hey i followed the install plugins link
typed
sudo apt-get install gst-plugins-base
and the totem dvd player is now working
many thanks everyone for your time and expertise,
couldn't have got this far without your advice

sandra

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#10

I'm not familiar with that link or process. Can you provide a link? Thanks. (always wanting to learn more)

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sandra mclean (sandra-mclean2) said : 		#11

http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem/

here's the link i followed
thanks
sandra