[mythtv-users] MythTV as a DVD player

[Brad DerManouelian]

On May 14, 2007, at 4:51 PM, David Rees wrote:

> On 5/14/07, Patrick Doyle <wpdster at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I would like to know of people's experience using MythTV as a DVD
>> player (in addition to using it's many other features).  I'm asking
>> because I have a friend with a MythTV box who tried playing DVD's
>> through it and was unhappy with the results.  Since he already has a
>> perfectly good (actually, a fairly nice) DVD player, he saw no reason
>> to pursue the matter any further than, "I tried it, I wasn't happy
>> with it, it didn't really matter to me."
>
> Although most everyone who has chimed in so far seems to love Myth as
> their DVD player, I must admit that I have had repeated issues with it
> using 0.20. Here's a list:
>
> 1. DVD menus don't line up properly. I think this is triggered by the
> fact that my screen has a 4/3 native resolution (1024x768) while it is
> actually a 16/9 format. Annoying, but this doesn't affect the
> functionality any.
>
> 2. Playback is not smooth. The playback speeds up and slows down over
> and over. Not sure why, I'm using the Internal player. Haven't had any
> luck trying to get mplayer or xine working. mplayer displays garbage
> on the screen. xine I can't get to decode DVDs.
>
> 3. I've had issues with subtitles in the past which caused jerky
> playback. Don't know if this is fixed now or not, haven't tried
> playing a DVD with subtitles recently.
>
> 4. For some reason some DVDs just don't play in my DVD player. I don't
> think I can fault MythTV for this, the DVD player itself generates IO
> errors when this happens. But the same DVDs play just fine in my PS2
> and in other DVD players. Linux reports it as a "LITE-ON DVDRW
> SHM-165H6S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive" according to the boot pu message.
>
> Myth DVD playback has been unreliable enough for me that I don't
> bother to use it most of the time and just use the PS2 for playback.
>
> -Dave

I have these similar problems with the Myth internal player for DVD's  
so I use xine and haven't had a problem since. mplayer was good as  
well, but I feel I have more control over it with xine. I *never* use  
my standalone DVD player any more but I still keep it around because  
it also plays DVD-Audio, SACD, etc.

-Brad