[mythtv-users] MythDVD Not Playing DVDs

[Michael T. Dean]

William wrote:

>Derek Battams wrote:
>
>>Got my myth box moved to the tv... watching live tv/recordings displays fine.
>>But I can't play a DVD.  When I try to start it in MythTV I can see it reads
>>the disc, the screen goes black then it returns to the MythDVD menu.  So I then
>>copied the mplayer command from the Myth setup and tried to run it from the
>>command line.  Same thing happens.  The mplayer output is below.  I'm using a
>>GeForce FX 5200 directly connected to my TV via S-video.
>> 
>>...
>>
>>[mythtv at mythtv-server ~]$ mplayer dvd:// -dvd-device /dev/dvd -fs -zoom -vo xv
>>...
>>Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
>>Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system
>>startupscripts.
>>
You should fix this one.  It's not causing the problem, but you'll get 
much better playback with better timing.  Your system is limiting 
non-root users to timing data at the frequency compiled into the kernel 
(probably 64Hz--unless you/your distro maintainers changed it--but 
definitely less than 1024 Hz).  To allow users to request timing info at 
1024Hz, add the echo command above to your start scripts such that it's 
executed by root every time the kernel is started.  Note that this will 
not only help xine, but other multimedia apps--including MythTV (unless 
you're using a better timing method like OpenGL).

>>...
>>Reading disc structure, please wait...
>>There are 24 titles on this DVD.
>>There are 1 chapters in this DVD title.
>>There are 1 angles in this DVD title.
>>... <a lot more stuff that means it's working> ...
>>
>>Exiting... (End of file)
>>    
>>
So, basically, MPlayer is saying it did play back the DVD.  If it were 
the wrong device, you would have gotten a libdvdread error, so it sounds 
like everything is working.  It's possible that the DVD may not be 
compliant with the spec (some studios are playing tricks like that for 
"copy protection").

However, I would guess that for some reason MPlayer is only playing 
title 1 (which may be a blank MPEG before the menu or something--which 
seems reasonable since you have 24 titles, the first of which has one 
chapter and one angle and seems to consist of about 15 frames (i.e. 1/2 
second)).  Did you try specifying titles?  For example:

mplayer dvd://1-24 -dvd-device /dev/dvd -fs -zoom -vo xv

should play all 24 titles, and

mplayer dvd://9 -dvd-device /dev/dvd -fs -zoom -vo xv

should play title 9 (randomly chosen from the middle to try and hit a 
"real" title.

However, I highly recommend using a real DVD player, like xine (my 
personal favorite) or Ogle.  With those, you'll have full DVD Navigation 
support (i.e. you can use the menus, so your scripts don't need to know 
which titles to play and it looks like a real DVD player).  The 
command-line I use is:

xine --no-splash --auto-play=fhq --auto-scan dvd

>Make sure your setup points to your actual dvd device. For me its /dev/hdd
>but it used to be /dev/scd0 in FC1.
>  
>
Or, make a soft link called /dev/dvd that points to the true device name 
(i.e. /dev/hdd or whatever).  If using udev, modify your udev scripts to 
create the link for you.

Mike