Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

[MatthewSchenker]

Hello,
I have legal DVDs that I purchased from Amazon.UK, and of course they are in PAL format. Can anyone tell me which software I can install that will play these DVDs? Is there a plug-in for Kaffeine that will do it?
Thanks!

[thyrcson]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

Hi MartinShenker,

have a look at http://www.kubuntu.org/doc/7.10/musi...ml#dvdplayback.

It worked absolutely perfect for me. I brought the Futurama DVD Boxes from Germany... yea, PAL, and it just works (using Kaffeine, vlc). Local DVDs (NTSC) work fine too.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

thyrcson,
What exactly did you install from that page? When I tried to do it, I got a message that it's invalid.
Thanks,
Matt

[blobfish]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

I believe he was referring to the installation of libdvdread3 and the terminal command that follows. You shouldn't need anything special for pal. You just need the above to decrypt the dvds.

[thyrcson]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

Hi Matt,

Did you enable the universe repository? If not, add it via the Adept Manager, install the libdvdread3 package via Adept or in a shell

sudo apt-get install libdvdread3

To play css protected DVDs you'll have to do a

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh

.
Voilà , you're ready to go.

tanderson is right, you don't need anything special for PAL or NTSC.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

I just checked my system's Adept, and was happy to see that libdvdread3 is installed.

I checked my directories and found that the path in my system is as follows:

/usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

When I run the command, this is what I get:

matthew@Main:~$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
--10:42:10-- [url]http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/deb/libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386[/url]                                                    .deb
      => `/tmp/dvdcss-iE8020/libdvdcss.deb'
Resolving [url]www.dtek.chalmers.se[/url]... 129.16.30.198
Connecting to www.dtek.chalmers.se|129.16.30.198|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 25,178 (25K) [text/plain]

100%[====================================>] 25,178    94.36K/s

10:42:11 (94.34 KB/s) - `/tmp/dvdcss-iE8020/libdvdcss.deb' saved [25178/25178]

dpkg: status database area is locked by another process
matthew@Main:~$

What does it mean when I get that message, "database area is locked by another process"?

Thanks for your help!

Matt

[blobfish]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

Is adept running? If so, shut it down and try the command again. If not, run ksysguard and look for adept in there and kill it. Then run the command again.

[Snowhog]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

When you get reported errors about Adept, open a console and type:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install

Generally, these will fix an Adept problem.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

tanderson and Snowhog,
Thanks for helping me make this work. I am now able to play the DVD on my computer.

Now, if only my DVD player was able to read PAL, I'd be even happier!

I ran the command again from Konsole, after doing those steps Snowhog described. Here's what the session looked like:

matthew@Main:~$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
--17:23:21-- [url]http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/deb/libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386[/url]                                                    .deb
      => `/tmp/dvdcss-KX8368/libdvdcss.deb'
Resolving [url]www.dtek.chalmers.se[/url]... 129.16.30.198
Connecting to www.dtek.chalmers.se|129.16.30.198|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 25,178 (25K) [text/plain]

100%[====================================>] 25,178    96.88K/s

17:23:22 (96.70 KB/s) - `/tmp/dvdcss-KX8368/libdvdcss.deb' saved [25178/25178]

Selecting previously deselected package libdvdcss2.
(Reading database ... 97357 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libdvdcss2 (from .../dvdcss-KX8368/libdvdcss.deb) ...
Setting up libdvdcss2 (1.2.5-1) ...

Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

Does that look right to you?

I'm still learning, so it means a lot when experts like you can help me!

Thanks again,
Matt

[Snowhog]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

The fact that you are able to play DVD's means that you got it right.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

The fact that you are able to play DVD's means that you got it right.

Yes, good point, although I always like to make sure there isn't some little thing that's not quite right!
While we're on the subject, do you think Kaffeine is the best option for playing DVDs?
Thanks again,
Matt

[blobfish]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

Kaffeine works for me.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

Kaffeine works for me.

I like Kaffeine as well, but I've heard from some people that VLC player is even better. Just wondering if you had an opinion about it.

[Snowhog]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

I'm only using Kaffeine, so I can't comment on VLC. For me, Kaffeine just works. In fact, it will play some of my DVD's that my high-end Sony DVD player won't recognize (anymore).

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: Which Application to Play PAL DVDs?

I'm only using Kaffeine, so I can't comment on VLC. For me, Kaffeine just works. In fact, it will play some of my DVD's that my high-end Sony DVD player won't recognize (anymore).

Excellent! It has also worked great for me, as long as I have the right plug-in installed.

With these PAL DVDs, Kaffeine definitely works better than my new DVD player, which gives me a "region code error" when it tries to read the disks. That's frustrating, since I set up a great hi-fi system with surround sound up there.

I checked on how to convert these disks to NTSC format, but it looks like that's a complicated process.

Thanks again!