# Problem playing DVDs

## Larde

Hello *!

I am not quite sure if this is the relevant forum, but I'll try it here.

I've got a SCSI DVD drive (an older Pioneer Slot-In, where you could still disable region code via jumper), and it's not really fully operational.

Yesterday I wanted to rip a DVD, so I started to configure this drive and get everything running. When I was at the point that it actually worked to "mount /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd" I knew that I have got everything right so far. 

Then I tried to play the DVD using vlc, ogle and mplayer.

I did not work. You guessed that already, otherwise I wouldn't be posting, would I?  :Smile: 

They gave me some error message like not being able to read /dev/dvd.

Well, for reference here the mplayer output:

```

[kn@schmerle kn]$ mplayer -dvd 1

MPlayer 0.90pre5-2.95.3 (C) 2000-2002 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS!)

[snipped]

Playing DVD title 1

libdvdcss debug: GetASF not authenticated

libdvdcss debug: need to authenticate

libdvdcss debug: requesting AGID 1

libdvdcss error: ioctl_ReportAgid failed, invalidating

libdvdcss debug: requesting AGID 2

libdvdcss error: drive would not authenticate

libdvdread: Can't open /dev/dvd for reading.

Couldn't open DVD device: /dev/dvd

```

Now I mailed the author of my SCSI driver, because it's a beta driver not included in the standard (or in the Gentoo) kernel: dc395x_trm. I asked him if the driver was complete, because every time I tried to play a DVD, I got a message like this in syslog:

```

Jun 21 20:41:22 [kernel] sr0: CDROM (ioctl) reports ILLEGAL REQUEST.

```

He said the driver could not be the problem. I now just tested like 15 DVDs or so. The stunning result: From this testfield, I could play 3 DVDs without any error. Perhaps those DVDs weren't CSS encrypted? I don't know.

So what could be the problem? Buggy libdvdcss? Buggy libdvdread? Or buggy DVD drive of me? (Though of course it plays every DVD in Windows).

Thank you for reading that far,  :Smile: 

  Larde.

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## leej

 *Larde wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Yesterday I wanted to rip a DVD, so I started to configure this drive and get everything running. When I was at the point that it actually worked to "mount /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd" I knew that I have got everything right so far. 
> 
> Then I tried to play the DVD using vlc, ogle and mplayer.  I did not work.

 

OK, so you mounted the drive, then tried to play the DVD and it did not work.

 *Larde wrote:*   

> 
> 
>  The stunning result: From this testfield, I could play 3 DVDs without any error. Perhaps those DVDs weren't CSS encrypted? I don't know.
> 
> So what could be the problem? Buggy libdvdcss? Buggy libdvdread? Or buggy DVD drive of me? 

 

Presumably you didn't mount the DVD drive on this occasion?  I can't be bothered testing this out at the moment, but I *never* mount my DVD drive before playing DVD's.  Xine, Ogle, etc., access the device directly, not the mounted directory.

Mount your drive, try to play a DVD, unmount your drive and try to play the same DVD.  My guess is that mounting the DVD is the cause of the problem.  If you mount it, the player software cannot get raw access to the DVD device (it's busy because you already mounted it!) and that is why you get "illegal operation" errors.

I sound awfully confident about this so I'm probably wrong.  :Laughing: 

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## Larde

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> OK, so you mounted the drive, then tried to play the DVD and it did not work.
> 
> 

 

Ehm, no.  I unmounted before I tried to play them. Mounting was just for testing if I'd set up devfs correctly. You know, there is an IDE burner on another (ide-)scsi device, and I had mixed it up at first.  :Smile: 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Presumably you didn't mount the DVD drive on this occasion?  I can't be bothered testing this out at the moment, but I *never* mount my DVD drive before playing DVD's.  Xine, Ogle, etc., access the device directly, not the mounted directory.
> 
> 

 

No. It was all the same. My testing was just a series of inserting DVD, "mplayer -dvd 1", [works | doesn't work], eject, insert next DVD. Redo the test in random order. Notice it's always the same DVDs that play or do not play.

Are there any other tests I should do? Any possibilites to debug this a little better?

Regards,

   Larde.

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## andee

Hi

/dev/dvd is only a symlink to a real device, check when it points. 

It is/can be defined in /etc/devfs (don't remember exactly).

Maybe because it's pointing to wrong device you have that error.

good luck

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## leej

 *Larde wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Ehm, no.  I unmounted before I tried to play them. 
> 
> 

 

Oops!  :Embarassed: 

 *Larde wrote:*   

> Notice it's always the same DVDs that play or do not play.

 

Do they all have the same region code?  Have you tried Xine also?

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## Larde

I guess it's really: encrypted DVDs don't work, CSS free do. I don't know for sure, because I don't know if a certain DVD is encrypted or not. A guy in the Desktop forum has a similar problem, although for him it worked to revert to an earlier libdvdcss version. That didn't help for me.  :Sad: 

I could try the rest of my DVDs, but regioncode wise almost all of them are RC2. There are some RC4, one RC0, some RC4+RC2. The ones that did work were RC2, but I really think RC does not matter.

Hey, I just found a fourth working disc, and not by chance. Two of the working discs were from the same small german label as DVD producer. So now I grabbed a DVD from another small german company, and it did work. Perhaps those smaller DVD labels didn't have money to pay for encryption or so?

Well, I am just wild guessing here.  :Smile: 

Ha, found another one. So there is a pattern. DVDs from "MAWA/Concorde" and from "Alligator" do work, major label DVDs do not. Hey, but I can't watch "Lola rennt" over and over...  :Wink: 

Larde.

And two others: "Scream" and "The Sixth Sense" also work. And guess what: They are both published by MAWA again.Last edited by Larde on Sat Jun 22, 2002 11:34 am; edited 1 time in total

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## leej

 *Larde wrote:*   

> I guess it's really: encrypted DVDs don't work, CSS free do. I don't know for sure, because I don't know if a certain DVD is encrypted or not.
> 
> 

 

If your DVD is region coded, it's encrypted.  That's why a DVD from one region wont play on hardware purchased in a different region (unless it was flashed, or whatever to make it multi-region).

 *Larde wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I could try the rest of my DVDs, but regioncode wise almost all of them are RC2. There are some RC4, one RC0, some RC4+RC2. The ones that did work were RC2, but I really think RC does not matter.
> 
> 

 

This is really confusing.  Are you saying that the only DVD's that play are RC2 discs?  Whereas the RC4 disks wont play?  Is your DVD drive actually a region unlocked drive?  I know I had to flash my Toshiba to be able to play RC1 *and* RC2 disks.  :Smile: 

Also, do you have libdvdcss installed?

 *Larde wrote:*   

> 
> 
> So now I grabbed a DVD from another small german company, and it did work. Perhaps those smaller DVD labels didn't have money to pay for encryption or so?
> 
> 

 

If it's German, it's RC2 so it'll play along with all your other RC2 disks if that's what you mean above.  If it's RC0 it's multiregion (will play anywhere).  If it's RC1 or above it *is* encrypted.  Either that or they're lying and it will play anywhere.

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## Larde

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> If your DVD is region coded, it's encrypted.  That's why a DVD from one region wont play on hardware purchased in a different region (unless it was flashed, or whatever to make it multi-region).
> 
> 

 

Actually that is not true. CSS encryption and region code are totally independant, AFAIK.

Oh, only a small % of my RC2 discs work. I got around 80 DVDs or so, from which are 70 RC2.  Up to now I found how many working ones? 6? 7? Ok, perhaps 10% of my RC2 DVDs do work.

Anyway, my drive is unlocked double.  :Wink:  It's hardwarewise unlocked because I didn't set the jumper to enable the change RC 5 times and then lock it fix thing, and for safety I used a patched firmware. And: No probs in Windows.  :Sad: 

I also posted to the libdvdcss mailing list, because I think there is my problem somewhere. No reply yet.

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## Larde

After googling a while I found and old posting with similar problem here:

http://www.via.ecp.fr/ml/videolan/vlc/200111/msg00067.html

And guess what? That guy was using the same SCSI driver and the same DVD drive as me. I will try to contact him and see if he found a solution. Maybe the SCSI driver is the problem, it perhaps is somehow incompatible with the Pioneer drive. *shrug*

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## Larde

Since I don't like leaving threads unresolved, I'll just post the final outcome and my conclusion.

I didn't get it to work on my Gentoo box at home. When I booted to Windows and tried the Windows version of vlc, it worked.

I then took my DVD drive and installed it in another Gentoo box, but with Adaptec SCSI adapter this time. I could play my DVDs at once there.

So it must be the SCSI driver I used at home I guess, although the author claimed that couldn't be the case.

Everyone who is about to buy a Tekram DC3x5 as a cheap SCSI controller should be warned that he might face some problems, at least when trying to play DVDs on a Pioneer drive. I have no other drive to test if it generelly does not work using the Tekram controller or if it is the Tekram/Pioneer combo that's deadly.

Regards,

Kai.

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## cine

OK, I know it's quite late for a reply.

But propably there will be others who will encouter the tekram/pioneer problem and discover this page by "googling around"...

For my computer I was able to bring libdvdcss and my dvds together by tweaking some scsi driver settings. I simply disabled the "Sync" transfer mode for my dvd drive.

Calling the following line as root did the trick:

echo "0 2 0 - n" > /proc/scsi/dc395x_trm/0

/proc/scsi/dc395x_trm/0 may differ, cause 0 is my AdapterID

0 2 0 may differ, cause it my dvd device; simply cat /proc/scsi/dc395x_trm/0 to find out your current configuration and change the values accordingly.

My system:

Linux kernel 2.4.18

libdvdcss2 1.2.1 (debian)

xine 0.9.13 (debian)

Tekram driver 1.41 from http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/dc395/

The configuration stuff is described in the README of the Tekram driver.

Hope this can help.

chris

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## korlaz

Can you post a solution for 2.6.x kernels (and /sys/ fs) because i've got the same problem...

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## cebit

my Pioneer DVD-106S ATAPI DVD-ROM Drive suddenly stopped playing (or ever reading) encrypted DVDs. It doesn't even try to spin'em up. I suppose my problem is somehow similar to the ones above. I am very curious about the nature of this problem...

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## dh3rm3

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> my Pioneer DVD-106S ATAPI DVD-ROM Drive suddenly stopped playing (or ever reading) encrypted DVDs. It doesn't even try to spin'em up. I suppose my problem is somehow similar to the ones above. I am very curious about the nature of this problem...
> 
> 

 

I faced a similar problem while trying to play an encrypted dvd on my Pioneer slot in dvd-rom

I finally got the thing working by not using libdvdcss, but libcss-0.1.0

I figured this out reading the error message given by mplayer asking for the old libcss, and not finding it 

you should give it a try googling for libcss

----------

