Problems with DVD playing

[Alaedhros]

I'm having problems playing DVDs on my computer. The drive is a Pioneer DVR-111D that I've had for about six months. For the most part I've had no problems with it; every once in a while it will crash when playing a DVD, but a restart of VLC usually fixes the problem. Recently that has not been the case.

About a week ago I was attempting to play the third episode from Angel Season One, Disc Six. VLC brought up the DVD menus just fine, and the first and second episodes on the disc played flawlessly. VLC crashed immediately, however, when I tried to select the third episode or any of the special features. Attempting to play the third episode resulted in the following error message: 'libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2262416'. When I tried mplayer dvd://3, which *should* have played the episode, it crashed immediately as well, and with the same error message ('libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2262416'). I ripped the CD to an ISO image and VLC was able to play that with no problems.

Today I was attempting to play the second episode from Angel Season Two, Disc One. About 2:00 into the episode, it crashed VLC. Twice. I tried with mplayer and mplayer -dumpstream, and it also ended at the exact same place. You can probably guess the error message: 'libdvdread: Can't seek to block 2097152'. Again, the only way I was able to play the episode was to rip the CD to an ISO image on my hdd, and of course it played fine.

I'd be happy to post any further information you need; just let me know and I'll dredge it up. Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

 

[Johnny Rico]

Well, I'd say your best bet/solution would be to get a dedicated stand-alone DVD player.

 

[Trekker4747]

First and foremost update your drivers for the drive and player from the company's website. If that dosen't do the trick maybe look into a new DVD-Player program.

 

[Alaedhros]

Johnny Rico said:
Well, I'd say your best bet/solution would be to get a dedicated stand-alone DVD player.

That's not really a viable solution; it would necessitate buying a television as well as a DVD player, and I'd really rather not spend that money--it's not really money that I have. I would wager that there must be some way to fix this drive, even if I don't know what it is.

Trekker4747 said:
First and foremost update your drivers for the drive and player from the company's website.

Well, that's a bit difficult. I'm using firmware version 1.23, and there has been one other one released (1.29), but it's a Windows .exe file. The only way I can think to update the firmware would be to take it out of my tower, put it in some else's, download and install the .exe, and then put it back in my tower. I'll explore that option later if need be, but I'd rather look at softwre solutions first. [Alternately: Do you think I could install the .exe under WINE and have it work? I have no idea, frankly--I've never updated firmware before.]

If that dosen't do the trick maybe look into a new DVD-Player program.

Typically a valid solution, but take another look at those error messages. Both mplayer and VLC are using the same library (libdvdread), and it's the libdvdread library that seems to be causing trouble. I'd have to find a DVD program that doesn't use libdvdread--and the three that I've found in the repos (VLC, mplayer, and Ogle) all do.

Edit to add: Thanks for replying, though, I do appreciate it, and I didn't just dismiss the suggestions you made out of hand. I looked through the repos to see if there were any DVD players that didn't use libdvdread (I didn't find any), and I downloaded the latest firmware .exe as well. I'm going to try to poke around and see if there's a way to use it through WINE.

 

[Trekker4747]

From poking around some tech-boards the general feeling I get is that you do need to update the firmware.

Is the Linux or Windows, btw?

 

[Alaedhros]

This is definitely GNU/Linux, which makes updating the firmware a bit more complicated. I guess I'll try the WINE approach tomorrow. After I install the .exe, what will it do? Also, you wouldn't perchance have a link or two to those tech boards? My google-fu has been unable to find anything much related to the problem I'm facing.

 

[Johnny Rico]

So you don't even have a TV? How'd that happen? Or do you get TV reception thru your computer?

 

[flux_29]

does anyone know why some of my dvd's will "vibrate" when in my dvd player" but when the film plays it plays the disc without the vibration noise.

 

[backstept]

that most likely has to do with the speed of the drive. it reads faster at higher rpms, and while playing back video it doesn't need to spin as fast
the vibration is most likely caused by the weight of the ink printed on the disc being slightly imbalanced