> I'd appreciate any comments on the following problem I'm having when I
> mount a DVD:
>
> VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,0)
> UDF-fs DEBUG lowlevel.c:57:udf_get_last_session: XA disk: no,
> vol_desc_start=0
> UDF-fs DEBUG super.c:1410:udf_read_super: Multi-session=0
> hdc: command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hdc: command error: error=0x50
> end_request: I/O error, dev 16:00 (hdc), sector 1799392
>
> This is on 2.4.8 x86, on a Dell laptop with a TORiSAN DVD.
>
> The DVD appears to be mounted, and the volume descriptor is read
> successfully. I can move around the filesystem and read many files, but
> any attempt to read a VOB file produces the IDE errors again, and the
> reading process gets an I/O error.
>
> Initially I thought this might be a region coding issue, but my drive is
> set to region 1 and this is a region 1 disc.
Close there, you forgot the other annoying thing with DVDs - the
so-called encryption. I'm almost certain that's what produces the
errors; I get it on my box when I try doing things like that. Or
when trying to play a DVD in a player that I didn't / couldn't /
forgot to compile a CSS decoder for. You can't read an encrypted
DVD by itself since DeCSS isn't in the kernel. (Yet? ;) Most / all
Linux DVD players handle it themselves, or with a library, though
it seems to me each project has its own library. You'll probably
have to compile the player yourself as Debian doesn't package the
decryption code, even in non-US (arg). It'll be a lot of fun. Yes.
Anyway, a few players that I know of:
OMS: http://www.linuxvideo.org/
VLC: http://www.videolan.org/
Xine: eh, search for it on freshmeat. maybe XMPS also.
VLC and Xine are in Debian, minus the CSS, but it's easy enough to
do apt-get source and compile a CSS-enabled version. OMS has a
deb line for apt/sources.list on their site. Take your pick, try
'em all. Find one that works best.
HTH,
Mike McGuire
