Martin, I want to thank you for your explanation. DVD playing is something I've never even thought about.
> ... the dvd is usually encrypted and you have to decrypt the title > first. this is done automatically by libdvdread and libdvdcss (which > is usually compiled into mplayer) when using the "mplayer dvd://" > format. so the correct way to play dvds is way. > > mpeg2 and ac3 codecs(video and audio for dvds) is contained in ffmpeg > codec package(libavc) which is included with mplayer If I understand you correctly, mplayer is entirely self contained, and when the package is installed it brings in everying needed to play DVDs. > ... the mplayer development is very fast. they release versions once a > year or so but the svn version is constantly under development with > new features and bugfixes. The mplayer I have installed is: mplayer/etch upgradeable from 1.0~rc1-12etch1 to 1:1.0-rc1svn20070225-0.3etch1 In my sources.list: deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main $ aptitude upgrade mplayer-1:1.0-rclsvn20070225-0.3etch1 ... The following packages have been kept back: mplayer 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. So, I should be able to pass an empty URI to the mplayer command and it automatically looks for a title to unencrypt from whichever DVD drive happens to be mounted. I was able to find my problem. In /dev, there is a symlink from /dev/dvd3 to hdc, but the defalt mplayer configuration looks for /dev/dvd. I put a line in ~/.mplayer/config that points instead to dvd3, and it now works. Thanks for your patience. -- Haines Brown, KB1GRM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]