Vlc won't play DVD's on Ubuntu, or Kubuntu Intrepid

[Nigel Henry]

On Wednesday 04 February 2009 22:50, (``-_-´´) -- BUGabundo wrote:
> Olá Nigel e a todos.
>
> This should be sent to ubuntu-users.
> So please reply only there.
>
> On Tuesday 03 February 2009 17:23:40 Nigel Henry wrote:
> > I have vlc installed on both my Ubuntu, and Kubuntu Intrepid 8.10
> > installs, but vlc will not play dvd's. It finds the optical drive ok, and
> > I get the menu up for the dvd, but only about a half second of sound, and
> > video play, then it stalls. If I press on play the movie, again I get
> > about a half second of sound and video, then the movie stops playing. If
> > I move the progress bar, I can move through the movie, but again when I
> > stop moving it, another snippet of sound and video, and all I have is
> > effectively a still shot, with no sound.
>
> You need to install ubuntu-restricted-extras.

Well I'm downloading that package on dialup, which comes to 84.7MB of 
downloads. Thankfully, I'd already installed the w32codecs on the Kubuntu 
Intrepid install, so copied the package over to the Ubuntu archives, which 
has saved downloading 14.3MB again. Which package exactly is the one the one 
that hopefully will resolve my vlc problem. The packages being downloaded are 
as below.

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  cabextract freepats gsfonts-x11 gstreamer0.10-pitfdll
  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse java-common
  libavcodec-unstripped-51 libcdaudio1 libgmyth0 libiptcdata0
  libmjpegtools0c2a libmms0 libneon27-gnutls libofa0 libopenspc0 libquicktime1
  libsoundtouch1c2 libstdc++5 libwildmidi0 msttcorefonts odbcinst1debian1
  sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin ubuntu-restricted-extras
  unixodbc unrar w32codecs xutils-dev

I see there are a bunch of java packages, which may resolve another problem 
with Firefox, and the java site http://www.jigzone.com, although Opera worked 
ok with this site, as long as I set a specific java path in Opera. That 
remains to be seen, and as I already have installed Sun's JRE to resolve that 
problem, I'll have to try and disable Sun's JRE, so as to see if the latest 
downloads that come with the ubuntu-restricted-extras package, will also 
resolve the Firefox problem with that site.


> There is a bug opened on Launchpad about VLC not asking for the codecs.

Have you got a link to the specific bug, as there are 441 listed.
>
> > I then enabled the Hardy Multiverse repo, and installed the Hardy version
> > of vlc 0.8.6a janus (wxWidgets Interface) on Kubuntu Intrepid, which
> > plays dvd's with no problem.
>
> Was it Hardy or Interpid?

The vlc problem is on both Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10. On the same 
machine, Hardy's vlc works ok, but that is an earlier version of vlc (0,8,6a 
janus (wxWidgets interface). I removed the Intrepid version of vlc from 
Kubuntu Intrepid, and installed the Hardy version of vlc (0.8.6a janus 
(wxWidgets interface) on Kubuntu Intrepid. Skipping the edit's I made 
to /etc/apt/sources.list, the Hardy version of vlc works fine on Intrepid.

As I posted previously, both Kaffeine, and Xine will play dvd's with no 
problems on Kubuntu Intrepid, and both Totem, and Ogle play dvd's also with 
no problems on Ubuntu Intrepid. On the same machine Fedora 9, and Archlinux, 
both using vlc 0.9.8a Grishenko play dvd's ok, but they are different 
distro's, so perhaps don't enter the equation.

I'm just trying to resolve a problem, and am gratefull for any suggestions.

Nigel.