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

[Nigel Henry]

On Saturday 07 February 2009 18:31, Mario Vukelic wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 17:30 +0100, Nigel Henry wrote:
> > Why others, Karl for example have no problem with vlc on Intrepid
> > though, is a
> > mystery,
>
> Me too. As for Karl, I filter his posts and don't trust a word in his
> problem and non-problem statements alike.
>
> > but we all have different hardware of course.
>
> I think you have hit the nail on the head. You might want to try and
> disable PulseAudio, then set vlc to use the ALSA sound system instead.
> PulseAudio is known to have problems on some pretty common hardware.

Hi Mario.

Did an apt-get remove pulseaudio, but no change when trying to play a dvd on 
Intrepids vlc 0.9.4. I didn't expect removing pulseaudio to resolve the 
problem, as the same problem existed on Kubuntu Intrepid, and pulseaudio is 
not installed on that. Anyway, it was worth a try. I did also try various 
audio out options on vlc as well, after removing pulseaudio.

I know that when I installed both Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Intrepid on this 
machine, I had problems with the display, and had to borrow an xorg.conf from 
another distro on the same machine to get the graphics working ok.

Could you post me your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Perhaps I could compare it 
with mine. Maybe there are some things that are missing in mine, loaded 
modules for example.

I can easily resolve the problem with vlc on Ubuntu Intrepid, by removing the 
Intrepid vlc, and Installing the Hardy version of vlc 0.8.6a, which I know 
works fine on Kubuntu Intrepid, and there is no reason why it should not work 
on Ubuntu Intrepid. That said, it would be nice to find out just why the 
Intrepid version of vlc will not work on my hardware, whereas Totem, Ogle, 
Kaffeine, and Xine have no problems playing dvd's.

This is no big deal. I've a bunch of distros on this machine that will play 
dvd's using vlc with no problem, and both Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Intrepid will 
play dvd's using other players. I'm just puzzled as to what the problem is 
with the qt version of vlc 0.9.4 on my Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Intrepid installs, 
yet the Hardy version 0.8.6a (wxWidgets interface) plays dvd's ok on Kubuntu 
Intrepid, and no doubt will, if I install it on Ubuntu Intrepid.

Perhaps we should draw this thread to a conclusion. It's not like I can't play 
dvd's, as other players work fine, but simply that I have a problem with the 
Intrepid version of vlc on my hardware, which can't play dvd's for some 
reason or other.

Nigel.