Inconsistent DVD accessibility

[Nils Kassube]

MR ZenWiz wrote:
> I run Xubuntu 14.04.4 with the 4.2.0-38 kernel on my home desktop, up
> to date from a base 14.04.1 install.  It has an Intel i7 CPU and 16GB
> of main memory.  The machine also has a Blu-ray DVD burner and an
> HD-DVD burner, both SATA.
> 
> I also have an HP8710 laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB of
> memory, running 14.04.4 with the standard kernel (3.13.something).
> This machine has one of the old DVD burner slide trays.
> 
> I have purchased a couple of mass-market DVDs lately that behave as
> follows (both of them, consistently):
> 
> My desktop does not recognize them as readable media and refuses to
> mount or provide any access to them.

There's one point that I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion so 
far. Can you read other video DVDs on the desktop?

> My laptop can read them, play them, and I have used K3B to rip them
> both to ISO images.
> 
> The ISO images both play and run properly, including all the menus and
> features on the laptop.
> 
> The ISO images (copied vi alfash drive to the desktop) play on the
> desktop, but the menus and images don't work right.  E.g., I can't set
> subtitles to work, and on one of them, the built-in subtitles for
> foreign language pieces of the movie work fine on the laptop but not
> on the desktop (from the images - the disks do not work at all on the
> desktop - only).

I would suggest to compare the installed packages on the two machines. I 
think the package xubuntu-restricted-extras might provide the missing 
functionality.


Nils