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[David Sydney]

Hi there, I have a couple of ripped DVDs in my collection of Music videos. They play fine on the Windows version of MC30. I have moved to Linux for the main library, and I recently plugged a physical DVD-USB drive and it is recognised on my Manjaro 5.27/Linux 6.1.31 installation as /dev/sr0.

In the CD&DVD Settings, it is also pointing to /dev/sr0. In General settings DVD ripping is turned on. Far as I know that is all I need to set up, however I cannot get Linux MC 30.0.93 to play DVD files. VLC will play them fine - so it's not a hardware/USB thing? I don't believe there are any changes in version 31 that would change this?

Any ideas on what else I can try to get this working from anyone?

[Awesome Donkey]

By chance are they ripped disc image files like ISOs or ripped DVDs with the folder structures (and menus, etc.) intact? If so only MC for Windows can mount and playback ripped DVDs/BDs images (e.g. ISOs) or ripped disc folder structures unfortunately. On Windows MC uses the system component(s) for playback, which don't really exist like that on Linux or macOS and would require its own developed solution from scratch. It's been brought up multiple times and discussed multiple times over the years.

The best practice for playing back ripped DVDs and/or BDs outside of Windows is to rip using MakeMKV to MKV files. This does unfortunately mean no disc menus or anything like that though.

[David Sydney]

Thanks AD;
OK I understand that - but my immediate need is playing a physical disk. I can't get a DVD to play in MC30 for Linux when I have a DVD drive connected fine, and a music DVD in the drive. While outside of MC, VLC will play the disc in Linux without any in issue? Its a USB drive and not connected via a hub which I know sometimes is an issue with voltage drop or something - but direct connect DVD-R/W drive in a USB port. Based on the feature set MC is supposed to be able to do this right, play a DVD disk? I am not being sarcastic - I haven't gone through every feature difference b/w windows and linux to check for every difference, but as far as I can tell it should be able to play the disk?

[Awesome Donkey]

I can't recall if MC can playback DVD/BD discs outside of Windows either, so there's a chance it may not.

But regardless if it's a "typical" DVD that has copy protection, MC can't play those back unless the copy protection is defeated, e.g. using AnyDVD or MakeMKV. I believe AnyDVD is Windows-only but I do know MakeMKV is available on Linux. It may be worth a try.

[David Sydney]

Not sure why copy protection needs to be defeated to play a DVD - what is the point of having a DVD media if it can't be played. I am not trying to copy anything. If MC can't play a disk in Linux version - it's time to get back to basics?

[Awesome Donkey]

The majority of DVDs and BDs have copy protection and are encrypted and Media Center can only play DVD/BD discs that are unencrypted. AnyDVD (on Windows) or MakeMKV (Windows, macOS and Linux) are tools that removes/bypasses the copy protection on-the-fly, allowing Media Center to play the media... assuming, of course, Media Center on Linux supports playback of DVD/BD discs, which it may not. Actually thinking about it more, it probably doesn't work yet on Linux and you may have to rip it with MakeMKV first before being able to play it, hmmm.

[JimH]

David,
You could use Google to learn about the subject.  Wikipedia might also help.

[mattkhan]

It's one of the gaps between Linux and windows so you just have to rip the content and then play that instead