DVD Playback HOWTO


David Jao

<djao@dominia.org>
2004-02-26

Revision History
Revision 1.0 2004-02-26 DJ
Initial Release, reviewed by LDP
Revision 0.9 2004-02-07 DJ
submitted to LDP
Revision 0.1 2004-01-26 DJ
first public release

Abstract
This document describes how to view DVD movies on a Linux computer with a DVD
drive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents


  1._Introduction


        1.1._Copyright_and_License

        1.2._Disclaimer

        1.3._Feedback


  2._System_Preparation


        2.1._Hardware_Prerequisites

        2.2._Creating_the_/dev/dvd_symlink

        2.3._Setting_the_DVD_Region

        2.4._X_Video_Overlay

        2.5._Enabling_DMA


  3._Software_Installation


        3.1._Red_Hat_/_Fedora

        3.2._Debian

        3.3._Slackware

        3.4._Mandrake

        3.5._SuSE

        3.6._Gentoo


  4._Software_Usage


        4.1._General_principles:_deinterlacing,_telecine,_and_framerates

        4.2._Specific_usage_instructions


  5._Troubleshooting

  6._Further_Information


1. Introduction

In this document we describe how to view DVD movies and video on a Linux
system. We give practical, specific, and straightforward commands for getting
DVD playback up and running quickly on most of the popular Linux distributions.
Special attention is given to the various little-known performance
optimizations that are needed for smooth DVD video playback.

1.1. Copyright and License

This document, DVD Playback HOWTO, is copyrighted © 2004 by David Jao.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no
Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is
available at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

1.2. Disclaimer

No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the
concepts, examples and information at your own risk. Although this is highly
unlikely, there may be errors and inaccuracies herein that could be damaging to
your system. The author(s) do not take any responsibility for any damage that
you incur through your own actions.
The mere act of accessing or viewing DVD content, or dealing in software
written for such purposes, may be illegal in some localities. The author(s)
cannot accept any responsibility for any actions of yours which violate the
laws of the jurisdictions to which you are subject.
All copyrights are held by their by their respective owners, unless
specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be
regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Naming of
particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.

1.3. Feedback

Questions, comments, suggestions, and feedback are most certainly welcome and
should be sent to the author of this document at <djao@dominia.org>.

2. System Preparation


2.1. Hardware Prerequisites

A certain level of processing power is necessary for smooth DVD playback. The
system requirements in Linux are somewhat higher than in Windows, because many
of the techniques used for hardware acceleration of video playback work only in
Windows.
At a minimum, I recommend the following:

* 700 MHz or higher CPU,
* video card with X_Video_Overlay support
* DVD drive with DMA enabled


2.2. Creating the /dev/dvd symlink

If you don't already have a /dev/dvd symbolic link, then run (as root) the
command

  # ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/dvd

to create a symbolic link from /dev/dvd to the actual hardware device
representing your DVD-ROM drive (which in this example is /dev/hdc, but you
should replace it with the actual device file used by your drive). The /dev/dvd
link is not merely a matter of convenience; almost all of the player software
mentioned in this HOWTO assumes that the link is there.
If you don't know which device name your DVD-ROM drive uses, you can usually
find it with the command dmesg | grep DVD in the console or a shell right after
booting up the system.

2.3. Setting the DVD Region

All DVD drives (except for RPC_Phase_I_drives made in 1999 or before) enforce
region_playback_restrictions in the drive firmware and consequently are
supposed to be set to a specific region before they can play back discs from
that region (and only that region). In reality, most Linux DVD playback
software can bypass the DVD drive's built-in region locks, but it takes extra
time for the software to break the region lock, and it is better to avoid the
complications of region locks if you can.
For the small minority of readers who own RPC-I drives, you do not need to do
anything: your drive is already capable of handling DVDs from all geographical
regions. These drives are old enough by now that everybody who has one of them
probably knows already that they have one.
For the majority of readers who have RPC-II drives, there are several options
available:

  1. If you only watch discs from one region, the easiest option is to use the
     regionset program to set your DVD drive to the correct region.
  2. If you want to watch discs from multiple regions, you can try to find a
     firmware upgrade for your DVD drive in the firmware-flash.com_collection
     of unofficial firmware files. Note that most of these files require you to
     boot to DOS or Windows to install.
  3. You can buy a separate DVD drive for each DVD region that you wish to use.
     The prices for DVD-ROM drives have dropped low enough to make this
     strategy feasible.
  4. Of course, you can simply do nothing, and rely on the built-in ability of
     Linux software to bypass the region restrictions. Note that even in this
     case you should use the regionset program to set the drive to the region
     that you will be using the most, because an RPC-II drive without a region
     setting behaves as if all the regions are locked out.


2.4. X Video Overlay

The XFree86 video overlay extension is a very poorly documented standard
feature of XFree86 4.x and is absolutely essential for high quality video
playback under Linux. It is the only type of hardware playback acceleration
that is widely supported in Linux, and it is by far the single most important
configuration element for DVD playback on a Linux system.
To check if you have this extension, type xvinfo in an X terminal. If the
command returns several screens full of important-looking output, then
congratulations, you have hardware video overlay and you need not worry about
it anymore.
If, on the other hand, xvinfo returns with a negative answer like:

  # xvinfo

  X-Video Extension version 2.2
  screen #0
   no adaptors present

then that means you don't have hardware overlay support. See Troubleshooting
for tips on how to get overlay support working.

2.5. Enabling DMA

DMA drive access is critical for DVD playback because it lowers the CPU
overhead of disc reading and leaves more of the CPU free for video playback. On
most systems, enabling DMA support for the DVD drive means the difference
between choppy playback and smooth playback.
To see if you have DMA enabled, type (as root) the command

  # hdparm -d /dev/hdc

(replacing /dev/hdc with your DVD drive's actual device name). If DMA is
already on, then you're done. Otherwise, you should turn it on by typing hdparm
-d 1 /dev/hdc. You may want to add this command to a startup script such as /
etc/rc.d/rc.local to ensure that the DMA support is active every time your
computer boots.
See the Troubleshooting section if DMA won't turn on even after you've typed
the command to turn it on.

3. Software Installation

Here we cover the installation of the DVD playback software on various Linux
distributions. For each Linux distribution we indicate how to install MPlayer,
Xine, Ogle, and VideoLAN onto the system. These are the four most popular
software packages for DVD playback in Linux. Usage instructions for these
programs will be given in the next section.
Read the section that corresponds to your Linux distribution. All of the
installation commands given below should be run as root.

3.1. Red Hat / Fedora

If you run Red Hat Linux or Fedora, you can download all of the DVD playback
software from the FreshRPMS package repository. Since there are so many
packages needed for DVD playback, the easiest way to install all of them is to
use apt-get. Here's how to do it:

  1. Follow the link to the version of apt that matches your Red Hat version:

     o Fedora_Core_1
     o Red_Hat_Linux_9
     o Red_Hat_Linux_8
     o Red_Hat_Linux_7.3

     Download the appropriate binary x86 RPM package (in this example, apt-
     0.5.15cnc3-0.1.fr.i386.rpm) and install it using the rpm command as
     follows:

       # rpm -Uvh apt-0.5.15cnc3-0.1.fr.i386.rpm

  2. Run the commands

       # apt-get update
       # apt-get install mplayer xine ogle_gui

     to have apt install everything for you.


3.1.1. Special note about VideoLAN and Red Hat

The FreshRPMS repository contains the videolan-client package for Red Hat 9 and
Red Hat 7.3, but not for Red Hat 8 or Fedora Core 1. If you want to install
VideoLAN on Red Hat 9 or Red Hat 7.3, you can just type apt-get install
videolan-client and let the program take care of it for you. Fedora Core 1
users who want VideoLAN will need to visit the official_VideoLAN_Red_Hat_page
instead, and follow the instructions there. I do not recommend that Fedora
users install VideoLAN, since the VideoLAN packages interfere to a large degree
with the FreshRPMS packages installed in the previous step.
There appears to be no easy way to install VideoLAN on Red Hat 8.

3.2. Debian

These instructions are for Debian, stable only (3.0r1 as of this writing) -- it
is assumed that if you run testing or unstable versions then you should already
know what you are doing.
Make sure the following lines are in your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

  deb http://hpisi.nerim.net/ stable main
  deb http://www.interq.or.jp/libra/oohara/debian-unofficial/ ./
  deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian woody main

(The first line is for MPlayer, the second is for the Xine CSS plugins, and the
third is for VideoLAN.) Then run the commands:

  # apt-get update
  # apt-get install mplayer-686 mplayer-fonts mplayer-doc ogle
  # /usr/share/doc/ogle/examples/install-css.sh
  # apt-get install xine-ui xine-d5d-plugin xine-d4d-plugin gnome-vlc
  libdvdcss2


3.3. Slackware

The best site for Slackware add-on packages is http://www.linuxpackages.net/.
You can use their search engine to find and download the Ogle, Xine, MPlayer,
libdvdcss, libdvdnav, libdvdread, lame, and a52dec packages from the web site.
Put the packages into a single directory and run pkgtool to install the
packages onto your system.
For VideoLAN, you will have to build it from source since there is no
precompiled package on the LinuxPackages web site yet. To make matters worse,
the version of mpeg2dec included with Slackware 9.1 is too old to be used with
VideoLAN, so you have to compile a newer version of mpeg2dec as well.
That said, if you still want to install VideoLAN, then download the latest
source packages for mpeg2dec and VideoLAN and run the following commands. Note
that you have to disable ffmpeg support for the VideoLAN build because the
Slackware MPlayer packages omit some of the header files needed by ffmpeg.

  # tar xzvf mpeg2dec-0.4.0.tar.gz
  # cd mpeg2dec-0.4.0
  # ./configure
  # make
  # make install
  # cd ..
  # tar xzvf vlc-0.7.0.tar.gz
  # cd vlc-0.7.0
  # ./configure --disable-ffmpeg
  # make
  # make install


3.4. Mandrake

Mandrake users can get packages for all of the video programs from the Penguin
Liberation_Front web site. The fastest way is to visit the Easy_Urpmi site and
follow the instructions to generate a listing of the commands you need to type
for PLF access in urpmi. You should then type in the commands returned by the
web site to set up your system for PLF access.
After you have set up PLF access, type:

  # urpmi.update -a
  # urpmi mplayer libdvdcss2 xine-ui ogle ogle_gui vlc

to install all the video programs.

3.5. SuSE

The YaST package program included with SuSE works only with official packages,
and there are no official packages that support DVD. Therefore you will have to
install the packages for all of the DVD software manually.
MPlayer and Xine packages for SuSE are available on the PackMan_site. For
MPlayer, you need the MPlayer, lzo, and xvid packages on that page as well as
the “additionally needed binary packages” listed on the page for each package.
SuSE 9.0 users should note that as of this writing the MPlayer package for SuSE
9.0 has a broken libsmbclient.so.0 dependency. You can work around this problem
with the commands

  # rpm -Uvh --nodeps MPlayer-1.0pre3-pm.1.i686.rpm
  # ln -s libsmbclient3.so.0 /usr/lib/libsmbclient.so.0

To install Xine, you should download and install the libxine1-dvd and xine-ui
packages from PackMan. Encrypted DVD support in Xine also requires installing
libdvdcss from the VideoLAN site.
Ogle can be installed using the Red_Hat_RPMs from the Ogle site. SuSE 9.0 users
who want to install the Ogle_gui package will also need to install orbit, gdk-
pixbuf, gnome-libs, and libglade from SuSE 8.2.
VideoLAN users will need to download the Red_Hat_RPMs from the VideoLAN site
and install them forcibly using rpm --nodeps. The VideoLAN packages also
require XFree86-compat-libs and freetype from SuSE 8.2 in order to run.

3.6. Gentoo

The basic command to use is:

  # emerge sync
  # USE="dvd mmx sse" emerge mplayer xine-ui vlc ogle-gui

If you have an AMD processor, you should type USE="dvd mmx 3dnow" instead of
using the sse flag. Athlon XP owners can use the 3dnow and sse flags together.

4. Software Usage

Although I have tried very hard to keep this HOWTO focused on practical advice
instead of abstract theory, it is necessary to have some minimal background in
television video in order to understand how to get the best possible video
quality under Linux.

4.1. General principles: deinterlacing, telecine, and framerates

Regular television video is interlaced, meaning that the odd-numbered scanlines
are recorded (and displayed) first, followed by the even numbered scanlines,
then the odd ones again, then the even ones again, etc. Each individual line is
displayed 30 times a second (or 25, depending on where you live), but because
of the interlacing, the television image as a whole is refreshed 60 times a
second (or 50), with only half of the total lines being refreshed each time.
In general, with interlaced motion pictures, there is no way to reconstruct any
single video frame perfectly without artifacts. This point is important enough
to repeat: there is no way to perfectly reconstruct any single frame! The
reason is that the odd-numbered lines are recorded onto the video tape with a
timing skew of one half-frame relative to the even-numbered lines. If the video
picture is still, this timing skew is no problem, but for moving pictures it
causes half the lines to be displaced from the other half. On a television
screen, you can't see this displacement, since TV screens (except for high-end
HDTV monitors) are of such low quality that the artifacts aren't visible.
However, on a computer screen, this displacement is very visible and causes
comb-like artifacts to appear in the video. You can see screenshots of
interlacing artifacts in the interlacing_section of Luke's_Video_Guide.

4.1.1. How to fix interlacing artifacts

The process of removing interlacing artifacts is called deinterlacing.
Unfortunately, all deinterlacing techniques are imperfect to some extent, and
there is no single method which works best in all situations. It is therefore
important to experiment with all of the different possible deinterlace settings
to see which one works best for a particular disc.
MPlayer users can get a list of deinterlacing options by typing mplayer -pphelp
at the command line. Find the option that you want to use, and then use the -vf
pp=<option> syntax to activate the option. For example, I usually use the lb
option, which is done with the command: mplayer -vf pp=lb, followed by whatever
other options you would normally use to play the DVD.
VideoLAN users can right-click on the movie to get a list of deinterlacing
options (under Video Settings or Deinterlace, depending on the program
version).
Xine has a list of deinterlacing options in the configuration panel; to get to
it, right-click on the movie window, open the Settings → Setup dialog, set
“Configuration experience level” to “Advanced”, and then look for “Software
deinterlace method” under the “Video” tab.
Ogle has no deinterlacing support, so it is not recommended to use Ogle for
watching interlaced video.

4.1.2. Telecined video

This section only applies to video in NTSC format (used in North America, east
Asia, and parts of Latin America) -- PAL users (the rest of the world) can skip
ahead.
The one exception to all of the above discussion about interlacing is in the
case of telecined video. Briefly put, telecine is a special kind of interlacing
that is done only to theatrical (i.e. cinematic) movies and some forms of hand-
drawn animated shows. The special thing about telecine is that it can usually
be perfectly undone. The details are too complicated to explain here, but you
can read about it in Luke's_Video_Guide or Bob_Niland's_FAQs if you're curious.
The process of undoing the telecine artifacts is called inverse telecine. The
good news is that inverse telecine, done properly, fully restores the original
video quality of the source video with no artifacts whatsoever. The bad news is
that MPlayer is the only player program in the world right now that can perform
inverse telecine.
To perform inverse telecine in MPlayer, simply add the -vf ivtc option to the
MPlayer command. This option is the right one to use if you are watching a
movie you know originated as a theatrical release, or if you are watching
animated shows. Warning: this option is very CPU intensive. You need at least a
1 GHz processor to even think about doing it.

4.1.3. How come Windows users don't have to deal with all this?

Windows DVD players hide most of the complexity of DVD playback and fall back
to the lowest common demoninator when playing DVDs. The result is that you get
playback quality which is decent in a wide range of situations but not always
the best that can be achieved in any given situation. For example, no Windows
DVD player in the world has an inverse telecine filter like MPlayer does, so
telecined material always looks dramatically worse in Windows than in MPlayer
under Linux.

4.2. Specific usage instructions

Here we give specific instructions for launching basic DVD playback in the
various player programs. These commands only cover the basic steps of operating
each program. You are encouraged to refer to the man pages of each program for
further instructions.
Put the DVD that you want to play into your drive before attempting playback.

4.2.1. MPlayer

Type mplayer dvd://1 to begin playing title #1 on the disc. To play other title
numbers, substitute the appropriate number in place of 1.
Old versions of MPlayer, such as the one used in Debian, require the command
mplayer -dvd 1 instead. In some cases you also have to explicitly add the
option -vo xv in order to make MPlayer use the hardware video overlay port.
Subtitle and audio options for MPlayer have to be specified on the command
line. The format is -alang NN or -slang NN where NN is the two-letter language
code of the language you want. For example, to play back Japanese audio with
English subtitles, type:

  # mplayer dvd://1 -alang ja -slang en

on the command line.

4.2.2. Xine

Simply type xine at the command prompt to start the program.
The first time you start the program, it will display a configuration screen
with a bunch of options. In most cases you can leave all of the options at the
defaults.
The program has a graphical console with a row of labeled buttons along the
bottom. Press the DVD button to start playing the DVD. (However, if your
version of Xine has a D5D button, use that instead.)
Xine supports DVD menus, so you can set language or subtitling options as you
normally would via the disc's own menu.

4.2.3. Ogle

Type ogle to start the program. Depending on which version of the program you
have, it may start playing the DVD automatically. If it doesn't, then click on
the File menu and select Open Disc to begin reading the disc.
Ogle, like Xine, supports DVD menus for setting the language or subtitling
options.

4.2.4. VideoLAN

Use the vlc command to bring up the VideoLAN GUI and click on the disc icon to
open the disc and start playing. Right click the playback window to bring up
the options menu, which includes deinterlacing, audio, and subtitle options.

5. Troubleshooting



  5.1. xvinfo_returns_“no_adaptors_present”

  5.2. xvinfo_works_but_overlay_output_is_garbled

  5.3. DMA_isn't_working

  5.4. Video_playback_is_choppy

  5.5. Sound_playback_is_choppy

  5.6. Out_of_region_discs_play_back_garbled

  5.7. Out-of-region_discs_hang_on_playback


5.1. xvinfo returns “no adaptors present”
     Make sure you are running XFree86 4.1 or above. You can find out your version of
     XFree86 by typing X -version at the command prompt.
     Use an appropriate driver for your video card. Some Linux distributions default to
     using the generic XFree86 VESA driver instead of the specific driver for your video
     card. You need to use the hardware-specific driver for your card in order to get
     hardware overlay support.

     * ATI users should try downloading the improved ATI XFree86 drivers from the GATOS
       home page, or from the official_ATI_Linux_support_page.
     * NVidia users should try downloading the official_NVidia_Linux_drivers for their
       video card.
     * Sometimes upgrading XFree86 can provide you with an improved driver that has
       hardware overlay support, but such an upgrade is beyond the scope of this HOWTO.

5.2. xvinfo works but overlay output is garbled
     Problems with garbled or missing overlay output usually mean that you don't have
     enough video RAM to hold both the regular desktop display and the video overlay
     display at once. Typically you need twice as much video RAM as normal at a given
     video resolution in order to use hardware video overlay. In some cases you may even
     need 3 to 5 times more RAM because of internal buffering in the video card.
     The only easy way to lower your video RAM requirements is to switch to a lower video
     resolution while playing videos.
5.3. DMA isn't working
     You can tell that DMA is broken if using the command hdparm -d1 on your DVD drive
     returns a message like the following:

       # hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

       /dev/hda:
        setting using_dma to 1 (on)
        HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
        using_dma    =  0 (off)

     The only way to fix this problem is to compile a kernel with DMA support for your
     particular chipset. It is beyond the scope of this HOWTO to explain how to compile a
     kernel, but the steps which are particularly relevant to DMA support are as follows:

       1. Download a recent kernel so that you have the greatest possible chance of DMA
          being supported on your chipset.
       2. Unpack your kernel and type make xconfig in the kernel build directory. Under
          “ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support”, select “IDE, ATA, and ATAPI Block devices” and enable
          “Generic PCI bus-master DMA support” and “Use DMA by default when available”.
       3. On the same page there are several dozen chipset-specific DMA drivers that
          continue downward for several screens. Find and select one relevant to your
          chipset, if there are any. For example if you have an AMD Athlon based VIA
          chipset, enable the “VIA82CXXX chipset support” item.

     For more information on compiling kernels, see the Kernel_HOWTO as well as the Linux
     Ultra-DMA_Mini-Howto.
5.4. Video playback is choppy
     On a fast enough computer (say, over 1 GHz), choppy video playback usually means that
     your overlay support or DMA support is misconfigured. See the previous
     troubleshooting items.
     On a very slow computer (say, 0-500 MHz), there is nothing you can do short of
     hardware upgrades to make DVD playback run well.
     For borderline computers (anything in between), you can gain a modest (~10%)
     performance boost by upgrading from kernel 2.2 to kernel 2.4 and using an SSE-
     optimized player program like MPlayer.
     Finally, if all else fails, run MPlayer with the option mplayer -framedrop to patch
     over occasional glitches in video playback.
5.5. Sound playback is choppy
     The most common cause of sound playback problems is from sound cards that do not
     support 48 kHz audio playback. For people in this category, I strongly suggest that
     you purchase a new sound card. Even a cheap PCI sound card can give you a substantial
     upgrade in sound quality for less than the cost of two DVDs.
     Failing that, you can lighten the load on your sound playback system by not using a
     sound daemon such as ESounD or aRts and playing the DVD audio directly to the OSS
     driver. To do this with MPlayer, run mplayer -ao=oss along with whatever other
     options you normally use.
5.6. Out of region discs play back garbled
     In the past, older versions of most of the programs discussed here have had trouble
     decrypting out-of-region discs. The result of a failed decryption looks like the
     colored video noise that you see.
     Upgrading to the newest available version of any of the programs should solve this
     problem.
5.7. Out-of-region discs hang on playback
     Watch the DVD drive's access light while the program is hanging. Is the light still
     blinking in an access pattern? If it is (and usually it will be), that means the
     program is still in the middle of decrypting the disc.
     Decrypting the DVD involves mounting a fairly large-scale computational effort to
     recover the key. It is not at all unusual for a computer to take five or even ten
     minutes to decrypt a single DVD key.
     In-region discs never have this problem because the DVD drive firmware automatically
     decrypts discs that match with the drive's own region.


6. Further Information


* Dag_Wieers'_overview of the Linux DVD playback programs
* Moritz_Bunkus's_DVD_ripping_guide for Linux