11 May
2003
11 May
'03
2:59 p.m.
Greetings:
I have to write some documentation on DVD/VCD players for Linux. I own
a nice new DVD player (dmesg says it's a LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163D, ATAPI
CD/DVD-ROM drive) that works well on my machine, though I did have to
discover a few secrets for glitch-free viewing (e.g. my nVidia card
should have its double-buffering turned off). I'm writing not only about
viewing video discs but also recording and ripping them. Thus, a few
questions for anyone in the LAU community using a DVD player and/or
recorder.
1. What software do you use for viewing DVDs ?
2. Do you use that software for watching AVI, MPEG, or other video
formats ?
3. What software do you use for ripping/encoding DVDs ?
4. If you have a DVD recorder, please let me know how well it works
for you under Linux, what outstanding problems exist, what software you
use, etc.
5. Overall, how would you rate Linux DVD support, particularly
compared to Windows or the Mac ?
I don't own a DVD recorder and I'm curious about Linux users'
experiences with them.
I've been trying to rip DVDs using the dvd::rip software (based on
transcode) but keep receiving read errors. If anyone has any special
tips for DVD ripping I'm interested in them too.
My system includes an 800 MHz AMD CPU, two 15GB hard drives (tuned),
512 MB RAM, an SBLive soundcard, and an nVidia GForce2 (64 MB video
RAM). Kernel is 2.4.18 patched for low-latency. I've been using MPlayer
0.90 for viewing AVI and other video file formats. I was using MPlayer
for watching DVDs too but have recently switched to Ogle (a better DVD
player, IMO). Frame rate is normally between 24 and 29 fps (that's what
MPlayer reports, I don't really know if it's any different under Ogle).
I don't really know how to massage MPlayer's parameters, so any advice
for improving video file playback performance is most welcome. Ogle is
pretty straightforward, and the Ogle FAQ yielded some very useful tips
(particularly the pointer to the xvattr utility).
So, how's *your* DVD player performing under Linux ? :)
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org