Kodi Community Forum

Hi. I've looked all over the web site, Wiki, and forum, but can't find a simple description of how to play DVDs with XBMC.

It's probable that there is some error in my setup (which is ubuntu 9.10 running xbmc 9.11-rc1), and that watching DVDs is so simple that no one has bothered to document it. However, I'm a reasonably knowledgeable linux user, and can watch DVDs fine with totem, xine, vlc, and mplayer on the same machine, so I know it's not a hardware, css, or device permission issue. If I knew how DVD playback was supposed to work, maybe I could figure out what the problem is.

Some things I have tried include clicking the play button on the main screen (which interestingly sometimes complains about no device if there is no disk in the drive, but never does anything when there is a disk), adding /dev/dvd to the video sources, adding /media/cdrom/ to the video sources (that's my DVD mountpoint), and selecting the play DVDs automatically option.

The only thing that does seem to work is hunting around in the VIDEO_TS directory and clicking on VIDEO_TS.IFO. At least that works so that I know XBMC is capable of playing back DVDs. But obviously this solution is not acceptable for a general-purpose media PC that I'd like to set up for other (non-technical users) to use.

This must be such a simple question that I can't believe I can't find the solution, but I've hunted through all the menus, looked through the various FAQs, searched google, but I can't find a simple description of how to play DVDs on XBMC.

If someone can describe this for me, or point me to some documentation that I'm missing, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks.

It should do it by just inserting the disc in the drive though this has to be enabled in your settings. If you are having trouble with the play button on the main screen it might be an idea to enable debug logging and post the log on pastebin so others might be able to see what is (or isn't) happening.

redtapemedia Wrote:It should do it by just inserting the disc in the drive though this has to be enabled in your settings. If you are having trouble with the play button on the main screen it might be an idea to enable debug logging and post the log on pastebin so others might be able to see what is (or isn't) happening.

Thanks for the reply. I enabled debug logging in the system menu, but it doesn't give me any additional information. The mouse turns red for a second when I click on the triangle, and that's it.

Are you saying that the right-triangle button should play a DVD, even without any kind of configuration to tell xbmc about the DVD player? This is the specific information I am missing, so an explicit confirmation that triangle means play DVD, and that there is no configuration, would be most helpful. (What happens when there are multiple DVD players--do you get multiple triangles? How do you know which is which? This is why I think there has to be some kind of configuration, but I can't find it in any documentation.)

Well, I've now additionally tried installing XBMC live (9.11) to my hard disk, to be sure that the problem wasn't something weird having to do with my Ubuntu install. But sure enough, there is no option to play DVDs (even when the automatic DVD play option is selected).

I think it's a little weird that xbmc touts DVD playing as a feature, when there is no mention of how to do this in the documentation and the only way to do this is to mount the CD and dig around in the VIDEO_TS directory.

A friend of mine suggested one solution might be MythTV, which does indeed have a menu item for optical disks that just works for DVDs. However, MythTV has no mouse support, which is kind of annoying.

In the end, I'll probably just write my own scripts around vlc. I just wish I hadn't wasted so much time trying to figure out how to get xbmc to play DVDs, when clearly this support has not been added into the GUI yet. I think whoever maintains the main web site should tone down the claim "Use your media as-is: XBMC can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk", as that's obviously going to disappoint people who think they can use XBMC as a DVD player.

How's that debug log coming along? We can't help unless you read the stickies and provide the information that we require.

tslayer Wrote:How's that debug log coming along? We can't help unless you read the stickies and provide the information that we require.

I don't even know what action to take. There's no menu option for playing DVDs, and there are no instructions. If I knew what I was supposed to do to play DVDs, I could do that, and if it didn't work, include a log file.

But, in case there is any useful information in just running xbmc (with a DVD in the drive) and clicking the triangle, here is a log file:

http://pastebin.com/m7f8d1bc2

It just says "Detection of DVD-ROM media failed.", which isn't very useful, since I haven't even told xbmc where my DVD-ROM drive is (namely /dev/sr0, symlinked to /dev/dvd, with an fstab entry for /media/cdrom0), and I haven't asked it to play the DVD because I can't figure out how to add the DVD drive to my video sources.

Playing a DVD depends on which skin you are using. Some skins put play on the main menu, others allow the DVD option to be switched on and off.

Since you are using Camelot, we can assume you are using the Confluence skin. To play a DVD in confluence you have two choices:

1) in Settings you can tell it to autoplay when a DVD is entered.
2) There is an arrow ICON in the bottom left hand corner of the main screen select this to play your DVD.

I would be interested to learn if you DVD works, as with my install that I have just completed I cannot get XBMC to play DVDs at the moment.

This bug is probably preventing you from playing back DVD's: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8026

prjxbmc Wrote:Playing a DVD depends on which skin you are using. Some skins put play on the main menu, others allow the DVD option to be switched on and off.

Since you are using Camelot, we can assume you are using the Confluence skin. To play a DVD in confluence you have two choices:

1) in Settings you can tell it to autoplay when a DVD is entered.
2) There is an arrow ICON in the bottom left hand corner of the main screen select this to play your DVD.

I would be interested to learn if you DVD works, as with my install that I have just completed I cannot get XBMC to play DVDs at the moment.

Indeed, I think I am using Camelot. Specifically, I am using the default xbmc packages. Aptitude reports:


Though I only pasted one debug log, I've tried inserting the disc while xbmc is running (and I've selected the auto-play feature), and nothing happens. The one thing I've noticed is that if I click on the triangle in the lower-left hand corner and no disc is in the drive, I get an error message. If a disc is in the drive, however, the mouse cursor just turns red and then disappears, but nothing happens. No warning or error or anything.

I should say freevo works, too, so between that, mythtv, totem, mplayer, xine, and vlc (all of which work), this does seem like an xbmc bug.

I think the reason this bug is so frustrating is that it's a combination of UI and back-end bug. What I'm gathering now is that if this bug weren't here, there would be some kine of menu option for adding the DVD drive as a video source. One big improvement would be to add this to the documentation, so that people could at least know what was supposed to happen if everything were working.

RedShift Wrote:This bug is probably preventing you from playing back DVD's: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8026

But this bug report seems to be an issue with libcdio compatibility. I've tried using the livecd version of XBMC, so if it's a libcdio compatibility, then even whatever versions of the library are being used to create the livecd are incompatible.

I should also add that I have a SATA CD-ROM drive. Unfortunately my motherboard does not have any PATA connectors, so I can't try a PATA drive, but given some of what the bug report points to, this problem is probably specifically related to SATA.

Try compiling trunk as the last user did in the trac ticket. Otherwise, try applying the patch in that ticket.

tslayer Wrote:Try compiling trunk as the last user did in the trac ticket. Otherwise, try applying the patch in that ticket.

I have the same problem playing DVD on my external USB-DVD drive attached to Acer Revo 3600.

I am totally noobs and very little knowledge on linux... How do I apply that patch and will this work on XBMC live 9.11 (repack) final?

Thanks!

You would need to compile it yourself from scratch by checking out the source code.

So, you can't just apply it to what you have installed.

I will make sure to bring this issue up for when/if we release a bug fixed 9.11.

tslayer Wrote:You would need to compile it yourself from scratch by checking out the source code.

So, you can't just apply it to what you have installed.

I will make sure to bring this issue up for when/if we release a bug fixed 9.11.

Thanks - that will help a lot of noobs here.

What versions are you guys running and what is your install procedure. I only run /branches/camelot SVN or /trunk/svn.

I usually compile three or more times a week. DVD playback is always up and down only another reason why I have a mythbuntu so I can use mythvideo to play back a dvd when xbmc will not, but myth is sketchy at best.

Anyhow, I am at 26157 with the SVN version of XBMC and it will not playback DVD's currentlly, it will load the main DVD window and that's all if I choose a selection from the DVD menu like play the movie or try to change the language track it just hangs or freezes there I have waited up to 2 minutes at one point but no change. I can hit stop and reload the movie and sometimes if I reboot it will play, but in the last few updates that does not work either.

In the 26115 version of /branches/Camelot final svn everything seems to work fine playback is quick and with no freezing and i have tried this version with several dvd's that have given me problems with other versions and they play fine. So I have chose to stick with that version for the time being.
I keep two directory's on my system XBMC and XBMC1. I compile the latest trunk in the XBMC dir and the latest final version svn in the XBMC1 dir this allows me to test a couple versions on and off.

I use rapier modded skin and the play disc is under the power sysmbol at the top of the screen, took me a bit too find this. I do have play disk automagically turned on and that function works, you can also do an eject/load from the toolbar at the bottom and under the general selection.

Regards,

Dave