[MPlayer-users] Problems playing some DVDs - deliberate UDF filesystem corruption?

[Stroller]

Hi there,

I'm having problems playing a number of DVDs. In order to debug this  
I've finally gotten around to today (re)building the latest mplayer &  
dvdnav from source (I believe the attached output demonstrates this).

Attached is mplayer output for 3 movies:


1) O Brother, Where Art Thou		-	PLAYS PERFECTLY!

I've had this DVD for 5 years or more, bought new around the time of  
its original release. It's the "Special Edition" 2-disk set, Region  
2, output taken from the DVD9 main-feature, appears to be a Universal  
Studios release (but also marked with "Touchstone", "Working Title",  
"Momentum" & "Studio Canal").
I am surprised to find this is marked as "copy protected" with a  
triangular logo - obviously this is a very old form of copy  
protection, perhaps a system as simple as RCE (??), guessing from the  
age of the disk. If I'd know this was marked as copy-protected I  
would have used an older Criterion release instead, but since this  
works I guess it'll do as a baseline, eh?  ;)

Output attached as mplayer-OBWAT.txt


2) The Usual Suspects.		Doesn't play, of course.

"Special Edition" 2-disk set, bought secondhand within the last year  
or so; Amazon gives release date of April 2002, but packaging  
indicates this to be a "subsequent pressing" according to  
DVDcompare.net. Region 2, output taken from the main-feature disk,  
MGM Home Entertainment.
NOT MARKED AS COPY-PROTECTED IN ANY WAY I CAN SEE.

Output attached as mplayer-TUS.txt


3) Behind Enemy Lines.		Doesn't play.

Bought secondhand within the last year or so, this is an obviously- 
cheapo edition, marked as single-layer (I'll have to buy the blu-ray,  
eh?) Region 2, "Twentieth Century Fox".
This was the first DVD I tested this evening & it was only tonight I  
noticed the "copy-protected" logo on the back - that what caused me  
to post the output for TUS (above), which is without any such  
markings, and to examine the cover of OBWAT (which has always played  
fine in mplayer) more closely. Logo is similar to <http://tinyurl.com/ 
2b5knq> but without the text.
I happen to know that DVD-FAB Decrypter v2.9.5.2 allows this to be  
ripped / DeCSS'd fine, and that setting "-dvd-device smb://path/to/ 
windows/box/" will allow playback of the resultant .vob, .bup, .ifo  
files.


So, what to say? I think I first installed Linux on this PS3 about 6  
or 9 months ago, and had hoped that grabbing the latest SVN would by  
now fix at least some of my unplayable disks. I'm not blaming the  
mplayer developers or anything like that, I'm just a little  
frustrated at the situation (and I'm tired because I've stayed up a  
little late testing disks and documenting the output; it always takes  
longer than you'd expect). Obviously I've got tonnes and tons more  
disks here that I need to try.

There's a big bit of me thinking I should just slap a big hard-drive  
in the server, rip / DeCSS all my DVDs on to that using all the  
latest swashbuckling technologies available on teh Windows platform,  
& forget about these problems. But it miffs me something cronic  
because at the end of the day that means I'm lunching out £70 on hard- 
drive storage for data I've already got on "perfectly good" DVD  
media. Really, I just want DVD playback to work so that I can stick  
each disk in the player, watch it & then put it back in its box  
forever. Let's face it, if it takes 3 hours to rip / DeCSS a movie,  
you know that you can't delete the files, otherwise your g/f is sure  
to want to watch this flick next week.

I note Alexander Roalter's comment in a post earlier this week  
<http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2008-March/ 
072166.html> that appears to refer to these patches <http:// 
tobias.rautenkranz.ch/libdvdread_ifo.html> <http:// 
tobias.rautenkranz.ch/03-udf.patch>.
libdvdnav/src/dvdread/dvd_reader.c appears to already be a bit  
different to the version of libdvdread that Rautenkranz's patch is  
written against, however, and it's not within my immediate abilities  
to port it. Has anyone else tried?

BTW, the version of dvdnav I'm using is:

   ~/sources/libdvdnav $ svn info
   Path: .
   URL: svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/dvdnav/trunk/libdvdnav
   Repository Root: svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/dvdnav
   Repository UUID: 625a9de0-492d-0410-920c-a7e632af1907
   Revision: 997
   Node Kind: directory
   Schedule: normal
   Last Changed Author: nicodvb
   Last Changed Rev: 996
   Last Changed Date: 2008-01-05 15:17:28 +0000 (Sat, 05 Jan 2008)
   Properties Last Updated: 2007-11-11 19:10:51 +0000 (Sun, 11 Nov 2007)

   ~/sources/libdvdnav $

I believe this is correct?

Thanks in advance for any pointers or suggestions,

Stroller.