can't play DVDs at all

[dbaker]

I've been meaning to try out playing DVDs ever since I got this computer, but it's taken me a while...

Well, last night I put a DVD in the drive and tried to open it with VLC, Kaffeine and Dragon Player. None of them worked (I tried with a different DVD with no success either).
Dragon Player was just black and did nothing, Kaffeine said 'Error, couldn't read' but not much else...VLC, however, did give comprehensive error logs.

Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "/dev/dvd1".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/dvd1'. Check the log for details.

main debug: adding item `dvd1' ( dvd:///dev/dvd1 )
qt4 debug: Adding a new MRL to recent ones: dvd:///dev/dvd1
main debug: processing request item: dvd1, node: Playlist, skip: 0
main debug: rebuilding array of current - root Playlist
main debug: rebuild done - 3 items, index 2
main debug: starting playback of the new playlist item
main debug: resyncing on dvd1
main debug: dvd1 is at 2
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: Creating an input for 'dvd1'
main debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MiB, in path '/tmp'
main debug: `dvd:///dev/dvd1' gives access `dvd' demux `' path `/dev/dvd1'
main debug: creating demux: access='dvd' demux='' location='/dev/dvd1' file='/dev/dvd1'
main debug: looking for access_demux module matching "dvd": 20 candidates
dvdnav warning: cannot open DVD (/dev/dvd1)
dvdread error: DVDRead cannot open source: /dev/dvd1
main debug: no access_demux modules matched
main debug: creating access 'dvd' location='/dev/dvd1', path='/dev/dvd1'
main debug: looking for access module matching "dvd": 25 candidates
main debug: no access modules matched
main error: open of `dvd:///dev/dvd1' failed
main debug: finished input
main debug: dead input
main debug: changing item without a request (current 2/3)
main debug: nothing to play
main debug: Creating an input for 'dvd1'
main debug: no fetch required for (null) (art currently (null))

I did a bit of research into this and there are hundreds of posts on the web about not being able to play DVDs, but the only thing I was able to learn was that I might need libdvdcss, which I got from here: http://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html
I git cloned it and attempted to build, but it failed in the first stage of the process (autoconf -i, which the install instructions said was necessary), and while ./configure seemed to work ok, when I tried to run 'make' I got "make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop."

Considering that I don't even know if libdvdcss will solve my problem, I figure it's not worth continuing to battle with it and I should just ask for help outright :S

[claydoh]

You will need libdvdcss2 to play any encrypted dvd (movies), but you don't need to build it. Add the debian repo found on the page you linked to.

[Rod J]

This is how I got my 12.04 system to play DVD's (I think the process is probably the same in 14.04). I think it's the simplest way to get DVD playback working:

1. Install the libdvdread4 package from the repository

2. In a terminal cd to /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/

3. Run the "install-css.sh" script

I've also found this page a mine of useful information on DVD and AV conversion, etc:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Kubuntu_...ack_Capability

This similar page is for Trusty:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_T...deo_Conversion

[bendy]

Also check that your DVD drive is actually /dev/dvd1. I had this problem and had to point vlc at /dev/sr0 instead as /dev/dvd1 didn't exist on my system.