The VideoLAN Forums

b4 you ask!

Yes, I searched the forum for the word "ratDVD" but I didn`t get a satisfying answer.

So many other players support ratDVD.

Look here:
http://www.ratdvd.dk./play.htm

For example:
- MS Media Player
- Media Player Classic
- Fullscreen Player
- Zoom Player
- Fusion Media Player
and many more.

But none of them works perfecly. And some of them I don't like.

So, why don't VLC takes a try to support ratDVD?

Why can others do it but not VLC?


Sorry for asking that again

Richard

Please search the forum before asking questions. The DJ answered this yet yesterday once again.

Please search the forum before asking questions. The DJ answered this yet yesterday once again.

Please read my post completely.

I said:
I read all posts about ratDVD. And I searched the forum. But there were no decent answers to my question.

My question was:

Why can so many other players do what VLC can't do?


Richard

As written by The DJ yesterday:

VLC does not support ratDVD, nor will it any time soon. It is only partly open source, and only really compatible with Directshow Media players (WMP, BSplayer etc)

VLC isn't compatible with DirectShow codecs.

Additionally, we've got kind of personal problems with the author of ratDVD since s/he breaks the licence (the same which we are using as well) of some of the used libraries.

Which license does ratDVD break? For which libraries?

i believe the GPL license of dvdnav

Well, I've got to say that due to highly modulised design of current version of ratdvd (this wasn't like that at the beginning), it doesn't seem to violate any licences anymore that obviously.
Anyway, we can't support this file-format since it is proprietary and currently nobody got the time to reverse-engineer this. Additionally, there are better alternatives, but that's just my personal opinion.

Good to hear that ratDVD doesn't violate anything. I thought so but I wanted to be sure.

Did anyone contact the ratDVD author for help?

The license issue might be out of the way, but that doesn't mean there still aren't technical issues.

I'd say the chances of VLC supporting ratDVD anytime soon are as big as the chances that you will see ratDVD support on Mac OSX. (you can forget about it )

The license issue might be out of the way, but that doesn't mean there still aren't technical issues.

I'd say the chances of VLC supporting ratDVD anytime soon are as big as the chances that you will see ratDVD support on Mac OSX. (you can forget about it )

Splinter (the ratDVD-developer) wrote to me:

What do you mean with troubles or personal problems with the VLC guys?
I am not aware of any problems with them nor do I even know anyone
there. I have never had any request from them about anything. And of
course they can integrate ratDVD playback into VLC if they want..

If he wasn't aware of his previous GPL violation on dvdnav, then he didn't pay attention. It was reported to him personally, and was also mentioned in several of the forums dealing with ratDVD.

However, since this is no longer an issue, there is no problem between us and him.

The technical issue that VLC is not a directshow based media player however remains.. previous claim of not seeing VLC support ratDVD untill the format is implemented in a Open and Free way remains.

If he wasn't aware of his previous GPL violation on dvdnav, then he didn't pay attention. It was reported to him personally, and was also mentioned in several of the forums dealing with ratDVD.

Yes, I've e-mailed him to and didn't get a reply, but he did modulize libdvdnav after all the complaints (but I still think that violates the GPL, ...plus the fact that it wasn't modulized before but he never released the full source code then when he was defenitly violating the GPL)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=97893&
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/215044
viewtopic.php?t=10086
viewtopic.php?t=12773

Additionally, there are better alternatives, but that's just my personal opinion.

better alternatives for VLC or ratDVD ?
so I#m interested in both

Asking for better alternatives for VLC in a VLC forum isn't such a great idea. Of course VLC is the best player and you don't need anything else

Concerning ratDVD: I never needed all parts of a DVD. I usually just want the main movie and perhaps some trailers or a making-off. Thus, I take HandBrake (which is a really easy to use tool with great quality; regrettably, there isn't a GUI for Windows yet, but for Linux, BeOS and OSX) to convert them to H.264/MP4, so I get about 700/800 per movie instead of several gigabytes. If I missed something, I just take my physical DVD out of the shelf and get it, but this didn't occur yet.
If you need chapters in a movie (a DVD-feature I newer use btw.), MKV/Matroska containers can be helpful, but I don't know any DVD-converter to create those. Just google a bit.