The VideoLAN Forums

Just a plea -- I know support for an OS takes time and I don't really expect a miracle, but since XP to W7 is actually out of the question for many of us using win2K (still), Is there any way to get someone to include DVD playing capabilities in 1.1.10 (last known supported VLC media player for win2K)? Nothing fancy or anything else, just a bottom-line player of DVDs? I ask this not knowing (as you can imagine) how much of a change VLC went through to add that capability in later editions...

Thanks in advance for any response -- appreciate your time regardless...


cheers

Did you try it?

oh yes

I have been using VLC for years now -- just have never been able to play DVDs without an external player, and never upgraded VLAN. I was somewhere trying to play a DVD and didn't have the player and wondered why the DVD wouldn't play (haven't played DVDs in a while!). Anyway, I downloaded a few newer versions of VLC that purported to play DVDs but no luck, so started reading. Indeed, it might be my DVD drive (something else?) and I don't know if 1.1.10 version is supposed to play DVDs, just that it is "last known version to work with w2K" but still no DVD playing. Saw some notes saying w2K not supported but decided to write as so many people have reverted to w2K...

I use an old panasonic toughbook (C-50 and C-51) with DVD drives...maybe that is the problem?

Thanks for any info

Open Tools -> Messages (set Verbosity to 2) before you start DVD playback, it will complain when problems happen.

After setting the verbosity level under tools to 2 and trying to play the disc using "Media, Advanced File Open/Disc", the message (the same message as before) appears in the player window:

"Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd://I:\'. Check the log for details."

Notes:
I is the DVD drive
Under advanced file open/disc the source is set to I:
The OS does recognize this disc has been put in the disc drive
Other (non-movie) DVDs can be read from this device
[just in case: w2K calls I the drive "Compact Disk". Since DVDs play in it, this should be irrelevant, yes?]

The complaints under "Tools/Messages" are as follows
main debug: no fetch required for (null) (art currently (null))
main debug: thread started
main debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MiB
main debug: using timeshift path 'C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp'
main debug: thread (input) created at priority 1 (../.././src/input/input.c:220)
main debug: `dvd://I:\' gives access `dvd' demux `' path `I:\'
main debug: creating demux: access='dvd' demux='' path='I:\'
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 2 candidates
dvdnav warning: cannot open DVD (I:)
qt4 debug: IM: Setting an input
dvdread warning: cannot open VMG info
main debug: no access_demux module matching "dvd" could be loaded
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 996.697 ms - Total 996.697 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 996.697 ms)
main debug: creating access 'dvd' path='I:\'
main debug: looking for access module: 0 candidates
main debug: no access module matched "dvd"
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.555 ms - Total 0.555 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.555 ms)
main error: open of `dvd://I:\' failed: (null)
main debug: thread ended
main debug: dead input
main debug: thread times: real 0m1.081555s, kernel 0m0.000000s, user 0m0.000000s
qt4 debug: IM: Deleting the input
main debug: changing item without a request (current 0/1)
main debug: nothing to play
main debug: TIMER input launching for 'dvd://I' : 1123.666 ms - Total 1123.666 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 1123.666


Thanks for any info

So if you open that DVD via Windows Explorer, you can see the VIDEO_TS folder?

hmm, the forum is saying I am trying to post too many urls when I submit my reply (there are no urls in the reply)

The gist of the message (I am trying to post now) is that the previous disk was not being recognized by the i drive (that was my bad), so i have now tried another disk. Same result (won't play), different message. Note: neither disk can be read to find the VIDEO_TS folder by any means, so far, including Windows Explorer. These disks are commercial DVDs...

Is there a way to include an attachment (so I can post the messages from this current DVD)? In any case I will try to post the message later in case this is a transient error with the forum server...or I could post it a few lines at a time/remove the errant symbols, or whatever that is causing the error in posting... argh!

Thanks for your time/info

sorry, didn't notice the last DVD was being read well (even) by the OS, my bad. I put in another DVD (a newer disk)

also, i am having trouble posting the following message so I will try posting it in parts

part 1:
qt4 warning: Input option: dvdnav-caching=300
main debug: adding item `dvd://I' ( dvd://I:\ )
qt4 debug: Adding a new MRL to recent ones: dvd://I:\
main debug: rebuilding array of current - root Playlist
main debug: rebuild done - 2 items, index 0
main debug: processing request item dvd://I node null skip 0
main debug: resyncing on dvd://I

part 2 of error message:
main debug: dvd://I is at 1
main debug: starting new item
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: Creating an input for 'dvd://I'
main debug: thread (input) created at priority 1 (../.././src/input/input.c:220)
main debug: thread started
main debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MiB
main debug: using timeshift path 'C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp'
main debug: `dvd://I:\' gives access `dvd' demux `' path `I:\'
main debug: creating demux: access='dvd' demux='' path='I:\'
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 2 candidates
main debug: no fetch required for (null) (art currently (null))
qt4 debug: IM: Setting an input
dvdnav warning: cannot open DVD (I:)
dvdread warning: cannot open VMG info
main debug: no access_demux module matching "dvd" could be loaded
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 60762.965 ms - Total 60762.965 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 60762.962 ms)
main debug: creating access 'dvd' path='I:\'
main debug: looking for access module: 0 candidates
main debug: no access module matched "dvd"
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.254 ms - Total 0.254 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.254 ms)
main error: open of `dvd://I:\' failed: (null)
main debug: thread ended
main debug: dead input
main debug: thread times: real 1m0.757364s, kernel 0m0.000000s, user 0m0.000000s
main debug: changing item without a request (current 1/2)
main debug: nothing to play
qt4 debug: IM: Deleting the input
main debug: TIMER input launching for 'dvd://I' : 60796.296 ms - Total 60796.296 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 60796.293 ms)

Note: This disk (as the last) was not searchable even with Windows Explorer. It does, at least, show up as a file in the I drive...

If Windows Explorer doesn't show the VIDEO_TS folder, VLC cannot play the disc.

well, my I drive could be at fault, I guess. However, I put one of the DVDs on another box (Linux this time; VLAN version 1.1.9) and tho the VIDEO_TS folder does show up, VLC won't play the DVD there either.

I guess for now call it a day for this particular w2K box

However, since I deleted all the other software for the external DVD player (I think I was using Ulead -- it had conflict problems) it would be nice to someday to use VLC to play the DVDs I have on one of our w2K (or Linux) systems.

Thanks for your time/help/effort. If you think/know of any (new) cure, please pass it my way!


cheers for now

I've just tested playing a DVD on my Windows 2000 system and it plays fine (see below) - the DVD is SATA and set to region 2. The disc ("Black Adder Remastered, published by the BBC) plays automatically (see below) without problems.

Note: for automatic playing to work, I needed to correct one registry entry:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT --> DVD --> shell --> play --> command (Default) should be set to the value stored against the "PlayWithVLC --> command entry".
In my case this is "D:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --started-from-file dvd://%1 because Windows 2000 is installed on the "D:" drive.

Further technical information can be provided if it helps.

It seems it may depend on which DVD and which DVD drive is available. On my w2K and other machines I have, some DVDs, some movies, the DVD drive will read and will play (using VLC). However, some disks that can be read by the drive won't play in VLC, but can be played using other media players. And some disks (notably the newer commercial DVDs) cannot be read at all much less played on any media player on some machines.

This is true on more than my Panasonic toughbook CF50/51.

That is, VLC will run to play streaming media and home-brew DVDs with w2K for sure. Disks like "Black Adder" (older encoding format?), for instance, won't play using VLC, but will play using other media players in w2K (and Linux). But, the newest DVDs aren't even recognized on some machines

So, I am surmising that even if VLC worked to play the newest DVDs on other systems, it probably won't work on my machine (unless I could do something with how my DVD drive reads DVDs.) Bummer. It would be nice to have VLC read some (other) disks that my drive does recognize, however. So I will post here again should I find out how...or if anyone knows, if anyone could help with this specific problem, I'd love to hear.

Thanks again for all help

You can rip movies to hard drive and playback them from there. You can also try tools like AnyDVD or DVDfab decrypter which remove some additional copy protection stuff from DVD.