The VideoLAN Forums

It seems Universal, when laying out the DVD for Battlestar Galactica: Razor, sought to intentionally violate every possible standard out there. I've tried this on both mplayer and VLC for windows, and this thing just does not play right at all. It's nice Universal states in a small message that, playing the extended version may break some DVD programs, but really, they never should have gone there. DVD media is cheap -- they should've just used dual layer and encoded the thing twice.

So in VLC, as long as you go forward in the movie, not in reverse, the TV Version of the film plays fine. It's like they used two different timelines to stitch things together, with the TV Version skipping over the extended segments, but only when going forward. Try to skip back in the scene by clicking on the timeline, and you'll jump into the extended segments.

If you try to play the "extended" version of the disc. VLC can't get past the "This film has been modified" message. ~2 seconds before that chapter is supposed to end, VLC just stops reading the disc. If you try to chapter skip, you wind up back at the main menu.

Mplayer is even wrose -- the forward/back buttons must invoke a rand() function, seeding it with the system clock, because you just jump to random spots on the DVD. I went back to the Universal logo twice, Season 4 preview once, and I think to a black screen 2-3 times (yeah, the rand() bit is some exaggeration. Sue me).

So is it VLC's responsibility to deal with badly-designed DVDs, or do I need to hire an elite squad of pirate-ninja assassins to pay Universal a "friendly" visit?


Cheers!,

--K

What does dvdsimple:// gives ?

dvdsimple:// Plays better. but it's like it mixes the TV and Extended version. I.e., the one extended scene depicting the demise of Battlestar Columbia is watchable, including the free-fall battle between 'Husker' (Young Adama) and a Cylon. But there's supposed to be a follow up scene in which 'Husker' kills the cylon -- that doesn't show. There's a noticeable scene jump that skips over that, and you get a "blip" out of the speakers when the scene jumps like that.

There's also other spots where if you jump back in the timeline several seconds, you'll jump into one of the extended scenes that isn't watchable.

All-in-all, it's quite weird. I dunno what Universal was thinking when they laid it out this way.

Lemme know if you need anything else tested.


Cheers!,

--K