Problem playing BBC Planet Earth DVDs

[skatch]

Hi,

I just received the BBC Planet Earth series on DVD for Christmas. This is a set of Region 2 DVDs (bought in the UK), and my computer's drive is set to region 1. I've been trying everything under the sun to get VLC to play these discs, or to somehow rip the discs and have had no success so far. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this specific DVD set? I am guessing there is some type of copy protection on the discs that VLC can't handle.

I have tried other software to rip it to my hard drive, and I get errors about bad sectors. If I try to play it from the disc using VLC, looking in the logs it appears VLC enters an endless loop. This is an excerpt:

Code: Select all

spudec debug: invalid starting packet (size < 4 or pts <=0) spudec debug: spu size: 0, i_pts: 0 i_buffer: 128 dvdnav debug: DVDNAV_AUDIO_STREAM_CHANGE dvdnav debug: - physical=0 main debug: Buffering 0% dvdnav debug: buttonUpdate 1 dvdnav warning: cannot get next block (Error reading from DVD.) dvdnav debug: jumping to first title dvdnav debug: DVDNAV_HOP_CHANNEL main error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called spudec debug: invalid starting packet (size < 4 or pts <=0) spudec debug: spu size: 0, i_pts: 0 i_buffer: 128 dvdnav debug: DVDNAV_VTS_CHANGE

I'm sure this is a copy protection problem rather than a bad disc as a) it occurs across multiple discs, and b) on another computer with a region 2 drive, it plays fine using VLC. But as soon as that drive is set to region 1, VLC exhibits the same behavior as on my computer.

So, anyone have any experience with this DVD set, or know of a workaround for whatever copy protection is in use?

[dustcropper]

Hi there,

I ran into similar problems this Christmas with Planet Earth and a number of other DVDs. VLC will run Planet Earth, but the video and audio skip and cut out.

I found a simple solution to my problem though, maybe this will help you.

Open the DVD files (from My Computer, right click on your DVD drive and select "Explore")
Next, RIGHT click on the folder "VIDEO_TS" and select "Play with VLC media player"

Now it works perfectly fine for me.

Good luck!

[skatch]

@dustcropper,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm using Mac OS X, so I can't use the exact same method you did. I did, however, try using VLC to open the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD but it didn't work. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[dustcropper]

Oops, I came across this thread from a Google search when I was researching my problem and didn't realize it was in the Mac OS X Troubleshooting section, doh!

Too bad that didn't work. I have the exact same DVD set (region 2) and running it on a region 1 laptop, only mine is Vista.

[ajmas]

If you have access to a Linux or MS-Windows based machine, can you tell us whether you get the same issues there with VLC?

[skatch]

Just managed to test this on a Windows PC running Vista and VLC 1.0.3. It won't play the DVDs even if I try the method @dustcropper suggested. Not sure what the difference is between his DVDs and mine - perhaps they come from a different region and hence a different distributor? Mine were bought from Amazon in the UK.

Regardless, it seems like the region protection on these discs is defeating VLC.