Suggestions for DVD playback? [Solved]

[light]

Dear all,

I was researching this topic for quite sometime. The thing is I am trying to find a distro that has a good dvd playback for one of my computers. I know that it depends more on the player that I use, not distro. But it seems some distros have worse performance than others.
My computer is connected to a home theatre projector. I have tried XBMC, Monomaxos, other distros, even Puppy (which is the best cuz its fast, but can't do proper resolution for widescreen, hence the continuing search for something better). I have tried the usual stuff like gxine, mplayer, gnome player, vlc, etc. The problem can be usually some stutter or un-fixable deinterlacing. And I need a player that support external subtitles, without only naming them like the title of the movie (in my opinion a ridiculous thing to do).

So, anyone ever being in the same situation? Anyone have some experience with that? Anyone know of a distro specifically for watching DVDs etc.? Please, any opinions are welcome.
My specs are ok for DVD playback (AMD64 4600+, ATI X1900XTX, 1GB). Projector is doing 1280x720.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I believe SMPlayer allows the external subtitles file to have a different name to the title of the film. Have you tried that?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Today I happened to see a link to an article in Linux Journal on the GeeXboX distribution: GeeXboX: Lightweight Media System.

[light]

Fitzcarraldo,

thank you for your suggestions. I took a look at GeeXBoX around last year. It failed to start on my computer at that time (SATA problem or something). I guess I can give it a try again, maybe they even have new version now. I believe you haven't tried it yourself, right?
SMPlayer is actually quite good. But I tried it on SLAX and it had some bad deinterlacing issues. However, now that you mentioned it, I took a look at it and realized that it is actually based on mplayer. Which has tons of options, so I can specify to call deinterlacing options from preferences menu in SMPlayer. Also, I was looking everywhere for on-the-fly time adjustments to subtitles. It is there, but I have to fiddle more with it.
How did SMPlayer work for you? Did you try to play any DVDs with it? On Sabayon?

PS. I find it funny that I again consider delving into Gentoo. After looking/considering it during the days of my first linux explorations. Sabayon sparked my interest again. I don't know where I can post this but Sabayon is a job well done! Congratulations to devs and thank you for making it!


** Japan. At the frontier of developing new technologies, is lagging behind other countries in terms of adopting them in education.
~ a case of producing new technology and not new knowledge**

[Fitzcarraldo]

I haven't tried GeeXBoX myself, as I can watch DVDs fine on my Mesh Edge DX laptop (a badged Compal NBLB2 with a couple of upgrades - see specification in my signature) and my ASROCK ION 330HT nettop media centre, both running SL.

I like SMPlayer, although I also use VLC and XBMC (also Kaffeine and xine, but less frequently than the others). I don't have trouble with these media players running in SL when watching DVDs (not that I watch that many DVDs, mind you). I used to have some trouble viewing DVDs on my previous laptop (Acer TravelMate 8215WLMi), but have not had any problems with my latest hardware. I'm not doing anything fancy with projectors or HD TVs, though, I just watch the DVDs on my 1920 x 1080 laptop screen or on an external 1440 x 900 monitor (both full screen sometimes). Although my nettop has an HDMI output, I don't have an HD-capable TV so I am feeding the nettop's VGA output through a VGA-to-composite video/S-video converter until I can justify buying a new TV.

I sometimes rip and transcode DVDs to AVI, MKV or whatever, so that I don't have to mess with putting a DVD in the drive. On one occasion the soundtrack on an AVI file slightly lagged the video, but it was a piece of cake to synchronise them in SMPlayer using just a few key presses, which SMPlayer then remembers for that particular film the next time I play it.

Can't tell you much more than that, really: media players work well under SL on my hardware. I do turn off Compiz when I'm watching DVDs. On my previous laptop I used to have to play around with the video driver in SMPlayer (Options > Preferences > General | Video | Output driver) and the other media players, but on my current hardware I just leave it alone. I'm watching a music video at the moment on my laptop with the driver selected as 'gl (fast - ATI cards)' which works very smoothly. There are 19 driver choices plus 'User defined...'. in SMPlayer on my laptop.

[light]

I see that your hardware is quite good. And you do use high resolution on your monitor. My HD projector has 1280x720.I use DVI-to-HDMI connection. So it should be fine.

I didn't use compiz also, it is annoying if all you want to do is to just watch a movie. SMPlayer sounds better and better. I tried VLC, and it is ok for DVD, but its subtitle adjustment is horrible (not sure about the new version though). It has Yadiff, which is good, but it needs a lot of "horsepower".

Also, I guess I forgot to let you know about a crucial detail - I was always using LiveCD/DVD to check out how distros can play dvds (without wiping that other OS, i really dislike dual-boot with that buggy OS, wiping it solves all problems). Of course there might be some issues with dvd player, but I highly doubt that. I think that I haven't played with MPlayer's options that time. I mean since then I even got almost perfect performance on another 10-year old computer. Only, because MPlayer is so flexible. I have to go back to play around with SMPlayer on my home-theatre dedicated pc. Probably around this or next weekend (need to rent some movies).
I am encouraged to hear you watch everything on SL. It is becoming my main distro, pulling me away from Slackware. Sulfur is just so easy. And source building in Slackware can get tricky. Some build with ./configure, some have slackbuilds, some have CMAKE. And I have to struggle with dependencies sometimes (find them). Although as a base install it is sufficient for most of the work.

[light]

Ok, just a small update. I haven't tried SMPlayer yet - will do soon. I tried newest Element in Live mode and it refused to play dvds for me, so thats no good. I am searching for distro with SMPlayer included by default (it was in Slax if I remember). If all fails - then I will go to plain installation to a hard disk (bought new one just for that).



*** Anti-social personlaities are usually charming and seem very friendly to others. They seem remorseful when caught. It is their key to manipulation.***

[light]

For anyone that is interested in the topic and will come here to look for answers. Fitzcarraldo was right on the money. SMPlayer is great for DVD playing. It gave me the smoothest playback among vlc, gxine, mplayer (official one with GUI) and totem. Even more amazing the hardware that it ran on. I set it up on the 10 year old desktop - AMD 1Ghz, 512MB RAM, ATI 9800 PRO. I must say it ran outstandingly, even though DVD dirve is also old (x4-8 max).

All thanks goes to Fitzcarraldo, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't even come back to SMPlayer to take a closer look at it. I am glad I did. Now I will be choosing a distro to put on my primary media computer to enjoy DVDs on projector.

[wolfden]

fixed title of thread as per viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1730