Playing InterActual DVDs Under Linux? 30
marat asks: "This Thursday our HMV store had (what I thought was) some kind of sale of well-know DVD titles starting from $5 a piece, however after I brought about $200 of them home I discovered that Kaffeine (xine frontend) refuses to play them. Closer inspection revealed small 'Please use with DVD video player' notice on each cover. More elaborate piece of paper enclosed -inside- stated that I have to download and install something called 'InterActual Player' if I want to watch this disk on the PC or Mac. The disks have the 'DVD video' symbol on them, and I don't have any other DVD player nor TV set at home, nor place to put it. Besides, I prefer my 19" monitor anyways. I didn't find the solution myself, that's why I'm asking the Slashdot crowd two questions: How can I play this stuff under Linux? What should I do if they refuse to accept opened cases back? (for semi-legal advice, please take into account that I'm in Tokyo)."
"I've also learned that:"
- Linux is not even mentioned on their site
- It looks like this piece of software is not even free
- Some people believe it is spyware and, finally...
- There are numerous problems making it work."
just a stab in the dark (Score:2, Informative)
Re:just a stab in the dark (Score:4, Informative)
Re:just a stab in the dark (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:200$ for a cat? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:200$ for a cat? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Don't know about interactual, but... (Score:5, Informative)
On gentoo emerge ogle-gui.
I've played Interactual dvds with it just fine.
I use it for every DVD, and it doesn't even as much as garble an error message for my Shrek dvd (interactual enabled!)
give that a shot and then email me if nothing seems to work.
Re:Don't know about interactual, but... (Score:5, Informative)
This sounds like a job for DVD Jon! (Score:5, Informative)
The easiest way to get them, from my experience, is to download and compile MPlayer from source, but if you use Debian or Ubuntu, it's apt-gettable.
Re:This sounds like a job for DVD Jon! (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, if all else fails you could try running interactual under wine.
As these nice people have been pointing out... (Score:5, Informative)
Spyware? Maybe. Annoying? Definately.
MPlayer, Ogle, Xine, all should work as long as they're built against libdvdcss or similar.
Re:As these nice people have been pointing out... (Score:2)
if nothing else works (Score:5, Informative)
It's missing some usability but it has all the codecs built-in and it actually played everything i didn't get to work with others (on windows as well as linux).
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ [videolan.org]
Re:if nothing else works (Score:2)
Here's what you do (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I'm assuming there's a "video_ts" directory on the disc, so it should be standard DVD spec. Just try MPlayer. It's played every DVD I've thrown at it, ever. You'll have to compile it from source, but it's worth it.
Well, I'm going to assume that Japan has similar laws to the US, as far as consumer protection. They cannot sell you something that isn't what it claims to be. I.E. if they sell you a Standard Definition TV, and the box says it's High Definition, you are allowed to return it. I'm also going to assume that this place allows you to return defective discs.
As far as I'm aware, the only discs that can legally bear the DVD Video logo are those that are true DVD spec. If these discs aren't DVD spec, then pretty much say that these discs aren't what they claim to be, or are defective.
- Linux is not even mentioned on their site
Yeah, they don't have any Linux support.- It looks like this piece of software is not even free
It is free.- Some people believe it is spyware and, finally...
It's not spyware, but it is hard to get rid of on Windows systems (pretty easy on Macs though)- There are numerous problems making it work.
It is kinda buggy.The InterActual player is just an over glorified DVD playing program, there's really very little about it that's special, and I can't think of a single reason you'd need it.
Re:Gotta love these (Score:2)
Read this again, the things he says indicate that he did search himself, quite possible even on usenet. Definitely on forums somewhere. Sometimes google doesn't come up with anything. Institutionalized bitching from people who hate "ask slashdot" on principle is easily twice as lame as running to someone else whenever you have a technical problem you can't solve yourself.
No, the submitter did not make a serious attempt (Score:2)
Five minutes of proper Googling would have given him enough i
Re:No, the submitter did not make a serious attemp (Score:5, Insightful)
Find me a single howto that says "if you see interblahblah on the dvd box, ignore it, it's still a standard DVD", then yes, he is an idiot. But having looked through the mplayer docs myself just the other night (my old laptop didn't have a DVD drive, so I never bothered to learn the command line option to play one), I can say that such warnings (anti-warnings) didn't exactly jump out at me.
I mean, for christ's sake. If you people aren't bitching about something that's simple that should have been googlable, then you're complaining that the question is too technical, and that if he's asking it he shouldn't be paid to be doing the job. You can't have it both ways, or there are no "ask slashdot" questions left.
Why oh why are you still consuming? (Score:2)
When is "enough" going to be "enough"? Despite DVD logo's and all that, there's a load of problems playing this crap since they want to control you.
The only thing left to do is to stop buying any DVD or CD until the industry grows up.
And let them know. Loudly.
Re:Why oh why are you still consuming? (Score:1)
If people are ever going to take the F/OSS community at large seriously, we must stop this blatant hypocrisy in our members. Yes, things need to change (and DRM in general sho
Re:Why oh why are you still consuming? (Score:2)
You won't hear me calling foul if he decides to ignore me. I'm perfectly happy if he says "fuck you, I'll continue buying because that's what I like to do."
In other words: if he doesn't share my priorities, I won't care - that's fine with me.
I won't
Did you sleep through economics? (Score:1)
Re:Did you sleep through economics? (Score:2)
Nowhere. I stopped buying them. That's because I didn't sleep through economics. Remember "supply and demand"? There's no demand anymore, at least not from me. I am, as you say, "working around" the problem, I've found other things to entertain me.
he just had to download a second media player. Problem solved.
Short term: yes. Long term: on the contrary, he just made the problem worse.
Fix your player (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with the other posters that seem to think you haven't installed a CSS library.
In addition to the previously mentioned players, xine is my personal favorite.
It's no wonder their website doesn't mention Linux at all, considering there is only one 100% legal Linux DVD player, and you can only obtain it with one of two no-name commercial distros. (I forget which two...) That said, while libdvdcss isn't technically legal in the U.S., everyone uses it.
BTW, thank you DVD Jon!