How to run a DVD with VLC

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1

I’m having trouble playing a DVD on my HP laptop running Manjaro. Here are the steps I am following:

  1. Connect the DVD player to the laptop and wait for it to mount.

  2. Open VLC. Click on media, open disc.

  3. I click the browse button and select the disc and hit play.

  4. I get a pop up with the error:
    Your input can’t be opened:
    VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘dvd:///run/media/ray/POIROT_SERIES_DISC1’. Check the log for details.

  5. If I bring up VLC and let it default to the mount it defaults to and hit play I get:
    Your input can’t be opened:
    VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘dvd:///dev/sr0’. Check the log for details.

Where are the log files?
Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong?

I do have libdvdcss installed it looks like. It is version 1.4.3-2

Thank you for your help.

2

I remember this question being asked and answered some time ago:

VLC .log file? Where

Logging has to be enabled first.

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3

As I’m one of the few who still have a dvd drive, I quickly tested and no issue here. So I wonder if you’re missing a vlc-plugin (now that they’re all separate) maybe install vlc-plugins-all, also you do belong to the optical group?

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4

That should no longer be necessary:

Users and groups - ArchWiki

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Users_and_groups#Pre-systemd_groups

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5

Haven’t played one in a long time, so here goes. Put DVD in Disks & Devices pops up and I select “Open with VLC media player” and I get the error “Your input can’t be opened” Open with Dolphin, select a random VOB file and it plays with VLC. Then I installed vlc-plugins-all SUCCESS!

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7

I use BD drives, does that count? :wink:

8

You mean Blu-ray? That’s what I have (the original plan when I bought the drive was to burn some M-Discs but I never did :laughing:

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9

You already have the answer, but I would like to add to it.

To see all the plugins and their installation status: pacman -Ss vlc-plugin

I didn’t go the all route at this time, but rather added these plugins after the latest update which included VLC split: sudo pacman -S vlc-plugin-dvd vlc-plugin-ffmpeg vlc-plugin-ogg vlc-plugin-x264 vlc-plugin-x265.

10

Indeed. There are a few of us left despite the Millennials who like to equate optical drives with the gramophone.

I found this interesting early last year;

Though, I’m unsure when to start holding my breath for consumer application. :thinking:

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11

Here in Britain (and probably elsewhere) DVD and Blue Ray discs are available in vast numbers in charity shops and other second-hand shops for almost insanely low prices (I’ve paid as little as £0.10 for a DVD and £0.50 for a Blue Ray). Even for someone like me who isn’t particularly video-oriented it’s a good way to collect the relatively limited number of such discs that interest me. And with MakeMKV, ripping them to my hard drive is simple - with the advantage that I then don’t have to sit through all the rubbish the media companies insist on making viewers sit through.

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12

That’s what I did at first, but with this post I see I can’t play DVD which I don’t do much at all, so I just did all. Who knows what codec/plugin I’ll want in the future.

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13

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