Suse Linux 9.2 and encrypted DVD playback (xine, libdvdcss2, libxine, hdparm, DMA)

Although several linux video players (e.g. xine) do support playback of encrypted DVDs, Suse has crippled the libraries needed to do so. Thus none of the players/frontends included in Suse Linux 9.2 can play encrypted DVDs. What are encrypted DVDs? Essentially all commerical movies are released exclusively as encrypted DVDs. It is a pain in the ass, but actually can be cured. To play encrypted DVDs you need libdvdcss2. This is the famous hack, that was in the news and that obviously was not liked by the media industry. In some countries this software is illegal; in some others only the binaries are but the sourcecode is not. You can download a script that creates automatically an rpm for suse >= 9. Additionally you should replace or update the Suse Linux xinelib with the uncrippled version from Packman. Xine still opens a window that claims that it cannot play encrypted DVDs with a link to some site where you are supposed to read why not. This link is dead. Shame on you, Suse (or Novell); if you cripple your distro, please make sure that at least your explanatory links do work! Some DVD hardware is apparently additionally limited based on the country codes. The world has been split into eight regions and according to the will of the media industry the customer should only be allowed to watch DVDs released specifically for his region. There is a linux tool around with with you can switch your area code, but I don't remember its name or URL as this was not necessary for my hardware. Another problem is that sometimes DMA is not enabled for the DVD drive, therefore playback is jerky. To check this out, type: hdparm /dev/dvd If the result is using_dma = 0 (off) then you should enable DMA: hdparm -d1 /dev/dvd There can be other reasons for jerky playback. On the Xine pages, there is a section about speeding up video playback.