Introduction

Most commercial DVDs are encrypted with CSS (the Content Scramble System), which attempts to restrict the software that can play a DVD.

By installing the libdvdcss2 package you can play encrypted DVDs with:

Installing libdvdcss

Legal warning: Check with your local laws to make sure usage of libdvdcss2 would be legal in your area.

Ubuntu 15.10 and newer

From Ubuntu 15.10 onwards, libdvd-pkg is available to ease the installation of libdvdcss.

sudo apt install libdvd-pkg && sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Ubuntu 12.04 up to 15.04 (i386, amd64)

May also work for old releases, 9.04 onwards, that are no longer supported only if you have repositories on CD/DVD or somewhere.

Ubuntu 12.04 up to 15.04 work this way.

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

After this, VLC will automatically use it. Some programs may need recompilation.

If after doing all this, you still get messages about not being able to play DVDs, check that the DVD drive has a region set (see below).

Setting DVD Region Codes

If your DVD player regularly locks up when you try to play back a DVD, your DVD player probably does not match the DVD's region code. Region codes are a form of vendor lock-in. For example, you cannot play a DVD published in Japan (Region 2) on a DVD player in the United States (Region 1) without changing the region code of the DVD player (unless you own a region-free DVD player). You can view or modify the region code of your DVD drive with the regionset tool.

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The author of regionset writes: "On delivery, most DVD drives have no region code set. The drive firmware allows you to change the region code, but on nearly all drives you are limited to five (5) changes. After the fifth change, the DVD drive will stay fixed on that code -- on some drives you can upgrade the drive firmware and have then additional five changes, on other drives you won't be able to change the region code any more."

Troubleshooting

RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs (last edited 2018-12-29 15:13:26 by 76-235-14-52)