[MPlayer-users] Re: [MPlayer-dev-eng] [FYI] new versions of libdvdread 0.9.3 and libdvdcss 1.2

[Clemens Wächter]

On Sun, 2 Jun 2002 13:51:24 -0400
D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:


Hi,

first of all, I cced this to mplayer-users because I think that this becomes
off-topic with my comments on mplayer-dev-eng...
I've left the discussion intact for those ppl who did not subscribe to dev-eng...

> On Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 07:36:10PM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
> > On Thu, 30 May 2002 16:35:56 +0200
> > pl <p_l at gmx.fr> wrote:
> > 
> > > The OGLE project has released a few days (weeks ?) ago new versions of
> > > libdvdread 0.9.3 which requires libdvdcss 1.2 (from videolan).
> > > 
> > > URLs:
> > >   http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/dist/libdvdread-0.9.3.tar.gz
> > >   http://www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/libdvdcss/1.2.0/libdvdcss-1.2.0.tar.gz
> > 
> > Someone should check if the problems that brought us to mpdvdkit are still
> > existent and if not, mpdvdkit should be removed. (I really dont like dublicated
> > code, as we are now responsible for bugs in the dvd code)
> 
> IMHO having libdvdkit is a big plus. It saves users from having to
> download tons of extra libs and make sure they dont get broken
> versions, which in turn saves a lot of RTFM on -users. Also,
> libdvdread has this broken behavior where it cracks all title keys at
> startup rather than just the key for the title being played. This is
> really bad because, from my experience, the title that's the main
> movie is usually easy to crack (perhaps this has to do with it always
> starting out all black? i dont know anything about how css works...)
> but the later ones with all the trailers, "making of", etc. crap are
> hard to crack and make startup time super-long. I patched this
> behavior out in libmpdvdkit bit it's still there in libdvdread afaik.

Well, I think that cracking all the keys is not such a bad idea since
you can use them all when you implement dvd navigation support. And as
far as I know it is not included right now in mplayer but it will be
in the distant future, so maybe this becomes usefull some day...

> 
> Finally, one more thing, MPlayer seems to cache cracked keys in
> ~/.mplayer for later use, which I don't recall stock dvdread doing.
> Maybe it can do that now with the latest version, though...

Lets hope so. Cracking all the keys can sometimes be really annoying
if it has to be done every time you try to play a dvd.

> 
> Anyway, even if the main developers do decide to get rid of dvdkit at
> some point, I hope they package the dvd stuff with mplayer (like how
> libfame is included now) and commit new versions in only when they're
> known to be non-broken. The more external unusual dependencies a
> program like mplayer has, the more users get turned off to using it.
> ("What?! You mean I have to download 5 more libraries to make it work?
> Forget that I'll use [insert some other movie player here] instead!!")

Yes, you are right, having to install x libraries can be sometimes annoying
and it may cause additional trouble but you should also consider this:

a) The CSS stuff included in those libraries may have ( have definitely ) legal
implications. 
b) A library shipped with mplayer has to be maintained which costs time. Or is
anybody willing to do that? (Hmmm.... thinking about wheter I am... but lets first
hear what the rest of the community says)
c) If you ship it with mplayer and compile and link it statically it takes more 
bandwith to download, more space to compile and to run it. I have tons of Ram and
hdd but others have not. Or think about mplayer on a embedded system. I don't know
if anybody does this or plans this in the future but I like the "small is beautiful"
approach.


Anyways if you drop libdvdread, I ask you to include a --dvd-device like option....
Its the greatest way to back up a dvd, even conserving menus and the like (esp. for
ogle, but its also really usefull for mplayer, in fact I use ogle for menus
and mplayer for serious watching)!
(create reiserfs, dd it to hdd, mplayer --dvd-device=file)

> 
> Rich
> 
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And oh yes: keep up the good work!
May the source be with you

Clemens Wächter