[eno]

This thread is for *****ing about Apple's DVD Player app.

On my 500 MHz Pismo it refuses to play many of my discs properly, and some it won't even play at all.

As examples, I have some DVDs like "Guest House Paradiso" and "The Best Bits of the Late Show" (discs 1 and 2), which it refuses to play at all. It just spits the dummy with a "DVDManager" error, sometimes even "unexpectedly quitting".

What bugs me most of all, is the fact that these very same discs not only mount and appear in the Finder, but they can be played using the VLC (VideoLan Client) DVD app, which is an opensource project with an incredibly preliminary, stripped-back Mac OS X port!

How is it that a bunch of Linux hackers can write a DVD player that successfully plays discs, even though they have no access to the undocumented gfx acceleration APIs on the ATI and NVidia chipsets in our Macs, when APPLE, the makers of the harware AND the OS (and themselves a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds of programmers) cannot come even close?

In short, the Apple DVD player sucks wads. It sucked in OS 9. It sucks under OS X.

I haven't tested all of my DVDs with the VideoLan client yet, but I suspect the results will be the same. I am sure that my other DVDs which Apple can't play (Fightclub special edition disc 2, for example) will play fine with VLC. Perhaps also those disc which Apple can only sometimes play (randomly, intermittently, eratically, and seldom all the way through the film, but more often failing to play at all ) -- Austin Powers 1, Final Fantasy special edition disc 2 etc -- will play fine with VLC.

Come on Apple, this just is not good enough!

And while I'm *****ing, let me complain in general about Apple's optical-rom drivers.

My Pismo can successfully mount only about 25% of all DVD-Rs that I've burnt using a SuperDrive-equipped G4 and Apple's official DVD-R media. These same discs mount fine on the G4, but in the Pismo it tells me they're unreadable and offers to initialise them for me! Yeah, right!

Then there's CD-Rs that the stupid Mac OS X drivers don't know how to handle. These discs mount, and can be read, but you should hear how the drive seeks to and for, making the most horrible noises! This just doesn't happen under 9. Under 9 I can copy a file of a couple hundred megabytes from the CDR to the hard drive with no fuss. Probably takes about 15 or 20 secs. Under X this same simple procedure entails about a minute of optical drive thrashing and sometimes it thrashes so much that it fails to even copy.

Once again Apple, get your **** together. There is NO excuse for this kind of crap performance!

I would consider booting into 9 to watch my DVDs, but like I said, the playback under 9 is not much better. And then there's the constant fear of a hard crash becase of how flakey 9 is...

sigh... it's enough to make me run out and buy a win2k box. At least then I'd be able to watch my divx, avi, mpg movies properly!

So, instead of thinking about what might actually be the problem, you immediately go on an "Apple sucks" rant.

Did it occur to you that there's a problem with your drive?

Myself and my fiancee each have an iBook 466, neither of us experience the problems you describe. My friend has a Pismo and he never experienced these problems either.

Maybe the lens on your drive is dirty or out of alignment.

Anyway, good luck in finding your solution.

[eno]

Originally posted by hayesk:
<STRONG>So, instead of thinking about what might actually be the problem, you immediately go on an "Apple sucks" rant.

Did it occur to you that there's a problem with your drive?
</STRONG>

No. My unerring instincts told me that it was Apple's fault.

But if we're going to get into the methodical, logical, problem-solving mentality, then I'd say that my comments about the differences between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X's optical-drive drivers show that this is a software problem.

I mean, why would a "dirty lens" make my drive thrash in X when it doesn't do any such thing in 9?

I'd rather just go with my (infallible) instincts.

It's Apple's fault.

And btw, I hardly think that your 2nd-hand knowledge of your friend's Pismo counts as worthwhile testimony in this discussion. Thanks for the input, anyway, though.

[Lew]

I've had no such problems on my 500MHz Pismo. In fact, the OS X DVD player will even play some discs that choke my hardware DVD player.

[[APi]TheMan]

I have a solution for you, eno. Get a freakin' PC. Quit whining, dude. They're just movies. Apple will get their stuff together, but I suspect their concentration is not on DVD Player.app, they have a whole OS and a boatload of apps to check and update and enhance as well.

[solitere]

Originally posted by GFive:
<STRONG>I've had no such problems on my 500MHz Pismo. In fact, the OS X DVD player will even play some discs that choke my hardware DVD player.</STRONG>

Same here newer had any problems with DVD playback and Pismo 500 neither any problems on my Dual 800..

[zigmeister]

I have a Pismo 400. DVD playing works fine, I even hacked the firmware so I can play several regions as many times I want - works really well.

[Scrod]

My 500 MHz Pismo plays DVDs flawlessly, and certainly far better than the OS 9 DVD Player app.

[juanvaldes]

The only DVD of mine that does not play will not play in anything. Well, it did work once on cheerios iMac but never in anything else, PS2, Mac (X & 9), Windows, real DVD players... in short my DVD is ****ed.

eh, their is always room for improvement, I am sure that open DVD player chokes on a lot of DVD's as well...

[Since EBCDIC]

I have a 400 MHz Pismo, and I have the same problems. If you search around you'll find a long string of threads about DVD flakiness under Mac OS 9 and X.

In some cases it's the manufacture of the DVD. I actually take my Pismo down to the video store to check before I rent.

Sometimes things are *really* wierd! This week I was watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" under Mac OS X. The DVD worked about halfway and then BLAM! DVD Player is hosed. Reboot. Nada.

This is half-baked, but half is marginally better than nothing. For example, my son's favorites: Wallace & Gromit's Grand Day Out and Robbie the Reindeer *never* have problems. Wierd.

[maxintosh]

Weird... no problems on my Pismo. DVDs are GORGEOUS in OS X for me!!

[x user]

Sounds much like hardware, or perhaps a conflict. For the record, we had many similer problems with some discs playing, while others didn't, on a G4/533, and it ended up being a defective DVD drive. I have never had problems on my iBook 500, with a DVD that I bought and installed in it. Also the DVD drive that is in that G4 was a third party $30 dvd drive. It now works beautifully as well once it was fixed.

[me]

Dude, have you seen how much DVD playback sucks on the Lombard?

[jasong]

No problems on my Pismo 400. Very happy with OS X's DVD Player.

-- Jason

(And that's my first-hand report)