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I have Ubuntu 16.04 with all restricteds, addons, libs, etc installed and regionset China. I can play most DVDs from various sources and regions. But I cannot play any DVD that has been burned in China locally: copies of foreign dvds can play, but China specific cannot. The o/s will not even see a Chinese dvd in the drive, and gives error no disk found. Obviously, I need a codec or library or whatever. Has anyone had this problem and have you solved it? Please share your knowledge. Where can I find the codecs, apps, libs, etc ? Thanks.

rob grune
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  • OK first of all , you need to check if you have two packages installed `regionset` and `libdvdread4` . What does `apt-cache policy libdvdread4 regionset` tell you ? – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 15 '16 at 01:38
  • **OTHER USERS** : the question asks about *specific problem* related to media playback on *supported* release of Ubuntu. **DO NOT DOWNVOTE OR VOTE TO CLOSE THIS QUESTION** – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 15 '16 at 01:41
  • Hi Serg and thanks for reply. Yes, installed, and here is output... $ apt-cache policy libdvdread4 regionset libdvdread4: Installed: 5.0.3-1 Candidate: 5.0.3-1 Version table: *** 5.0.3-1 500 500 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status regionset: Installed: 0.1-3 Candidate: 0.1-3 Version table: *** 0.1-3 500 500 http://mirrors.aliyun.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status – rob grune May 15 '16 at 06:00
  • ok, you have both packages , from what i see. Typically dvd drive is designated as `/dev/sr0` . What happens if you do `sudo regionset /dev/sr0` ? – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 15 '16 at 06:13
  • Thanks again for reply. 1/ For a readable dvd, regionset returns the number "6", which is correct for China. 2/ The dvd in question is not readable using Ubuntu. Regionset requires a readable dvd, and is thus useless in my case. – rob grune May 16 '16 at 01:15
  • BTW, the dvd will play perfectly in a Macbook that has been purchased in China and loaded with Chinese version o/s and apps. So, the dvd is in fact readable and intact. Using handbrake for mac, the dvd can be converted to a m4v with no troubles. Thus my problem is specific to Ubuntu/Linux. Thanks. – rob grune May 16 '16 at 01:20
  • update: the China dvds can play in a Win7 machine with no problems. Using VLC, the video codec is mpeg-1/2[mpgv], the video decode is Planar420YUV, and audio codec is A52[akaAC3]. I cannot understand why Ubuntu 16.04 cannot read and play these dvds. – rob grune May 19 '16 at 08:58

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I found the final solution by trial and error, after my laptop gave me clues (it has win7 and 15.10 loaded), and after weeks of frustrations without help. I loaded everything I could find for dvd: gxine; libxine-all; everything for ffmpeg; python3dvd; quicktime -lib and -util. I reinstalled the libdvd-read -css2 etc as a precaution. This enabled 16.04 to at least read the dvd and attempt to play it. VLC gave me an error reading about blocks, which is a cryptic way of stating the drive itself may be a problem. Seems my sata drive was too old and could not process the blocks. Bought a new drive and problem now solved. I hope my troubles and solution may benefit others. p.s. I think the quicktime is the main solution.

rob grune
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