Ubuntu won’t play DVD? Even after you installed all the codecs from Ubuntu Restricted Extra package? Welcome to the club. You are not alone who cannot play DVD in Ubuntu Ubuntu. In this quick tip, I’ll show you how to fix the issues with playing DVD or even encrypted DVD in Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04 and 14.04.
Play DVDs in Ubuntu 18.04 and 16.04
Though I am focusing on Ubuntu here, these methods should also work on Linux Mint and other Ubuntu based distributions. What we need to do here is to install the libdvd package that downloads and installs the required dependencies.
Open a terminal and run the following command:
sudo apt install libdvd-pkgIt will notify that you need to configure the package using dpkg so that it installs the required dependencies.
Don’t worry, it’s a simple step. Once the libdvd-package installation finishes, use the command below to configure libdvd-package:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkgThis will download the libdvdcss2 library from VLC repository.
In the process, you’ll be asked whether you want automatic updates for libdvdcss2. You can go with the yes option here.
Once the process completes, reboot your system and plugin your DVD and you should find DVD playing in your Ubuntu system.
Play DVD in Ubuntu (Older, alternate method):
This part of the article was written a few years ago when libdvd-pkg didn’t exist. Basically, it does almost the same thing as the previous section, manually. If the previous steps didn’t work for you, use the steps mentioned here.
We need to install few codecs required specifically to play DVDs comfortably. These are:
- libdvdcss2: to recognize DVD
- libdvdread4: to read DVD
- libdvdnav4: to navigate DVD
Step 1:
First step (actually optional) is to get VLC media player. You can install VLC from Ubuntu Software Center or using the following command in terminal:
sudo apt-get install vlcOnce you have it installed, install libdvdcss2. It used to come by default with Medibuntu repository. But since Medibuntu is no longer available, you will have to install this library from the VLC repository. Use the links bellow to install libdvdcss2:
Double click on the downloaded deb files to install it via Ubuntu Software Center. Alternatively, you can use GDebi to install .deb files more easily.
Step 2:
Once we have it, lets install libdvdread4 and libdvdnav4. Use the following command in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4 libdvdnav4If the DVD play back does not work, try to set your region code. You can follow the instructions given here to set the region code. It worked for me without it.
That would be it. I hope that after completing all these steps, you would be able to play DVD in Ubuntu as well as in Linux Mint. Let me know if it worked for you or if you still can’t read DVD in Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04 or Ubuntu 14.04.
Just installed Ubuntu and want to play a dvd. This sinking feeling. Oh jezus what have I done.
After setting up everything as recommended, I still could not play some(!) DVDs which I bought already years ago. They have the correct region code.
Playing most of the DVD/DVD9 works flawlessly – dvdcss, dvdnav and dvdread are installed on a fresh Lubuntu-19.04 install. I was clueless about these DVDs that do not play.
Action:
When I put them in the DVD drive it makes sounds and noises, increases and reduces speed, seems to work hard and/or search something for a lot of minutes, one DVD even over 20 minutes!
I (un)patiently let it happen when I first thought, bad chance!
Worth noting, that this DVD finally starts to my big surprise, too. I guess it has a hard time identifying a “key database” online.
To make that sure, I ejected that DVD and reinserted it in the drive. Same procedure (see “Action:” above).
So, I’m still clueless: Is there anything I could check or do to increase the startup time significantly? I mean, 30s or so would be okay but 20 minutes kills the fun.
Thanks in advance for any useful hint or help,
too