Serious problem creating DVDs

[DGeeez]

I have Fedora 11 set up almost completely now on my laptop, or at least it plays all my media codecs correctly.

The one problem which persists is the same which dogged me on my Ubuntu desktop PC (that's two computers of different makes, both of them running Gnome systems). It will do anything else with CDs and DVDs, but the critical failure is with creating full-system (that's DVD video system, not OS system) DVDs.

Brasero gives me this error:

Please replace the disc with a supported CD or DVD
It is not possible to write with the current set of plugins

I have gone and googled this quite a bit already, and nobody seems to really understand this error, which has been referred to as random (on my machine it's constant).

I got another old, familiar error when I tried to create a DVD through K3b (this was the Jackalope fix, before they told me to go and replace my DVD player - please remember, I'm using a different machine now). While this program has a much smoother interface, it also fails the full-DVD test, with all these errors:

The project does not contain all necessary Video/DVD files

So, can anyone explain why that never stopped Microsoft programs from creating working DVDs with the same video files?

The resulting files will most likely not be playable on a HiFi DVD player.
Could not determine size of the resulting image file

Huh???
On my Ubuntu machine (once again, NOT the same hardware), I got these same errors, from the above two programs, while Gnomebaker performed a diaper-soiling shutdown (haven't the stomach to try that one on Fedora). The jackalopes were telling me (lol) to go and replace my DVD player, as if it wasn't flawless with simple file copy jobs! I can only hope that the Fedora community has a better fix for this problem, which is clearly related to either the Gnome environment (if that's even possible), or common between the Debian and Red Hat system kernels. Otherwise, I'll be forced to keep on using Windows every time I want to create a DVD.

The best Fedora answer which I've seen through Google is to try another program (and the jackalopes told me to to try K3b), this one DeVeDe. It looks really nice, but it did not recognize any of my files type avi, mpeg, or any of them at all, and indicated that it's proprietary format (devede) is the only option which it will read - not a good fix.

Can somebody, please, explain what the problem is with Linux, Gnome, or problems which are common between different distros and hardware, and how they can (really) be fixed?

Thank you.

[Rubberman]

Install the following packages (if they aren't already)
1. gstreamer-plugins-base and gstreamer-plugins-good (optional are bad and ugly for more obscure stuff).
2. libdvdcss, libdvdnav, libdvdplay, libdvdread
3. vlc
4. dvd+rw-tools, dvdbackup, streamdvd, lxdvdrip

You might not need all of this stuff, but I rip/burn DVD's on my CentOS system all the time without problems using K3b as a front-end (and command-line tools when that is easier). In any case, the gstreamer plugin stuff is critical, as are the libraries (libdvdcss, et al). Anyway, try installing these packages with yum and let us know how it works out.

[DGeeez]

Install the following packages (if they aren't already)
1. gstreamer-plugins-base and gstreamer-plugins-good (optional are bad and ugly for more obscure stuff).
2. libdvdcss, libdvdnav, libdvdplay, libdvdread
3. vlc
4. dvd+rw-tools, dvdbackup, streamdvd, lxdvdrip

You might not need all of this stuff, but I rip/burn DVD's on my CentOS system all the time without problems using K3b as a front-end (and command-line tools when that is easier). In any case, the gstreamer plugin stuff is critical, as are the libraries (libdvdcss, et al). Anyway, try installing these packages with yum and let us know how it works out.

This is kinda funny, that I thought I had installed all the gstreamer stuff (I had tried a number of threads and how-tos, and when I still wasn't sure how to compare the yum syntax to apt-get (which I hadn't used that much anyway), I looked them up on the gui (Synaptic-like) tool. Thought I had them all installed, but just now they all (item 1, gstreamer - the base, the good, the bad, and the ugly) installed fine in Terminal - just like a good western movie.

VLC installed without any problems.

Not all of the libraries were found at all, and those which were (libdvdnav and libdvdread) were reported already installed. I got similar results with everything on item 4 (already installed), except dvdbackup, which yum could not find. I've no idea why these files would not be accessible to yum - I have checked my Software sources, and the only items not checked (there are a lot of them) are under the class source, debug, test, or Rawhide (next version). Do I need any of these to be open for Fedora 11 to find libdvdcss, libdvdplay, and dvdbackup?

Thanks.

[Rubberman]

Some are in the rpmforge repository. You might need to add that to your yum repository database. Look here: RPMforge - RPMRepo Wiki

[DGeeez]

Some are in the rpmforge repository. You might need to add that to your yum repository database. Look here: RPMforge - RPMRepo Wiki

Guess I'll just have to switch to CentOS. I don't have rpmforge, only the RPM Fusion repo, which is enabled. I followed your page link to a list of CentOS how-to's, which leaves Fedora users SOL - and I'm like you've gotta be joking!

I had the impression that Fedora was very popular, and had never heard of CentOS, but maybe it's this Red Hat flavor which is for the rest of us users. Where, and how does it differ from Fedora?

Thanks.

[Rubberman]

CentOS is the same as RHEL, including version #s. It is a bit dated compared to FC10 and FC11. I know that fc6 binaries work on CentOS (mostly - I have a number of them installed and running on my system ok). The el5 (RHEL/CentOS 5.x) binaries should work, though if there are dependency issues, yum will flag them for you.

[Rubberman]

You can also do a google search and find binaries for your system. Yum can install from an rpm file just fine.

[DGeeez]

You can also do a google search and find binaries for your system. Yum can install from an rpm file just fine.

I may just do that, being that I hate to give up on things, but for now I just
had to gamble that CENTOS would be able to do the one thing which no other linux
distros will not.

Nothing like Brasero seems to be installed default, and this distro turns out to be the only one which I could not connect to my wifi network. In Fedora 11, I had to
throw a couple of switches (the first thing I did was check "enable networking",
and from then on it connected at startup. In CentOS, once I managed to dig up the
networking applet for the Gnome panel, I was not able to find any way to make it
look for a network, but it did produce a nasty error message, "contact system
administrator...", "SIOCGIFFLAGGS error". No devices are recognized in the Configure window, and my wifi detector light is on. Would this mean that it just doesn't have the driver for my
card, or should I try and enable the networking some other way?

[waterhead]

The libdvdcss packages are not available from RPM Fusion. For some reason they did not want to carry them when the Livna repository was merged into it. For this reason, the Livna repository has continued on.

Enable the Livna repository following the instructions.

rpm.livna.org

Then you can install libdvdcss and libdvdcss-devel

[MikeTbob]

The libdvdcss packages are not available from RPM Fusion. For some reason they did not want to carry them when the Livna repository was merged into it. For this sole reason, the Livna repository has continued on.

Enable the Livna repository following the instructions.

rpm.livna.org

Then you can install libdvdcss and libdvdcss-devel

Fixed that for ya.