DVD frustration

[Anne Wilson]

On Monday 12 March 2007, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> On 12Mar2007 11:51, Anne Wilson <cannewilson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> | Procedure may be relevant:
> | I start xine and insert disk.  I wait for automount to offer options and
> | select 'Do nothing'.  Only after that do I hit the DVD button in xine.  I
> | have noticed that the xine screen header shows the 'no mrl' message long
> | before I get to that - in fact it appears to be immediate.  Does this
> | suggest anything?
>
> Some checks:
>
>   - does /dev/dvd point at your DVD device (/dev/hdd? just guessing from
>     your transcripts)
>
>   - from a command line, does this:
>
>       xine dvd:/
>
>     work? The [DVD] button should be the same thing, but work checking.
>     If not, and error messages in the terminal window?
>
After all that -

It looks as though my burner may be nearing the end of its life.  Trying your 
command worked on the first disc that came to hand.  Despite running a 
cleaner disk three times, I find that all the disks burned recently refuse to 
play, whereas the older ones do play.  I suspect a marginal burn, which the 
stand-alone player can handle but the computer player can't.

Time to replace the burner.  Fortunately I still have the masters for all the 
recent burns on a hard drive.

Thanks to all who tried to help, despite the red herrings.  The one that 
really threw me out was the fact that the laptop with Mandriva installed had 
managed to read the disk that started the panic just a few days earlier.  Ah 
well, lots of time wasted, but some lessons learned.

Anne