Improving DVD playback

MartinB · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2003 5:58 pm Post subject: Improving DVD playback

I'm having some difficulty getting DVD playback working better. I have been told that using the program "hdparm" will help, and that I need to use it on /dev/hdc (My DVD drive is secondary master IDE).

I've tried running the hdparm program, but it seems that my /dev/hdc is missing. I've checked and the only one I have is /dev/hda (My hard disk). I don't have /dev/hdc (Should be my DVD) or /dev/hdd (Should be my CD writer). I tried running hdparm on /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 and 1, but it says that they are not supported by hdparm.

Apart from slow-ish playback of DVD's, everything seems to be working fine.

Can anyone tell me how I can get /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd to appear on my system?

Cheers,
Martin
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Jimbow · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2003 8:27 pm Post subject: Re: Improving DVD playback

TerminalAddict · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Posts: 119

you proabably have a /dev/ide/cd/???? and /dev/dvd is a soft link to it

MartinB · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2003 9:06 pm Post subject:

Yes, I symlinked /dev/dvd to /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 myself, it didn't work at all before I did that.
Yes, I am running ide-scsi. If I don't find /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd, what should I be looking for instead?

My CPU usage during DVD playback never goes above 65% according to gkrellm, and stays mostly around 50%, so I'm doubting that compiler options are going to make much difference.

My video drivers also seem to be working pretty well. I'm using a Voodoo 3 3000 at 1024 x 768, 16-bit colour, fluxbox, and have DRI enabled and comfirmed working (by glxinfo).

Ogle is reporting the framerate as about between 20fps-23fps, so it seems like it's missing some frames, which would probably be causing the jumping. The sound is working fine, just not the video.
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easykill · Apprentice Joined: 07 Dec 2002 Posts: 230

are you using ide-scsi for cd burning?
if so, they will be /dev/sr0 and /dev/sr1

MartinB · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2003 10:29 pm Post subject:

Thanks, I found those, but I tried the hdparm on /dev/sr0 and /dev/sr1, but it just says:

/dev/sr0 not supported by hdparm
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gwydion · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2003 3:25 am Post subject:

depending on what you use to burn cd's with, you may not need to have scsi emulation enabled for your dvd drive. I setup scsi emulation as a module in the kernel, and pass a hdd=ide-scsi argument on boot. This way, only the burner gets put under emulation, and my dvd is located at /dev/hdc, which I can tweak with hdparm. Also, I use k3b for burning, it supports cd-copies just fine without scsi on the dvd.

On another note, you may be able to get rid of scsi emulation entirely with the new atapi support in cdrecord 2. I haven't played with this yet, but I've seen a few things around the forums - a search should turn up something.

hth
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MartinB · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2003 5:05 am Post subject:

Thanks, now I feel stupid :p

I had the setup you describe, but had disconnected my burner the other day to see if it made any difference and forgot to re-connect it (hence my DVD was master, instead of slave, and was using the scsi emulation, and was not showing up). Re-connected the burner and it's showing up fine now as /dev/hdd. Ran hdparm -c 1 -d 1 on it and DVD's are playing smooth as silk.

Thanks again!
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Intel i7 3820 - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - GeForce GTX 660 2GB - SBLive - 13TB - Gentoo - KDE4