[vox-tech] DVD issues

[dylan]

Hi everyone,

I was recently messing about with DVD playback on linux, and was less than
impressed with the quality- i.e. playback was at about 75% speed. after some
googling i came to the conclusion that I had 2 options: 1 get a better video
card  or 2, fix the DMA settings on the drive with hdparm... (the xv
extension to X11 was already installed)


the initial output from hdparm was as follows:
linux:/var/log # hdparm /dev/dvd
---------------------
/dev/dvd: 
 HDIO_GET_MULTCOUNT failed: Invalid argument
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  1 (on)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument
---------------------

i tried a couple of combinations of turning on DMA, as well as toggling the
other settings. Any setting other than the default lead to a non-functioning
DVD drive, and the following lines in /var/log/messages:
---------------------
Aug 10 22:40:00 linux kernel: hdd: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady
SeekComplete Error }
Aug 10 22:40:00 linux kernel: hdd: drive_cmd: error=0x04Aborted Command
---------------------

I have ordered a new video card for this machine, as the integrated video is
awful. perhaps this will solve my problems. however, is it normal for a
modern DVD drive like this one refuse to accept DMA transfers?


any ideas?

thanks in advance!

Dylan