[vox-tech] DVD issues

[Dylan Beaudette]

> On Wed 11 Aug 04, 11:00 AM, dylan <dylan at iici.no-ip.org> said:
>> 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
>
> Dylan, are you getting DMA on *any* of your hard drives?  In kernels
> 2.6, you need to look at these settings:
>
>    Device Drivers | ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
>
> Do you see where it says things like "X support"?  You need to find the
> correct IDE chipset for your motherboard and enable it.
>
> If you're using a distro supplied kernel, I'm surprised it's not being
> loaded.  Look in dmesg and try to find error messages related to the IDE
> system or with words like PIO and UDMA.  Try to load the relevent module
> by hand and see if there are any error messages.
>
> I would be suprised if you had DMA on any of your drives if it's not
> working on your DVD drive.
>
> I'm assumming your DVD drive is IDE/ATAPI.
>
> Pete
>

Thanks to everyone who has responded thus far. A little more info on the
system: it is a PIII @ 700mhz with 256mb RAM, running SUSE 9.1 personal.
last i checked DMA was enabled on the HDD, but not on either the CDR / DVD
drives... I don't have access to the machine right now, so i can't check
dmesg, but I havn't noticed anything strange in there *yet*...

Also -- it is an IDE/ATAPI device, and ultraDMA is enabled in the bios.
The kernel is the stock 2.6.x kernel bundled with SUSE 9.1... perhaps the
machine just has a flaky IDE controller...?

dylan