[nikki]

I have an external usb dvd drive (internal turned to an external w. enclosure) attached to my Ibook. When I put a dvd in it shows up on my desktop, but i try to launch vlc player it won't show up?

[RichL]

Quote:

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I have an external usb dvd drive (internal turned to an external w. enclosure) attached to my Ibook. When I put a dvd in it shows up on my desktop, but i try to launch vlc player it won't show up?

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Where did you get the internal drive from??
Does it show up under "About this Mac" --->More info--->System profiler?

[nikki]

I can't remember some internet store, tech something... yeah it shows up in profile

[RichL]

Ok...then it should work...
Have you tried using Apple's DVD player app instead of VLC?

[nikki]

It wouldnt work, it gave some error message

[albloom]

You're not alone. Apparently external DVD drives do not like to play movies.
Apple's DVD player flat refuses. VLC sometimes works. But not on commercial
copy protected DVDs.
Externals are treated like networked drives. Your system can't get the CSS info
direct from the drive over a network. I checked a while back. Linked to Leslye's
Mac over the home ethernetlet. Mounted a DVD in her drive. Nada.

[RichL]

Al, I'm not sure that is correct.
I think it may be the flavor of Operating system. I think the earlier OSs had less support for external DVD drives.
I have an external DVD drive, and I just put a DVD in, launched DVD Player, and there's the movie, playing just fine.
Nikki is running an earlier OS...I think some of this compatibility may have been resolved with Tiger.

[nikki]

So is there any way to get commerical dvds to work? also do you know if a copyied comerical dvd would work

[RichL]

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So is there any way to get commerical dvds to work? also do you know if a copyied comerical dvd would work

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I think if your OS can "see" the drive properly, everything would probably play in it.
Any chance you could, or would want to upgrade the OS?
I'm running 10.4 not sure if 10.3 would do it for you?
Anyone out there with a Clamshell like Nikki's that has upgraded the OS and is running an external DVD player??

[nikki]

tht was the whole reason i got the external dvd to upgrade to tiger but unfortunatly i found out that I couldn't put tiger on just b.c i didnt have a firewire port.

[brazilianheat]

There is a patch created to allow Panther to recognize external burners, called PatchBurn:
http://www.patchburn.de/
Up until I upgraded to Tiger, I used it to be able to burn discs faster with an external bought from OWC. It works beautifully.

[RichL]

Quote:

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There is a patch created to allow Panther to recognize external burners, called PatchBurn:
http://www.patchburn.de/
Up until I upgraded to Tiger, I used it to be able to burn discs faster with an external bought from OWC. It works beautifully.

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thanks heat, I forgot about Patchburn.... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[nikki]

It says something about Idvd in the read me text. Should I dwld Idvd before install the patch burn? where can I get idvd?

[RichL]

Quote:

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It says something about Idvd in the read me text. Should I dwld Idvd before install the patch burn? where can I get idvd?

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iDVD is part of the iLife suite of software. iMovie, iWeb, Itunes, iDVD, iPhoto
If you don't plan on using iLife apps, then don't worry about it. Just install it.