If the disk is now showing on the desktop, you should be able to view it with DVD Player. Patchburn was intitially intended to make the native applications recognize external burners in both Jaguar and Panther, particularly iDVD, but it also allows you to burn DVDs through the Finder and other applications. Once you install it, there's no need to launch it again. It will automically recognize your external burner whenever you turn it on and need to view a disk or burn a blank one. Keep in mind that the burner itself will never appear on the desktop, only the disks in it.

I don't have the answer for that because I rarely use VLC, but one thing is for sure: DVD Player is a much better program for watching a regular DVD.

DVD Player will not be installed if a DVD drive is not part of the computer.

Nikki, it sounds to me like the combination of USB 1 and an older G3 processor are conspiring to keep you from playing DVDs. I don't think your external drive can supply data at a fast enough rate to make VLC happy. If you have enough hard drive space, try using Mac the Ripper to copy the DVD to your hard drive. VLC should be able to play it from the hard drive.

You'll likely find that copying a DVD over USB 1 will take forever, so you'll probably want to do it overnight while you sleep. USB 1 is painfully slow and I think that's probably the reason you can't play DVDs with it.