Fluendo DVD Player

I have been watching DVDs on my PC for as long as I've been running Linux. I have tried and used many different players but always tend to fall back on Xine. It is the only player that reliably plays my DVDs with full DVD menu support.

A small problem with Xine is that it has its own, out of date look and feel. It does offer the most amount of tweaking to have the playback just how you want but most of this is unnecessary nowadays.

My biggest issue with DVD playback in Linux is that the quality for me is poor. Some movies playback better than others but for the most part, scan-lines and other issues can be seen in the movies.

I have also recently started to move to making everything in my computer legit. That's why I have always kept my music in ogg format. But with DVDs there was no legit option for me until I found out about Fluendo's DVD player.

I am running Ubuntu 10.04 beta 2 on my Desktop and Laptop. The player works with both just fine and integrates well with the Gnome desktop. There are not multitudes of options like in Xine but you have control over the main things that matter like audio and video settings.

The other great benefit is there is now a Windows version also available. I have lightly used this version and it works as expected. A nice added benefit.

I love free open software but I have no problem buying a good piece of Linux software when it is required.

The DVD player works great and producing an excellent picture. Much better than Xine or any other player I've used with the libcss2 decoder.

There is also PowerDVD for Linux which I have not tested. This player only works on a 32-bit OS and since I run 64-bit, this player was not an option.

If you want a quality DVD player or you want to have a legitimate Linux DVD player (or both) then the Fluendo DVD player is definitely worth the money.

http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-dvd-player/