Newb needs to know: what app to watch DVDs?

surfdoc37

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I have a pair of old Dell's, Precision m4300 and Inspiron 1300, dusted off and revitalized (sort of) with Mint 19.3 Cinnamon and Mint 18.3 MATE respectively.

Machines are old enough to have DVD players in them which has not been my case in some time.

Not interested in putting in the work to learn to rip DVDs for viewing.

But I do have a ton of DVDs that might be cool to view on the laptop.

My absolute newbie question, what is the best app to just watch DVDs? By best I probably mean "easiest".

Is it VLC, or something else?

Thanks.
 


Can't go wrong with VLC and it is in the software manager or can be installed through the terminnal.

Open terminal copy and paste

sudo apt install vlc

press enter and then enter password and then press enter.

When VLC is finished restart pc and you should be good to go.


Also go to Menu button
Look for Multimedia
Then Install Multimedia Codecs
 
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You can still buy external DVD/BluRay players (usually USB) that work great. I do this sometimes.

As for which player. It mostly has to do with which desktop environment you like.
You will get a dozen different answers on this.

VLC, Totem, Kodi, SMplayer, Mplayer, MPVplayer, DragonPlayer, Xine and Parole are all good in their own way. It depends on what's important to you.

You like it simple? Flexible? Compatible with multiple formats? Is having a "library" of DVDs important to you? It just depends on what you want.
 
VLC
 
Can't go wrong with VLC and it is in the software manager or can be installed through the terminnal.
Also go to Menu button
Look for Multimedia
Then Install Multimedia Codecs
You don't have to install codecs in order to play video files with VLC. VLC supports a list of formats out of the box: VLC Features.
 
SMPlayer works better all-around for me!
Easier than VLC, comes with a ton of codecs, and more likely to work well with older hardware, IME.
 
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My favorite.

Probably would work well, too. Have not used it in too long to say.
I think straight MPlayer would work best for the Inspiron 1300, however. Puppy comes with it pre-installed in Slacko 6.3.0 -- at ibiblio -- you'd want 32bit, @surfdoc37.
 
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