Configuring media and DVD playback in Fedora 17

Bill Giannikos (Home Page)

This guide will help you install playback facilities for DVDs and media files which are not supported in Fedora 17. Due to legal issues Fedora does not include these functions so you will need to install this manually. This will install support for MP3, x264 as well as other files.

There are many legal issues associated with DVD playback and media files in regards to the patent on MPEG2 and the US DMCA law on decryption of the DVD which is why Fedora does not include this function. It is my understanding that it is totally fine and legal if you install the DVD playback functionality yourself, however I am not a lawyer so you may like to verify for yourself if following this guide is legal in your jurisdiction.

You should run a full update for your installation of Fedora to ensure you have all the latest packages installed.

In this guide we will be using Totem Movie Player as our player of choice. Fedora includes Totem however they have removed DVD playback on encrypted discs as well as support for many media files. We will be using the Livna and RPM Fusion repositories to install the required components.

1. Load up a terminal window if you are in the graphic interface.

2. Switch to the root user by entering the command “su -” (without the quotes) and typing in your root password.

3. If you don't already have the RPM Fusion repository active then type in the following (all on one line):

yum -y localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

4. Again, if you don't already have the Livna repository active then type in the following:

yum -y localinstall --nogpgcheck http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm

5. Now execute the following command:

yum -y install libdvdcss totem gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd

You may be asked to importing a GPG key during this step, select yes to this.

6. You can now start Movie Player from the Applications menu and load the file you wish to play or select Play Disc for DVD playback.

Rather than using the default movie player, you may like to use the excellent VLC. To install vlc enable the RPM Fusion and Livna as described above and then enter:

yum -y install vlc libdvdcss