How to Use MPlayer to Play DVD Directories / ISO Files / Disks

MPlayer is a universal (nearly) movie/music player on Linux and many more systems. It’s also my favourite player and MPlayer plays movie or music files in any format that I drop to it. Now, let’s take a look at how to use MPlayer play DVD. MPlayer plays “DVD” in many formats: DVD disks, ISO files, or DVD directory (the files we directly copied from a DVD disk).

The MPlayer command to play DVD

The MPlayer command to play a DVD device (directores, iso files, or disks):

$ mplayer dvdnav:// -mouse-movements -dvd-device \
/path/to/dvd/directory-or-iso-or-disk

Please note that the mplayer should be built with libdvdnav support. If it doesn’t you need to build mplayer with libdvdnav by yourself.

The MPLayer options for playing DVD

-dvd-device /path/to/device/or/iso/file

Specify the DVD device or .iso filename (default: /dev/dvd or /dev/sr0).  You can also  specify  a  directory  that contains files previously copied directly from a DVD (with e.g. vobcopy).

-mouse-movements

Permit MPlayer to receive pointer events reported by the video output driver.  Necessary to select  the buttons  in  DVD menus.  Supported for X11-based VOs (x11, xv, xvmc, etc) and the gl, gl2, direct3d and corevideo VOs.

Keyboard shortcuts that can be used when playing DVD in MPlayer

One beautiful feature of MPlayer is the various shortcuts that can be used. Here is a list of shortcuts for playing DVD.

v — Toggle subtitle visibility.
j — Cycle through the available subtitles.
o — Toggle OSD states: none / seek / seek + timer / seek + timer + total time.
# — Cycle through the available audio tracks.
f — Toggle fullscreen
A — Cycle through the available DVD angles.

keypad 8 — Select button up.
keypad 2 — Select button down.
keypad 4 — Select button left.
keypad 6 — Select button right.
keypad 5 — Return to main menu.
keypad 7 — Return to nearest menu (the order of preference is: chapter->title->root).
keypad ENTER — Confirm choice.

Of course, you can use the common MPlayer keyborad shutcuts in addition to the DVD-related ones.

Now, find out your favourite DVDs and enjoy them with MPlayer ;)