Pismo DVD Player broken in 10.3.8

[vinyl.dj]

AMENDED POST: Just upgraded from 10.2.8 to 10.3.8 - installed all my apps, all working perfectly except the DVD player. It won't read dvd disks> (now it is reading dvd disks) hmm. At least the drive is reading the disks now

but:

Apple DVD player 4.0 still refuses to open with or without a DVD in the drive 'Unexpectedly Quits' when launched.

I got a Pismo 500 and here's what my system profile says about the drive:

ATA-3 Bus MATSHITADVD-ROM SR-8174:

Model: MATSHITADVD-ROM SR-8174
Revision: C113
Serial Number:
Drive Type: CD-ROM/DVD-ROM
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: No
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Media Bay

This drive and DVD player worked perfectly in 10.2.8.

Any help appreciated - I know I am probably missing something but did Apple not say that 10.3.8 supported my powerbook ?!?

[Frobozz]

This is just a guess but I suspect the installer did not see your DVD drive and failed to update DVD Player. Is your version of DVD Player 4.5? If not you can extract it from the 10.3.8 (or 10.3.9 if you prefer) combined system updater using Pacifist. You also might try using VLC Media Player instead of DVD Player. That's the easiest thing to do.

[babgolis]

I have a pismo & have had little problem with apple's dvd player other than it's playback is very choppy. Maybe the video card (8mb non-upgradeable) is the problem. I have found that using vlc + setting the resolution to 640x480 has worked the best for me since panther & on through tiger. It seems much smoother. Plus, you can play any region disc.

[terryj]

Is the pismo similar to the Walstreet, in that you
had to have a DVD-PCI Card installed on the left to
get the DVD Drive to play DVDs?
if so, then your SOL. 10.3.8 does not support this type of
player ( it looks for a specific card type and internal drive mechanism).
I have a wallstreet at work, and I have to use
an external drive with it to get it to play dvds
(glad I got the one fw port) under 10.3.5.

You would at this point have to go external, and hook up an external drive, and use VLC.

[vinyl.dj]

Thanks for the posts ppl.

This is just a guess but I suspect the installer did not see your DVD drive and failed to update DVD Player. Is your version of DVD Player 4.5? If not you can extract it from the 10.3.8 (or 10.3.9 if you prefer) combined system updater using Pacifist. You also might try using VLC Media Player instead of DVD Player. That's the easiest thing to do.

Frobozz, I suspect you are probably right as my version of DVD player is 4.0. I originally installed 10.3 then updated with the 10.3.8 combo.

I used pacifist to look in the 10.3.9/10.3.8 combo's and the 10.3.7 update but could not see a DVD player.app in applications.

According to apple there was a dvd player update in the 10.3.6 update, so I downloaded it, opened the pack with pacifist and its not there. So either this dvd player update is in 10.3.5/10.3.3/10.3.2/10.3.1 or I am using pacifst wrong.

I use vlc for divx/xvid playback but prefer Apple DVD player for DVDs.

thanks

[babgolis]

Pismo was the first laptop with video card decoding a la ati rage 128. All previous models do not support dvd playing in osx. Their speed limits the effectiveness of using other software workarounds. Actually, the 9.1 update breaks dvd playback in the earlier models too.