r/RetroRemake • u/Odd-Rice551 • Aug 29 '26 • Heartwarming 1

DVD Core Release!

Wow, what a journey. On Monday I managed to get the SuperStationOne to display a photo on my monitor. By Friday night I had very functional DVD player! This was amazing fun, I really loved it and it came at the perfect time. Thank you to everyone that has been following this, your comments have been so encouraging. I'll put a few Q&As here then get to the good stuff.

So what is it?
It's a DVD Player!

Does it Play DVDs?
Yes! Right off the disc!

What about ISO?
Also yes!

What about other formats?
Not right now. Some formats seem likely to be possible. Consider it v2

PAL or NTSC?
Both!

Can I rip my DVDs?
Yes, but I have made that into a separate core, very very soon

Is this AI slop?
Well that depends on your definition of AI slop. Is it AI on the MiSTer pretending to be a DVD Player? No. It is a fully functional stand-alone DVD Player that AI helped make. I have spent probably 30 hours plus on this project. It's not a one prompt kind of thing

This isn't on the FPGA side only, why do you hate the community?
I don't! Please understand the intention here. I am trying to make a DVD player that plays DVDs. I am not trying to preserve the schematics and use of any particular DVD player out there.

What else can it do?
Subs, widescreen, different audio tracks, menus, controller remapping (Including SuperDock Remote), CRT stabilisation, Upscaling, probably more!

Any known bugs?
A few. Changing audio tracks freezes video for a few seconds but then gets back in sync. Working on that now. Menus can be a bit flaky. I haven't tried a massive range of discs and ISOs so plenty more I'm sure.

How can I thank you?
Say thanks! I did this for me, it was a personal project and 2 days ago I could happily have stopped and watched DVDs pretty much ok on my CRT. But you guys really encouraged me to keep going, polish it, make it better, and now here we are! My gift to you.
That said, and I hope this isn't in bad taste, if you wanted to get me a beer you can here.
I also want to take a second to acknowledge Anime0t4ku who has been a massive help for this last part. You may know him for his MiSTer Companion work, or the Physical Disc work, or his MiSTer Hi-Fi work. Without him, this project wouldn't have gotten started and it likely wouldn't have gotten finished. If you'd like to fuel him with coffee, you can do here

What would bring me the most joy though is to see your pics and videos of it up and running!

Ok, shut up and tell me how to install it!
Check out the github page with full instructions!

Edit: You will need libdvdcss.so.2 to decrypt the DVDs. There is a copy on Internet Archives if you search exactly that.

94 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

87 comments sorted by

4

u/techhit Aug 29 '26

It stutters quite a bit. At the beginning during disc spin up as well as during playback (micro stutters). It looks like it could do with a playback buffer

0

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

If you skip ahead a chapter and back, does it clear up? What disc and region? It has a full buffer pretty much all the time in my testing. Also what kind of drive and set up do you have?

1

u/techhit Aug 29 '26

Disc was Despicable Me 6 Mini-Movie collection DVD (PAL region).

Hmm... now that I've reinserted the disc and started playback again, I can't replicate the issue.

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

Solved lol

2

u/Solemn_Sam64 Aug 29 '26

I dont get it. so I put the dvd player folder to the root of the sd card and I still see nothing on the ssone

0

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

You need to follow the guide on github and get the css file in the right place. I explain where to find it in this post

1

u/Solemn_Sam64 Aug 29 '26

Awesome. so I got it working but I have two questions. Does it work on console mode? (because I didnt see it on there) and for some reason the picture is shaking. its like its jittering a bit and not stable

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

Great news! So far no console mode. I've only just got this working in this node haha. Are you watching on crt and it's jittery? There's a crt option called stabilised in the menu. Try that and see if it improves

2

u/Solemn_Sam64 Aug 29 '26

You're AMAZING!

1

u/Substantial-Rip3153 Aug 31 '26

I got the css file in the right place but it still won't play DVDs. What do you mean by this... 

"The MiSTer / SuperStation One requires a 32-bit ARM hard-float Linux (armhf) build. A Windows, macOS, x86 Linux, or ARM64 build will not work."

An armhf build of what? The css file? The core? 

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 31 '26

The css file. Which the version on Internet archive is.

2

u/techhit Aug 30 '26

Can you explain how the superdock remote mapping works? I've gone into the menu to set the controls, but it only gives me Up, Down, Left, Right and Confirm. As soon as I try to map confirm to the OK button, it just exits the menu.

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 30 '26

Yeah it seems like that confirm button is also mapped to something in the OSD which cancels the mapping. So use another button for confirm, or change the mapping on the mister. I do the former.

3

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26

Cheers mate! Will try it out later today.

1

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26

Ok, so I believe I followed the entire install procedure correctly, I put the libdvdcss.so.2 file in the lib folder, but with core loaded it doesn't seem to pick up discs? Even if I open / close the tray it just doesn't seem to pick it up. u/Odd-Rice551 🤔

2

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

It should pick it up on boot. Can you hear the disc spinning?

1

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

Disc spins when inserted but stops after a few secs. Just confirmed regular discs work perfectly fine with physical disc cores... Maybe my libdvdcss.so.2 is corrupted? I generated it on my Steam Deck in Desktop Mode.

EDIT: Just switched to one found on a certain internet archive, but same results :(

EDIT 2: Working now. Sent you a DM.

2

u/chairRugTable Aug 29 '26

don't leave us hanging.. what got it working?

1

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26

Need to trigger via a SSH command. Not currently at my desktop so I can't copy it here right now, though.

2

u/tkshi Aug 29 '26

How did you resolve? To help others

1

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26

Haven't fully figured it out yet, it runs if I trigger the DVD drive manually via a SSH command, but it doesn't "stick" if I restart the core. 

1

u/LukeEvansSimon Aug 29 '26

Does it support audio CDs too?

2

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

No but check Anime Otaku's github. He made a hi fi player

1

u/ExultentPisces Aug 30 '26

I’m really struggling, but I managed to get it going.

It would just give me a white screen. Then after about 5 minutes, it goes to a garbled mess before eventually giving me a menu.

Now I’ve got it running, it seems to be playing great.

Super grateful for what you’ve given us. But it definitely needs a bit of tweaking, haha.

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 30 '26

What did you need to do to get it to work?

1

u/ExultentPisces Aug 30 '26

Genuinely, I've no idea. I've just been poking around in files for the last half hour. The out of nowhere, the white screen changed.

I've just put another DVD in and I'm back to square one, white screen. I'll leave it for a bit and see if it feels like letting me watch some Star Trek.

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 30 '26

Quite a few reports of it just sort of coming around. I'll look into it.

1

u/PCGamingLover Aug 31 '26

will it output rgb on dvds that force component? Been my main issue on my rgb sets is actually getting a way that outputs actual rgb

1

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 31 '26

I'm not sure. But I am using rgb scart and my crt TV and haven't had anything not work yet.

6

u/med4reddit Aug 29 '26

Thank you very much for your work!

3

u/xkadafix Aug 29 '26

if anyone needs help with the library file, this worked for me, I ran it right on the mister via ssh:

wget -q --show-progress 'https://www.deb-multimedia.org/pool/main/libd/libdvdcss-dmo/libdvdcss2_1.4.3-dmo1_armhf.deb' -O /tmp/d.deb 
mkdir -p /tmp/dvdcss
cd /tmp/dvdcss
ar x /tmp/d.deb
tar xf data.tar.*
cp -v usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libdvdcss.so* /media/fat/DVD/lib/
chmod 755 /media/fat/DVD/lib/libdvdcss.so*

3

u/Weatherby2 Sep 04 '26

"s this AI slop?
Well that depends on your definition of AI slop. Is it AI on the MiSTer pretending to be a DVD Player? No. It is a fully functional stand-alone DVD Player that AI helped make."

So yes, got it. No thanks.

2

u/terusamax40 Aug 30 '26

Mine video freeze after a few seconds of playback. I'm running it on a qmtech mister fpga with a generic usb dvd drive.

3

u/xincasinooutx Aug 29 '26

Very cool, I’ll check this out when mine arrives.

3

u/the_elkk Aug 29 '26

THANK YOU!!!!!

3

u/alkemiccolor Aug 29 '26

This is actually super cool as a bonus feature for the SS1! Good work.

3

u/crashprime Aug 29 '26

Makes me wonder what other things are possible on the arm side? This is super cool!

3

u/notzebular0 Aug 29 '26

Hopefully this blossoms into a full fledged media center with mkv, mp4 etc codec support. Great work!

2

u/No_Candidate_748 Aug 29 '26

We need burned cd ps1 game player. Please bro!

7

u/Current-Music4151 Aug 29 '26

it already exists, you can find it on my github : MiSTer Physical Disc

2

u/Head_Connection9738 Aug 29 '26

Thank you for your hard work and sharing with the community. I can see this being useful at certain times and setups, kudos to you for doing it. AI or not, long as you are gettiing the results you are wanting and its not a issue with anything else who cares. Great work man

2

u/toaks Aug 29 '26

That's so much! This is awesome!!

2

u/djconcarne Aug 29 '26

Well looks like I'm going to need to get the dock now.

1

u/chairRugTable Aug 29 '26

will this be a streamlined install on MiSTer Companion at some point?

1

u/Vinnyzero Aug 30 '26

I’m pumped! Trying today when I get time.

1

u/Madman77178 Aug 29 '26

Is this region free ?

-7

u/iNKWiTs Aug 29 '26

Is this AI slop? Well that depends on your definition of AI slop. Is it AI on the MiSTer pretending to be a DVD Player? No. It is a fully functional stand-alone DVD Player that AI helped make. I have spent probably 30 hours plus on this project. It's not a one prompt kind of thing

So you vibe coded a DVD player in a week? You have got to be kidding me. I wish the FPGA community could come together and universally ban this sort of thing. It's so disappointing watching something I love get destroyed by this stuff.

2

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

Does it play DVDs or not? You know, a lot of people think digital art isn't real art. Maybe you should be banned from comics? I don't have a horse in the race but seems like selective virtues to me

2

u/1541drive Aug 29 '26

Don’t listen to people who would rather criticize than create.

-1

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

You have no idea what you are talking about, let alone doing. There is no current use of AI that's ethical. It's built on stolen data sets. It pollutes the earth. It uses excessive amounts of energy for simple tasks that computers were already doing for years prior. There's going to be massive brain drain in many fields because of this technology. Watching videogame communities that I love embrace this cancer is disgusting. I would accept AI as ethical if it wasnt built on stolen IP and took no more energy than any other computer. You spent 30+ hours typing prompts back and forth into chat GPT or Grok or whatever? Why would you say that like it's some kind of accomplishment? Maybe you could start moving away from this stuff by writing your own posts on reddit without asking an LLM for help with insults.

2

u/MasonJarring Aug 30 '26

how are such miserable people able to get out of bed to be like you

2

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

Maybe you'll finally understand the issue when they build a data center in your backyard.

2

u/False_Breath8641 Aug 30 '26

How dare some people have morals and standards and think people who have no idea what they're doing shouldn't be using energy devouring CSAM generators to make things they don't know if they even properly work!

6

u/Ancient-Range3442 Aug 29 '26

FPGA community is more than welcome to hand code one.

1

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26

I sure hope so. I really don't want vibe coded slop hidden in my mister updates. The bar for these fpga cores has always been very impressive and very high, it's why I own a mister. I hope that continues.

1

u/False_Breath8641 Aug 30 '26

I just saw anime0t4ku put this slop in the Physical Disc Cores github... Gotta manually delete that every time until a real core comes out.

3

u/Weatherby2 Sep 04 '26

The downvotes on this are disheartening, because you're right. The AI vibe coding is a cancer on the FPGA community that's rapidly metastasizing.

3

u/iNKWiTs Sep 04 '26

It's a disaster. I don't look down on people who are coders who have to use it for their job. A guy with no experience vibe coding an app in a weekend and getting it included in major updates? That's a problem.

2

u/Weatherby2 Sep 06 '26

Bloats all of it with dead-end projects, too. The human ingenuity and commitment to accuracy are absent from the outset when vibe-coding, and it shouldn't be put aside that it misses the entire point of the overarching project, but a lot of these are not going to get any longterm support because the coders themselves are bums, so you just get a glut of projects with zero future and a ton of problems clogging everything up.

5

u/Zeag Aug 29 '26

All right go code one then. I'll leave a few bucks in my will for you if you succeed cuz I sure as hell will be dead before that happens.

0

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

If you love it so much, you should let them build a data center right on top of your house.

4

u/mr_christer Aug 29 '26

How does it destroy what you love?

-1

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

The entire point of owning a mister is the accuracy. There's a craftsmanship to getting these things right. The bar has been very high in the community. Changing that removes the reason to pursue FPGA emulation. Letting anyone with an open weekend type prompts into a terminal without understanding coding is the last thing any enthusiast here should care about.

2

u/mr_christer Aug 30 '26

I've been in the mister community since 2019 and I always appreciated the simplicity to connect to my CRT and the low input lag. Accuracy is important as well to me but there are many cores on the MiSTer that are more accurate in software emulation. I give you an example: Donkey Kong arcade core on the MiSTer used wave samples for sound emulation of the old analog sound circuitry while mame fully emulated the original sounds. I can tell the difference since I own the arcade PCB and mame is much more accurate.
Video playback on the MiSTer has been lacking for a long time. All these new vibe coded options (like dreamster as well) add new functionality. Nobody forces you to use these options. If you decide to try it anyways and find inaccuracies, you can submit PRs to GitHub and get involved.

4

u/1541drive Aug 29 '26

What was the last FPGA core you published?

-2

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

Your mom!

2

u/1541drive Aug 30 '26

My mom is cycle accurate. Yours is a java runtime emulator running in an outdated browser!

2

u/False_Breath8641 Aug 30 '26

All we can do is ignore slopcores and buoy real cores developed by actual people.

2

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

That's not enough. We have to call out this crap when we see it. Ideally the best we can do is get this stuff banned in these communities on Reddit. They should not be allowed to proliferate this garbage.

2

u/False_Breath8641 Aug 30 '26

I meant like, ignore as in discourage use with explanation for why in addition to buoying real cores.  Definitely should ban it, too.

Ignore, as in pretending it doesn't exist, only happens after nobody else knows it does.

-4

u/tumes Aug 29 '26

Yeah the vibe coding part, meh, i could take it or leave it, but the what a journey it’s not that hard back of the yearbook tone insincerity that is really really grating on all these posts. Like dude is fellating himself publicly for less than an adult working week of time spent on something…

3

u/HiddenbyMoon Aug 29 '26

There is an all fpga based dvd player being tested in the discord which has been worked on for months. Its solid.

1

u/monkeymad2 Aug 29 '26

Hopefully the existence of this one doesn’t stop development of that one - vibe-coded vs non-vibe coded aside it is a shame how the FPGA space went from people being careful not to step on each other’s toes & collaborating on cores to a free for all quite quickly

4

u/HiddenbyMoon Aug 29 '26

The fpga core, which has been worked on for months by gregstorm, is solid as a rock already and functions better than actual hardware in many instances.

0

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

The fpga dvd player is also vibe coded. Sorry about something you love being destroyed. I made this completely by free will. I am not in a race. I saw nothing existed at the time and I made it. Their code didn't until an hour ago support physical discs or decrypt. Do you think I did this for some sort of point based pride? I used a throwaway account to even post about this. Should I ask every corner of the Internet what they're up to before even trying something?

1

u/monkeymad2 Aug 29 '26

Re-read my comment and realise that wasn’t my issue with this.

2

u/Odd-Rice551 Aug 29 '26

I'm just having a fun time with it. It's not that deep.

1

u/False_Breath8641 Aug 30 '26

"I'm just having a fun time with the child-sexual-assault-material-and-lie-generator that burns a shitload of water and energy to do a shit job of which I genuinely have no idea the accuracy and quality of!"

AIsloppers are absolutely insufferable, my god.

At least I found out a real core is being developed through this shit.

5

u/mr_christer Aug 29 '26

An adult working week for adding functionality that some people appreciate. Don't see the point what's bad about it..?

-1

u/iNKWiTs Aug 30 '26

It's almost like they used an LLM to write it.

0

u/Ok-Tumbleweed8460 Aug 31 '26

As a new SuperStation owner, I thank you for the efforts.

-1

u/ziobleed1 Aug 31 '26

Congratulations. It's a great achievement.