Let me preface to saying I neither "need nor want" to be able to use a DVD or CD on the PBP, I'm just curious.
I tried hooking up an external DVD drive and nothing I did could get it to play. Tried many players and added the codecs it said it needed. Nothing will play a DVD
It will play whatever digital video I click on including 1080p .mkv.
I'm curious if anyone else has tried and what the outcome was.
possibly a kernel module missing on the default build
I've had DVDs playing on both the default Debian and Manjaro. You need to make sure your getting enough power to your external DVD player, i.e. if it has a separate power USB cable, connect it to an external power brick. I doubt you'll be able to power it (certainly not for long) from the pbp battery.
zaius, it shows up in the file system just fine. I'm able to look within the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders and browse the files. I'm just unable to play it on any of the programs.
pjsf, I thought the same might be an issue. On my larger/older laptop it'll play with the power and the data usb are both put into separate ports. It'll allow me to see the files but not play so I thought it'd be a power issue so I plugged the power usb into a OnePlus brick and no dice. Thought maybe too much power so used a regular power brick and still no-go.
I seriously only have 1 DVD in the entire house and it plays just fine on the BluRay player and I have it on digital. I was just cleaning up a little and pulled the little external out and thought I'd try it. More than anything, I just want to be stumped and figure it out, I enjoy the learning.
One extra thing I had to do under manjaro, was add my user to the 'optical' group, but I don't think that was necessary in Debian.