Want to get DVDs playing on the laptop that is running gentoo that I'll only have to use for a few more days before I get a new shiny (purple!) one. I know, makes no sense.. but hey, learning is good, right?

• Use xine-ui. It got the farthest first.
• Make sure your region is set
• Go through the few hoops you need to get raw i/o working. I pegged/tanked RAM w/o raw access -- every player segfaulted as a result (mplayer, xine, vlc). Use the raw device.
• If it's an encrypted DVD (and you have libdvdcss installed), I found that I needed to change something in my environment to get it to correctly decrypt the disk: export DVDCSS_METHOD=disc -- I did it on the command line since I was just testing. Setting this finally let the DVD play.. with dropped frames all over the place.. but still.. progress!
• And last, but not least, the simplest instruction from xine's help: change the niceness level of xine.. nice --5 xine

And poof! movie! with menu! rock on