Just a quick question regarding the VLC-phonon-backend...how stable is it considered to be? Okay two...any gotchas and drawbacks to be aware of? Only drawback I've noticed so far (only used it for a few hours though) is that I can't use Amarok's equalizer, and I'm sure that is being worked on and I can do without it for now, but anything else?

It should be fairly stable, however it may cause applications to crash when being closed.

I've also had problems with navigating DVDs with me mouse using it.

@bcooksley,

Good to know. Amarok did crash once, but since that was only the first time I logged out after switching backend I wasn't totally surprised by it. It happened when I tried an earlier (far buggier) version of the backend as well. Apparently Amarok doesn't like having the backend switched even when it's not actually playing anything (I always keep Amarok running even when not used).

@TheBlackCat,

Using what app? Dragonplayer or Bangarang I assume, since as far as I know these are the only KDE-video players that uses Phonon. Kaffeine, or non-kde players like VLC itself or Mplayer shouldn't be affected.

That being said, I've always had a bit of a problem getting DVD-menues to work properly. The only reliable program for it has been VLC itself. Kaffein, sort of. Dragon or Bangarang won't even open my DVDs, but I suspect that _may_ be a Solid problem. Well, either that or they don't take into account that there may be more than one DVD-drive present. I'm not sure which, but at a guess: the latter. HAL/Solid/rest of KDE sees the disk just fine.

My system has two, and neither won't open a DVD-movie-disc. VLC will, but presumable because you need to enter the uri in the form of /dev/sr0. Still, I had that problem even before I switched backend so the vlc-backend certainly isn't the cause of that particular problem.

Anyway, thanks for your answers and I will stick with the vlc-backend for a while at least to see if some problems will pop up. Maybe I'm imagining things but the audio does seems to be clearer and more vibrant compared to the xine backend.

Yes, I use dragon player unless I have no other choice. DVDs open just fine. But when using the phonon vlc backend I cannot click on items in the DVD menu structure with the mouse, which I can do with the xine backend.