DVD playing can't cope with minor damage to the disc

This may not be a Xine problem, since I also get it with MPlayer and 
VLC, but this seems a reasonable place to start asking for help.

I'm using Xine (actually normally Totem-Xine) on Red Hat Fedora 8 on a 
desktop, to watch DVDs.  Undamaged discs (i.e. my own) play fine; 
however, my setup appears to be hypersensitive to damage to the disc: 
scratches or smudges that Windows Media will cruise blithely over, 
with at worst a little jerkiness, cause Xine to judder, frame by 
frame, to a standstill, and then to give up and kick me out of the 
viewing altogether (which makes it very annoying trying to find the 
place again afterwards).

It's possible this is a hardware problem, since the problem is less 
bad on my laptop, and less bad still once I'd cleaned the (easily 
accessible) lens of my laptop's DVD player.  But it still occurs on 
the laptop, and my desktop's DVD player is only a year old, and as I 
said undamaged discs play fine.

/var/log/messages reports:

Apr  1 19:25:42 epicyclic kernel: sr 1:0:1:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC  uncorrectable error
Apr  1 19:25:42 epicyclic kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sr0,  sector 1548344
Apr  1 19:25:42 epicyclic kernel: printk: 3 messages suppressed.
Apr  1 19:25:42 epicyclic kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0,  logical block 387086
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: sr 1:0:1:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: sr 1:0:1:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium  Error [current]
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: Info fld=0x5a0e0
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: sr 1:0:1:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC  uncorrectable error
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sr0,  sector 1475456
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: printk: 1 messages suppressed.
Apr  1 19:27:43 epicyclic kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 368864

Any suggestions, anyone?

Thanks very much,
Michael

---------------------< [email protected] >------------------------
"Life is a multiple bluff; the object is to guess the   |     Roadrunner@
parity." - Paul Blain Levy                              | Michael-Grant.me.uk
---< http://www.michael-grant.me.uk * http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com >--

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