You likely have more than one DVD drive and VLC is wanting to open the other
one. Go to Media, Open Disc and change sr0 to sr1 and see. If it opens the
DVD this time then that is the problem. Then you can change the Preferences
on the Input and Codecs reflect this.

OK this did it, however the video is coming out all fuzzy, it is an NTSC disk on
a unlocked DVD drive.

I tried a UK region film and it also came up the same. I then dl a codecs pack
which I found by searching ubuntu repository for vlc codec and it only listed
one. I tried film again, no luck.

Do you know what it is supposed to look like? Is it commercial or a do it
yourself video? If there are any UK users out there, have you had success
with watching NTSC DVDs? I am in Canada and we are NTSC, so I can't be much
help.

BTW, VLC has its own codecs that are installed with VLC.

What did the log tell you when you checked it for details as instructed?