mythtv mythdvd dvd: mplayer not accepting input from KB

[abescully]

I have installed mythdvd-0.15. When mythdvd launches mplayer to play a dvd, everything seems to go well. The dvd starts to play with sound and everything. However, I soon realized that mplayer will not respond to any keyboard input. I cannot quit, ff, rew, pause, ctrl-c, or anything. I can go to a terminal and kill mplayer, but it doesn't quit completely. A kill -9 will free /dev/sound/dsp and /dev/dvd and returns control to mythtv.

What could cause mplayer to lose contact with the keyboard?

For what it's worth, I also added an mplayer section to /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc to see if it would respond to the remote. Mythtv responds all day long to the remote, but mplayer will not respond to the remote either.