Arch Linux

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 324

[Solved] VLC Issue

Hi,

I just upgraded to an Asus AMD R9 270X 4GB video card and found that VLC had become very erratic.
Video colours are way off, it is stuttering and there are artifacts. This happens with all video formats
I have tried, but not equally bad with every film/clip. MPlayer seems not to be affected.

I also get artifacts in Dolphin and other apps - two small rectangles, one over the other. Prior to
installing this video card I used the built-in Intel graphic system without these problems.

My system is an Asus Z87 DeLuxe m/b, 16 MiB RAM, DisplayPort cable and KDE.

I have tried installing 'phonon-qt5-vlc' and 'phonon-qt5', but with no effect.

I suppose I can install SMPlayer, but I would very much like to get VLC in order.

Any suggestions?

---
Edit: I installed SMPlayer and see the same distortions as in VLC. I have MPlayer installed, which works,
and I thought SMPlayer would use MPlayer. If it does, something strange is going on here.

BTW, Dragon Player shows the same distortions, i.e. diagonally distorted picture.

---
I installed MPV, which works OK.

So, why does MPlayer and MPV work, while VLC, SMPlayer and Dragon Player do not, or only poorly.

Could there be a bug in KDE?

Last edited by whaler (2014-05-13 22:02:13)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

Hi,

I just upgraded to an Asus AMD R9 270X 4GB video card and found that VLC had become very erratic.
Video colours are way off, it is stuttering and there are artifacts. This happens with all video formats
I have tried, but not equally bad with every film/clip. MPlayer seems not to be affected.

Try to disable all HW acceleration in the Input & Codecs prefs or/and play around with the output method under video.

I also get artifacts in Dolphin and other apps - two small rectangles, one over the other. Prior to
installing this video card I used the built-in Intel graphic system without these problems.

OSS driver support for cards this new probably isn't completely up to speed yet.

I have tried installing 'phonon-qt5-vlc' and 'phonon-qt5', but with no effect.

As expected, these packages have absolutely no bearing over the behaviour of vlc itself, they provide the compat layer for KDE apps to use libvlc for playback (and the qt5 packages will only be relevant when using KDE 5)

BTW, Dragon Player shows the same distortions, i.e. diagonally distorted picture.

It uses vlc libs via phonon and thus runs into the same error, if you manage to fix in vlc itself copy ~./config/vlc/vlcrc to ~/.config/Phonon/vlc.conf and it should take the settings from there

I installed MPV, which works OK.

Does the output in console tell you anything about the output/HW accel in use that you could try to mirror in vlc settings?

Could there be a bug in KDE?

Highly unlikely.

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 324

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

Try to disable all HW acceleration in the Input & Codecs prefs or/and play around with the output method under video.

Setting both "Accelerated Video Output (Overlay)" and "Hardware-accelerated decoding" to OFF, I seem to be able to play all formats.

However, I see this in the console:

libva info: VA-API version 0.35.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/radeonsi_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[0x7f7068003c58] vaapi generic error: Failed to initialize the VAAPI device

Checking /usr/lib/dri, I only find 'dummy_drv_video.so'

From what I understand, VA-API and VDPAU should be supported by the ati drivers. Perhaps this is a(nother) case of the developers not having come up to speed yet, or am I missing a package?

Otherwise, thanks a lot for a very helpful reply!

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

VDPAU is broken in current vlc, will be fixed once 2.2 arrives, I have the same problem on an nvidia, so it probably tried to use vdpau which in theory is the best backend to use but is broken atm

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

From what I understand, VA-API and VDPAU should be supported by the ati drivers.

This should interest you.

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 324

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

@V1del - thanks for confirming my guess.

@emeres - yes, that thread is both interesting and informative. I had been considering trying Catalyst, after Phoronix gave it a good review with my card last autumn, but then I read about Catalyst in the Wiki and thought I could save myself extra hassle Of course, it may not be as complex as I think...

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

I was referring to Gusars posts about vaapi and vdpau support, here is one quote:

The only thing Catalyst supports is XvBA. No VDPAU, no VAAPI. You can install xvba-video from AUR, it's an XvBA->VAAPI bridge, so in theory VAAPI players (VLC, mplayer-vaapi, mpv) should work. Emphasis on "theory" and "should", xvba-video hasn't been actively developed for some time, there's no guarantee it still works.

Experimenting with all three, confirms this more or less (they behave differently in some scenarios). I assumed however, that you meant the catalyst driver in your previous post. After reading what you wrote now, it is obvious you did not.
It was a little bit of a hassle a long time ago.

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 324

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

It was a little bit of a hassle a long time ago.

I find the Wiki confusing. Do you mind telling _exactly_ which Catalyst(-related) files you use?

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

$ pacman -Qs catalyst
catalyst-hd234k/catalyst-hook 13.1-20
    AMD/ATI legacy drivers. Auto re-compile fglrx module while shutdown/reboot.
catalyst-hd234k/catalyst-libgl 13.1-8
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy drivers. Catalyst drivers libraries symlinks.
catalyst-hd234k/catalyst-utils 13.1-7
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy drivers. Utilities and libraries. Radeons HD 2 3 4 xxx ARE NOT SUPPORTED
catalyst-hd234k/lib32-catalyst-libgl 13.1-8
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy driver. Catalyst drivers libraries symlinks (32-bit)
catalyst-hd234k/lib32-catalyst-utils 13.1-7
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy driver. Utilities and libraries (32-bit)
catalyst-hd234k/lib32-opencl-catalyst 13.1-7
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy driver. OpenCL implemention for AMD Catalyst (32-bit)
catalyst-hd234k/opencl-catalyst 13.1-7
    AMD/ATI Catalyst legacy drivers. OpenCL implemention for AMD Catalyst
$ pacman -Qs xvba
local/xvba-sdk 0.74_404001-1
    XvBA SDK
catalyst-hd234k/xvba-video 0.7.8-4
    AMDs XvBA backend for VA-API, hardware video acceleration on RadeonHD cards

Obviously I use the legacy driver for a HD4850, so this may be different in your case.

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 324

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

Thank you, emeres. Much appreciated!

emeres

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 1,570

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

You are welcome.

bhrgunatha

Member

Registered: 2009-12-16

Posts: 103

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

VDPAU is broken in current vlc, will be fixed once 2.2 arrives, I have the same problem on an nvidia, so it probably tried to use vdpau which in theory is the best backend to use but is broken atm

When you say broken - do you mean it isn't being used correctly or it causes serious problems?
I've had lots of flickering and stuttering using VDPAU for codec decoding with VLC in recent months. I read that 2.2 will use VDPAU by default which makes me a bit nervous after the problems I'm having.

Last edited by bhrgunatha (2014-06-08 13:00:16)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: [Solved] VLC Issue

VLC doesn't use it correctly, there should be no problem with VDPAU in and of itself (XBMC works here without problems for example), I read that the current problems are known and are being fixed up for the 2.2 release.