Arch Linux

ZEDGR

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 6

VLC cannot play .avi file

Hello!

My video file is this: http://i.imgur.com/W82DEMG.png

VLC is opening and plays only the audio. No video output at all!

This video works fine in smplayer and my laptop's vlc.

I have tried the following:

reinstall vlc
reinstall ffmpeg
compile vlc
test different video outputs from vlc options.

Also I have run vlc from terminal and no erros on the output.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by ZEDGR (2015-07-22 15:38:32)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,076

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

Graphics card? try to disable hardware acceleration, maybe there's a bug there

ZEDGR

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 6

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

The desktop with the problem has Nvidia GTX750ti

The laptop has Intel GMA 4500M

Yes you're right the hardware acceleration is the problem when I disable it the video output comes normally.
Can I do something to have enabled the video acceleration and the video output working?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,076

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

Do you have the free or the propietary drivers? have you installed mesa-vdpau (free drivers) or libvdpau (proprietary drivers) respectively? as of VLC 2.2.1 VDPAU should work pretty flawlessly, at least it does so for me

Last edited by V1del (2015-07-23 06:49:50)

ZEDGR

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 6

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

I have the propietary drivers.

And I have installed the following:

extra/nvidia 352.21-4
extra/nvidia-libgl 352.21-1
extra/nvidia-utils 352.21-1
community/libxnvctrl 352.21-1
extra/libvdpau 1.1-1
community/libvdpau-va-gl 0.3.4-1

And also the 32-bit equivalent of them.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,076

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

hm and your hardware acceleration (and output method for that matter) were set to vdpau? maybe the availability of libvdpau-va-gl made it default to VAAPI which shouldn't be necessary

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

Remove libvdpau-va-gl. It wasn't very efficient when it was working, now it doesn't work with VLC anymore.

On the desktop, try explicitly setting the video output and hardware decode method to VDPAU. Though I'm not sure the 750Ti has mpeg4/asp decoding, but VLC should be smart enough to fall back to software decoding. To check what the 750Ti can decode, install vdpauinfo and run it.

The laptop GPU, is it 4500M or 4500MHD? Those are different GPUs, and only the MHD variant has hardware decoders. If it is MHD, the only way to get VAAPI is by installing libva-intel-driver-g45-h264 from AUR. So install that, then set hardware decode to VAAPI, for video output try Xv and both OpenGL methods (VLC doesn't have a VAAPI output). Note that libva-intel-driver-g45-h264 provides h264 only, not mpeg4/asp, but again VLC should be smart enough to fall back to software. To check if VAAPI is working, run vainfo.

Last edited by Gusar (2015-07-23 15:30:26)

ZEDGR

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 6

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

First of all thank you for your answers!

the laptop is working fine with the VLC and it has the Intel GMA 4500MHD.

the vdpauinfo from the desktop: http://pastebin.com/6EmqBc3g

I have removed the libvdpau-va-gl and also set the hardware acceleration inside the VLC to VDPAU Decoder but the problem persists.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

Try other video outputs, in particular the two OpenGL ones.

Also, to figure out if there's something wrong with the driver or if the problem is VLC, try mpv like this

mpv --hwdec=vdpau --vo=vdpau --hwdec-codecs=all yourfile.avi

The --hwdec-codecs=all part is required because mpv will not use hardware decoding for mpeg4-asp by default even if the hardware supports it (yours does). Also try --vo=opengl instead of --vo=vdpau

ZEDGR

Member

Registered: 2015-07-11

Posts: 6

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

Try other video outputs, in particular the two OpenGL ones.

Also, to figure out if there's something wrong with the driver or if the problem is VLC, try mpv like this

mpv --hwdec=vdpau --vo=vdpau --hwdec-codecs=all yourfile.avi

The --hwdec-codecs=all part is required because mpv will not use hardware decoding for mpeg4-asp by default even if the hardware supports it (yours does). Also try --vo=opengl instead of --vo=vdpau

In mpv and smplayer the video is playing just fine. So the problem is with VLC and vdpau?

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

If mpv works, the problem is highly likely in VLC. You should report it to them - https://wiki.videolan.org/Report_bugs

c00ter

Member

From: Alaskan in Washington State

Registered: 2014-08-28

Posts: 421

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

VLC works well with .AVI formats on my i7 Haswell w/Intel 4400M. VLC video output set to Automatic (VLC is supposed to automagically select the best set). That suggests to me that either VLC is trying to default to using a driver subset that was installed by the user, or the user needs to select Automatic as the default.

You might try first setting it to Automatic, then deleting the (hidden) VLC settings directory under /home/username/.config. then rebooting and running VLC again. This works for a variety of VLC problems in Debian, but who knows with Arch? It will regenerate the hidden dir settings after you restart VLC. If that doesn't fix it, you will probably need to find and uninstall whatever it is selecting as default.

AND VLC has its own 'Reset Preferences' button at the bottom of the screen @ Tools>Preferences.

Regards.

Last edited by c00ter (2015-07-24 19:03:02)

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: VLC cannot play .avi file

VLC is supposed to automagically select the best set

In theory. In practice not always. VLC will use VDPAU if available, Xv otherwise. VDPAU is a good choice, Xv depends on the driver. If there's a native Xv implementation, it's actually efficient. But if Xv is provided by Glamor, you're better off using OpenGL. That's because Glamor goes over OpenGL anyway, and Xv has poor subtitle rendering - they're rendered at video resolution, while OpenGL and VDPAU render them at display resolution.

It's also a matter of scaling quality, Xv will use bilinear, OpenGL might have something better (don't know if VLC does, mpv for example has tons of OpenGL scalers).

Then there's Intel, where the most efficient method would be VAAPI output which would provide zero-copy playback, but as I said in a previous post, VLC doesn't have a VAAPI output.