VLC - no video, just audio?

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello.
I have just installed Ubuntu Mate 17.04.
Tried to play a video and, right out of the box, the VLC player just gives me a plain black screen, while the sound plays just fine. Am I doing something wrong? It’s there a setting I have to adjust? Please help!

Thank you

Edit: Here is some Media Information from VLC:

Codec
Stream 0
Type: Video
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 avc (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 568x320
Frame rate:24
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

Statistics
Video
Decoded 2297 blocks
Dispayed 0 frames
Lost 3 frames

#2

What kind of graphics does your computer have? I had a similar issue with my machine that has NVidia with Nouveau that I fixed by changing some settings.

#3

NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)

Edit: Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau

#4

OK, might be the same thing. (Are you using Nouveau driver?) I’m at work now, and I don’t remember exactly what I changed, but I can look when I get home (about 8 hours from now).

I cannot play anymore video
#6

System Profiler and Benchmark says: Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau. Not shure if that answers your question. Thanks for the kind reply.

#7

Yes, since it’s Nouveau, I’d guess it’s the same or similar.

#8

In VLC’s configuration (CTRL+P from within VLCs main window):

  • Go to Video. Untick Accelerated Video output (Overlay).
  • Go to Input/Codecs. Set the Hardware Accelerated decoding to Disable.

Close VLC (it will not apply its new settings without restarting the application, I found) and open it again. Try the video file again.

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#9

I looked at a computer here to jog my memory, and I think it was in Tools menu > Preferences > Video > Output, and I changed it from “automatic” to something, possibly the X11 option? You could try the different options there. (I think basically it’s turning off VLC’s feature to do video decoding on the GPU.) I can still look at the option I did choose when I home tonight.

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#10

Brilliant! This resolved my problem. Thank you so much!

Edit: Thank you, 1Q7FE6zp! It did not worked in my case but might be helpful!

#11

I’ll have to check that next time I’m in 17.04… thanks

#12

To expand on @elcste answer, if you get --x11 to work, then you definitely should try --xvideo next and see if that works for you. XVideo is an improvement over the traditional X video subsystem and will allow you to go back to your GPU to handle video resizing. Otherwise, you’ll notice your CPU doing a tremendous amount of work if you choose to watch the video in fullscreen or any other size that isn’t the original one, or every time you need to move the window around or minimize it.

XVideo has excellent support from AMD and Nvidia. Also note that while MPEG5 videos may require --x11 or --xvideo, other formats may work without problems on --auto, which if I recall correctly will try to use the opengl video output which is the preferable way in linux to watch movies.

EDIT: of course, you may also want to move off the nouveau driver if the proprietary nvidia drivers don’t bother you. On that case you’ll gain full GPU support for video.

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