I want to install proprietary codecs on my openSUSE Leap 15.3 machine. I know this is usually done with the packman repository. My biggest problem of doing so is that packman installs the beta version of VLC media player when doing this. In fact, I would like to stick to the official repositories as much as possible. Is there a way to keep the official versions of free codecs and VLC media player (from the official repositories of Leap 15.3) and only install non-free codecs from packman?
You can install individual packages from any repo, including Packman, without necessarily switching all packages to the version in that repo.
So you can keep the “official oss” version of VLC and install individual codecs from Packman, as long as they are compatible with each other.
If any of the codecs you are interested in requires the beta version of VLC, you should search for an equivalent codec or switch to another player, for instance the most basic is “ffplay” from the “ffmpeg-4” package.
It gives me an easy list of choices for individual taste. I can copy paste whatever codecs I want to install. Personally I install them all except VLC. Not my fav. Whether on Leap or Tumbleweed, I can run virtually any multimedia with these.
After installing the codecs there’s one more step. If Leap I use the copy paste on the linked page to make sure packages are coming from Packman. Me, I use Tumbleweed, so I just open Yast>Software Management, under the repository tab I choose Packman. Then at the top of the page I click on the blue-colored “Switch etc” choice so packages will come from Packman. I hit Accept and affected packages install.