Playing TV or videos in 12.3

English Multimedia
1

A couple of days ago I updated my system from 12.2 to 12.3.
I followed the instructions with regard to downloading multimedia codecs etc and changing to packman supplied variants.
Now I find I cannot view TV or play DVD’s in Kaffein, VLC, or MPlayer.
My preferred program to use is Kaffein and it worked perfectly in 12.2 but I can’t even find an error log to tell me what is wrong.
Besides not playing TV for some reason Kaffein is unable to see a video in the DVD player.
I would be very grateful if someone is able to tell me what is likely to be wrong.
While being very appreciative of all the hard work that goes into keeping OpenSuSe up to date I find it very dissapointing that a program that worked perfectly in 12.2 no longer works in 12.3.

merkland.

2

Which instructions? Maybe they are outdated…

For Kaffeine you need to install libxine2-codecs.
MPlayer should be ok as-is, for VLC you would need vlc-codecs.

And if you want to watch encrypted DVDs you need libdvdcss.

But nothing of this really has changed since 12.2.
And Kaffeine itself hasn’t changed at all for quite some time.

And all those programs work fine for me on 12.3. I can watch TV and DVDs without problems.

Have you configured your TV card in YaST->Hardware->TV?
Can you play other videos?
Does your DVD drive work otherwise, i.e. for data CDs/DVDs?

3 
                    Thank you for your reply.

The instructions I carried out were here: Restricted formats/12.3 - openSUSE Community Wiki, libxine2-codecs and libdvdcss are part of the parcel downloaded with these instructions.
I have gone from a situation where everything worked in 12.2, the only change made to my system was to update to 12.3 and carry out the restricted format instructions, now videos will not play, TV will not play(TV card is configured in Yast hardware), DVD and Audio cd’s are not seen and will not play.
The more I investigate the more problems I seem to uncover! Help!
Where exactly might I find error logs that should give some clues as to what is wrong with my system?

merkland.

4

Yes, but vlc-codecs is missing. You should install that for vlc.

I have gone from a situation where everything worked in 12.2, the only change made to my system was to update to 12.3 and carry out the restricted format instructions, now videos will not play, TV will not play(TV card is configured in Yast hardware), DVD and Audio cd’s are not seen and will not play.
The more I investigate the more problems I seem to uncover! Help!
Where exactly might I find error logs that should give some clues as to what is wrong with my system?

So nothing works regarding CD/DVD and video?
Even data CDs/DVDs are not recognized?

What do you mean exactly with “videos will not play”? (let’s concentrate on that one first)
Maybe that’s video driver related? Which gfx card and driver are you using?
If nvidia, have you added your user to the “video” group?
See openSUSE 12.3 Release Notes

Please install the package “Mesa-demo-x” and post the output of:

glxinfo | grep render

And is your user session registered with logind?

loginctl

Have you installed all the latest updates?

Do you get some output when you run a video player in a terminal window and open a video?

5

merkland wrote:

>
> A couple of days ago I updated my system from 12.2 to 12.3.
> I followed the instructions with regard to downloading multimedia
> codecs etc and changing to packman supplied variants.
> Now I find I cannot view TV or play DVD’s in Kaffein, VLC, or
MPlayer.
> My preferred program to use is Kaffein and it worked perfectly in
12.2
> but I can’t even find an error log to tell me what is wrong.
> Besides not playing TV for some reason Kaffein is unable to see a
> video in the DVD player.
> I would be very grateful if someone is able to tell me what is
likely
> to be wrong.
> While being very appreciative of all the hard work that goes into
> keeping OpenSuSe up to date I find it very dissapointing that a
> program that worked perfectly in 12.2 no longer works in 12.3.
>
> merkland.
>
Which Kaffeine application are you starting. I noticed yesterday
under Application → Launcher → Applications → Multimedia →

There re two entries on my 12.3 install:
Media Player Kaffeine (TV)
Media Player kaffeine (Video Player)

I’m not sure why or if they go to different apps. Also don’t know if
this is related to your problem.\

Code

@linux-rpl7:~> rpm -qa |grep kaffeine
kaffeine-1.2.2-78.2.x86_64

Russ

–
openSUSE 12.3(Linux 3.9.8-1.gf3348a8-desktop)|KDE 4.10.5
“release 4”|Intel core2duo 2.5 MHZ,|8GB DDR3|GeForce
8400GS(NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.32)

6

Those are the same application.

Kaffeine is shown in the Multimedia->“TV” submenu as well as the Multimedia->“Video Player” submenu.

Since you have Kaffeine as only item in both those submenus and “Reduce menu depth” is turned on by default in the application launcher, you end up with those two entries in the Multimedia menu.
Install another video player and you will see that Kaffeine (Video Player) will disappear, it will then be in the “Video Player” submenu instead.
Or right click on the application launcher’s icon, choose Settings and turn off “Reduce menu depth”.

7

Have been ferreting away and in a very round-about way managed to play an audio cd using audacious.Trying to do the same thing with kaffein does not work although the title shows I get no sound.
In trying to play TV in kaffein I get no picture or sound although the channel selected shows with the title of the current program, also the program guide box works perfectly.
I think possibly doing an update from 12.2 to 12.3 rather than a clean install may be the root of my problems. I did start to do a clean install but aborted at the partitioning stage when it looked as if I was going to loose my windows partition(I run a dual boot system).
If no one is able to come up with any further suggestions I may have another look at a clean install.
Wolfi323 I very much appreciate your attempts to help me but I had a gut feeling that you were guiding me in the wrong direction for a solution.

merkland.

8

Why do you think that?

You just confirmed that your main problem is video (or permissions) related…

And I don’t think your problem is caused by the fact that you did an upgrade.
I never did a fresh install since 10 years (only updates), yet I have none of the problems you mention (and never had).
Neither with Kaffeine, VLC nor MPlayer…

I do have an idea where your problem may lie.

But if you don’t want my help, fine.

Good night!

9

Now I have offended you, I am very sorry that was not my attention and I need all the help I can get!
Probably it was because you were directing me towards working with a terminal at which I am useless, at my age I struggle to remember what day it is so have no chance with terminal commands.
To follow up on your earlier suggestion:
My system is fully up to date as it is updated by Apper almost on a daily basis.
“Mesa-demo-x” is already installed and
Code glxinfo | grep render gives:

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV710
GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_AMD_conservative_depth,

Code loginctl gives;
SESSION UID USER SEAT
1 1000 john seat0

1 sessions listed.

Does this help at all?
Will attempt to run a video in termianal, once I have worked out how to do it, and report back.

merkland

10

Don’t worry! You didn’t offend me.
I just cannot help you if you don’t answer my questions.
Btw, it was 1 a.m. here and I was about going to bed anyway, that’s why I closed with “Good Night”:wink:

My system is fully up to date as it is updated by Apper almost on a daily basis.
“Mesa-demo-x” is already installed and
Code glxinfo | grep render gives:

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV710
GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_AMD_conservative_depth,

Code loginctl gives;
SESSION UID USER SEAT
1 1000 john seat0

1 sessions listed.

Does this help at all?

This all looks ok.

Will attempt to run a video in termianal, once I have worked out how to do it, and report back.

The same as “glxinfo” or “loginctl”.
Just run “kaffeine name_of_videofile”, similar with vlc or mplayer.

One other thing:
You said you upgraded freom 12.2.
Did you change the Packman URL to 12.3?
Could you please post the output of:

zypper lr -d

Maybe you have some old repos that cause problems…

11

On 2013-07-28 00:16, merkland wrote:
>
> Have been ferreting away and in a very round-about way managed to play
> an audio cd using audacious.Trying to do the same thing with kaffein
> does not work although the title shows I get no sound.

You have to concentrate on one thing at a time, not everything at once.

Pick a video file, an avi, for instance, and view it, say, with xine
(kaffeine uses xine backend, but xine is more configurable and
powerful). If you see no video or no sound, the first suspect is that
some package is not from packman, so look at them one by one, in yast.

All these, at least (versions may differ):

libxine2-sdl-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
libxine2-esd-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
libxine2-pulse-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
vdr-plugin-xine-0.9.3-18.1.1.x86_64
xine-browser-plugin-1.0.2-3.2.x86_64
libxine2-gnome-vfs-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
xine-ui-0.99.7-5.1.2.x86_64
libxine2-aa-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
libxine2-directfb-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
xine-skins-1.0.3-2.4.noarch
libxine2-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64
libxine2-codecs-1.2.3-84.1.x86_64

This will list them:


rpm -qa | grep -i xine

If you get no sound, you have to verify that sound works, that you get
sound from something like desktop effects (not an audio cd, not valid).

If you start xine from a terminal, it will probably say what is wrong.
You can give it the “–verbose” parameter for more text.

You could make a table of what works and what not, using xine, mplayer,
and vlc - each one uses different libraries. Forget kaffeine or totem
for the moment.

> I think possibly doing an update from 12.2 to 12.3 rather than a clean
> install may be the root of my problems.

If you suspect that, I might help. What updgrade procedure did you follow?

Online upgrade
method Offline
upgrade method
Chapter 16. Upgrading the System and System Changes
openSUSE 12.3 Release Notes

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

12

I believe that there is a special way to reproduce terminal output here but do not Know/remember what it is so I am copy and pasting which may give a poor presentation

| Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service

—±--------------------------±-----------------------------------±--------±--------±---------±-------±------------------------------------------------------------------±-------
1 | Packman Repository | Packman Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://ftp.gwdlinux/packman/suse/openSUSE_12.3/ |
2 | libdvdcss | libdvdcss | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://opensusrg/repo/12.3/ |
3 | libdvdcss repository | libdvdcss repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://opensusrg/repo/12.3/ |
4 | openSUSE-12.3-1.7 | openSUSE-12.3-1.7 | Yes | No | 99 | yast2 | cd:///?devicesk/by-id/ata-TSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH-S223C_R4136GBZ603436 |
5 | packman | packman | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://packman/suse/openSUSE_12.3/ |
6 | repo-debug | openSUSE-12.3-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://downloae.org/debug/distribution/12.3/repo/oss/ |
7 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://downloae.org/debug/update/12.3/ |
8 | repo-debug-update-non-oss | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Debug-Non-Oss | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://downloae.org/debug/update/12.3-non-oss/ |
9 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-12.3-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://downloae.org/distribution/12.3/repo/non-oss/ |
10 | repo-oss | openSUSE-12.3-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://downloae.org/distribution/12.3/repo/oss/ |
11 | repo-source | openSUSE-12.3-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://downloae.org/source/distribution/12.3/repo/oss/ |
12 | repo-update | openSUSE-12.3-Update | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://downloae.org/update/12.3/ |
13 | repo-update-non-oss | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://downloae.org/update/12.3-non-oss/ |

merkland.

13

There is a button that looks like ‘#’ in the editor’s toolbar.

Those repos look fine. (there are characters missing in the URLs, but I think that’s a copy/paste error…)
Just one note: You have packman and libdvdcss twice. You could remove one of them (#1 and #2 f.e.), but that doesn’t cause problems.

Oh, and to start a player in the terminal, just enter “kaffeine”, “xine”, “gmplayer” or “vlc” and use the normal functions to open a video file. You don’t have to specify the file on the command line.

14

This is what I get running Kaffeine in terminal:

run kaffeine file:///home/john/Videos/Robin Hood.m2t
If ‘run’ is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf run
john@john-lvvflqzvjo:~> kaffeine file:///home/john/Videos/Robin Hood.m2t
Fontconfig warning: “/etc/fonts/conf.d/56-user.conf”, line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated.
Fontconfig warning: “/etc/fonts/conf.d/56-user.conf”, line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated.
john@john-lvvflqzvjo:~> Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_r600.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
vo_vdpau: Can’t create vdp device : No vdpau implementation.
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Maxtor_6Y080L0_Y26B7PQE” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_USB_MS_Reader_058F312D81B1” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/TSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH_01_R4136GBZ603436” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_USB_SD_Reader_058F312D81B1” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_USB_SM_Reader_058F312D81B1” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/TSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH_S223C_0___U” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/TSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH_S223C_R4136GBZ603436” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_USB_CF_Reader_058F312D81B1” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/WDC_WD5000AAKS_22V1A0_WD_WCAWF0864461” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Hitachi_HDP725025GLAT80_GE1232RB1J171A” : property “Drive” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Hitachi_HDP725025GLAT80_GE1232RB1J171A” : property “DeviceNumber” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Hitachi_HDP725025GLAT80_GE1232RB1J171A” : property “Device” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/WDC_WD5000AAKS_22V1A0_WD_WCAWF0864461” : property “DeviceNumber” does not exist
“/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/WDC_WD5000AAKS_22V1A0_WD_WCAWF0864461” : property “Device” does not exist
libva info: VA-API version 0.33.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
kaffeine(6106) KSambaSharePrivate::testparmParamValue: We got some errors while running testparm "Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
Loaded services file OK.
ERROR: pid directory /var/run/samba does not exist
"
QProcess: Destroyed while process is still running.

merkland.

15

So Kaffeine (xine to be precise) tries to use the VA-API (hardware accelerated video decoding).
That seems to have problems on your hardware/driver combination.

The support for VA-API has just been added in xine’s latest version, so your problem doesn’t necessarily have to do with the upgrade to 12.3, more likely with an update to libxine2…
See xine - a free video player download | SourceForge.net, under “Latest News”.

You could try this to switch to a different video output: https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/488872-problem-playing-video-kaffeine-vlc-2.html#post2573560

Or as a test, run “xine”, enter the settings and switch it there.

You could also try to uninstall “libva1”, but I can’t check right now if that’s possible or if there would be unresolved dependencies that would uninstall other important stuff.

16

While I was waiting for your response I decided to try installing libvdpau_r600

Success!! everything now working. Very many thanks for your patience and help with an old fool.

merkland.

17

Xine tries VDPAU (that’s originally the NVIDIA hardware video decoding) first and then VAAPI.
So after installing libvdpau_r600 xine can now use VDPAU and this seems to work for you.
Thanks for sharing, this could help others as well.

Although I am a bit surprised. I was thinking that those libvdpau_rxxx libraries don’t really work very well at the moment…
May depend on the video card of course.

Anyway, on a fresh install you would have had the same problem, because libvdpau_r600 isn’t installed by default. :wink:

18

On 2013-07-28 13:46, wolfi323 wrote:
>
> merkland;2575068 Wrote:
>> While I was waiting for your response I decided to try installing
>> libvdpau_r600
>>
> Xine tries VDPAU (that’s originally the NVIDIA hardware video decoding)
> first and then VAAPI.
> So after installing libvdpau_r600 xine can now use VDPAU and this seems
> to work for you.
> Thanks for sharing, this could help others as well.
>
> Although I am a bit surprised. I was thinking that those libvdpau_rxxx
> libraries don’t really work very well at the moment…
> May depend on the video card of course.

That’s what the description says.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

19

wolfi323 wrote:

>
> upscope;2574890 Wrote:
>> Which Kaffeine application are you starting. I noticed yesterday
>> under Application → Launcher → Applications → Multimedia –
>
>>
>> There re two entries on my 12.3 install:
>> Media Player Kaffeine (TV)
>> Media Player kaffeine (Video Player)
>>
>> I’m not sure why or if they go to different apps. Also don’t know
if
>> this is related to your problem.\
>>
> Those are the same application.
>
> Kaffeine is shown in the Multimedia->“TV” submenu as well as the
> Multimedia->“Video Player” submenu.
>
> Since you have Kaffeine as only item in both those submenus and
> “Reduce menu depth” is turned on by default in the application
> launcher, you end up with those two entries in the Multimedia
menu.
> Install another video player and you will see that Kaffeine (Video
> Player) will disappear, it will then be in the “Video Player”
submenu
> instead.
> Or right click on the application launcher’s icon, choose Settings
and
> turn off “Reduce menu depth”.
>
Thanks, Its down to one now.

Russ

openSUSE 12.3(Linux 3.9.8-1.gf3348a8-desktop)|KDE 4.10.5
“release 4”|Intel core2duo 2.5 MHZ,|8GB DDR3|GeForce
8400GS(NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-319.32)