VLC shows black screen when playing movie files (solutions)

English Multimedia
1

Hello,
With a default 11.4 (64bit) installation, and the one click installer for VLC at VideoLAN - VLC: Free streaming and multimedia solutions for all OS! - if you get a black screen when watching movie files there are 2 solutions.

-> Go to Tools->Preferences->Video
-> Remove the tick for “Accelerated video output (Overlay)”
-> Try and play the movie again, you should now see output.

Download proprietary drivers for your graphics card - I think theres a thread on the forum dedicated to that.
Example, NVIDIA 8600 using the default 11.4 open source drivers (nouveau?) shows a black screen when VLC uses “Accelerated video output”.
However, installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, VLC will successfully show the movie using “Accelerated video output”.

To clarify the default VLC installation with “Accelerated video output” ticked - works with proprietary NVIDIA drivers - and doesn’t without.

Thanks

ps. Thanks to the team as my integrated ATI Radeon card using default 11.4 open source drivers works with VLC and “Accelerated video output” ticked.

2

You should post for us please your repo list

zypper lr -d
3

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

–±---------------------------------±---------------------------------±--------±--------±---------±-------±-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------±-------
1 | 11.4 - VideoLan | 11.4 - VideoLan | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /pub/videolan/vlc/SuSE/11.4/ |
2 | Updates-for-openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | Updates for openSUSE 11.4 11.4-0 | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /update/11.4 |
3 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | Yes | No | 99 | yast2 | cd:///?devices=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-HL-DT-ST_DVD+_-RW_GSA-T11N_K0B6B4M4419,/dev/sr0 |
4 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.4-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/distribution/11.4/repo/oss |
5 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-11.4-Update-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /debug/update/11.4 |
6 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss |
7 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | Index of /distribution/11.4/repo/oss |
8 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.4-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | Index of /source/distribution/11.4/repo/oss |

Thanks

4

You need to open software manager
View by repo and select vlc repo
Then from the top menu, select Packages> All in this list > Delete

If you are using gnome you need to switch to the QT UI for yast: Switch Yast Interface to QT

If you can’t successfully delete all the packages. Just remove the repo from the list and follow this:
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide

Being sure to make the package switch on Packman
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5

Thanks for your help - I will do that.

So is the 1 click installer from VideoLAN - VLC: Free streaming and multimedia solutions for all OS! no good then - as my 2 workarounds above allow watching movies if the defaults don’t.

6

Don’t use the VLC repo

There are Oneclick multimedia options via this: Multimedia in One Click

We even removed VLC repo from the community list in Yast because of the problems it causes.

VLC (the player) should be installed from Packman