VLC: My Missing Manuals

Table of Contents

1. Missing Customization
2. Accelerators
3. Issues with VLC for Android
   1. MicroSD Card Not Displayed in the Browse Folders
4. Issues with VLC Desktop
   1. Slow Video on J4105 with UHD600
   2. Black Screen but the Sound Continuous. Restored in a few seconds
   3. Hardware-Accelerated Decoding Works with Exceptions

Missing Customization

All Settings

[Video]→[Preferences]. The default shows a simplified menu. Select [All] on the lower left “Show settings” to see the full settings.

Convert Continuously^[1]

While converting to mp3, VLC stops on every item in the playlist. To convert all items without pause:

1. Switch to the all settings mode.
2. Search for ‘playlist’ or select “Playlist” on the left panel.
3. Cancel the “Play and paused” option.

Start from Last^[2]

The default setting won’t start from last played. To enable:

1. Switch to the all settings mode.
2. Search for ‘continue playback’ or select “Interface”→”Main interfaces”→”Qt” on the left panel.
3. Select ‘Always’ in the “Continue playback?” option.

Accelerators

They are all customizable. Switch to the all settings mode and search for ‘hotkey’ or select “Interface”→”Hotkeys settings” on the left panel.

Pause	[Space]
Increase Volume	[↑]
Decrease Volume	[↓]

Issues with VLC for Android

MicroSD Card Not Displayed in the Browse Folders

It happens on Huawei P8 Lite.

I use the build-in Music app to find the pathname /storage/4AC3-CBED/Music

In the [Settings], I add the path in the Media Library.

Issues with VLC Desktop

Slow Video on J4105 with UHD600

The audio continues but the video is so slow to watch. The default “OpenGL video output” doesn’t work correctly sometimes.

1. Set [Tools] ➞ [Preferences] ➞ [Video] tab.
2. Select “X11 video output / XCB” as the display output.

Warning for other display output options:

1. “XVideo output (XCB)” will pop-up another video window and crash GNOME sometimes.
2. “GNU/Linux framebuffer video output”, “VDPAU output”, “Flashchen-Taschen video output”, and “Video memory output” will display blinking VLC logo and crash.
3. “Dummy video output”, “Statistics video output”, and “YUV video output” will play audio wihout video.

Black Screen but the Sound Continuous. Restored in a few seconds

It seems related to data lost. VLC cannot get data in time. Increase cache helps to decrease the chance to happen.

1. Set [Tools] ➞ [Preferences] ➞ [Show settings] to “All”.
2. Select “Input / Codes” on the left tree.
3. Scroll down and locate the “Advanced” group on the right.
4. Increase “File caching (ms)” and “Network caching (ms)” to ‘6000’. If it still happens, increase until gone.

Hardware-Accelerated Decoding Works with Excpetions

Need an Intel GPU

To enable with Intel GPU, choose “VA-API video decoder” or “VA-API video decoder via DRM” in in [Tools] ➞ [Preferences] ➞ [Input / Codecs] ➞ [Hardware-accelerated decoding] and restart VLC. The default “Automatic” will disable it.

It works correctly on HD510. The CPU usage is about 15% to 20% different.

On BIOSTAR J4105NHU which comes with UHD600, the CPU usage is considerable lower (17 ~ 22%) if enabled. It is 56 ~ 83% if disabled.

Psensor is monitoring CPU usage with different options in VLC.

There are tools monitoring GPU usage. intel_gpu_top shows the GPU video decode is working with VA-API. Please see Monitor Tools for detail.

intel_gpu_top detects GPU video decoding when VA-API is specified in VLC.

Issues

There are still some issues with VA-API enabled.

On HD510, VLC might fails to quit. Need to kill (not end) the process manually. If there is audio withou video, reopen the file again without quiting VLC.

On UHD600, VLC fails to display videos and cannot quit running once paused. Need to kill (not end) the process manually. To pause, enable “Always” in “Continue playback?” and use stop instead.

Add more Playable Video Format in GNOME Video

The H.264 decoder in GNOME Video doesn’t have video decode hardware-accelerated. To install the FLV decoder, please read How to Install h.264 decoder on Ubuntu for detail.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libdvdnav4 gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly libdvd-pkg -y
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

References

1. Techwalla: How to Set Up a VLC Player to Play Continuously
2. Make Use Of_: How to Remember Video Playback Position in VLC to Resume Later
3. The VideoLAN Forums: VLC pixelated gray screen
4. BIOSTAR J4105NHU
5. Enable Video hardware Acceleration in Chrome / Chromium / Firefox on Ubuntu 20.04: Monitor Tools
6. LinuxHint: How to Install h.264 decoder on Ubuntu