no image (black screen but sound) when playing video from youtube and vimeo

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Pi 3B+ (2017)
Rasbian Buster
VLC 3.0.7

Clips tested:
https://vimeo.com/andreynep/zeroing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qn_spdM5Zg

Additional information:
7 inch screen 1024x600 running in portrait mode (rotated 90 degrees)
gpu ram at default 64

[jvolker]

I've successfully tested both videos with:

• Pi 3B
• Raspbian Buster
• VLC 3.0.8
• on same resolution screen
• GPU RAM set to both 64MB and 512MB (my regular configuration)

---

Let's try some more things to see what's causing this.

• Do you get any errors? Are there any errors in the log file you could post here?
• Are you able to play any other content?
• Is Openframe working fine in general? Are other extensions working?

Can you please try the following things and try again after each step:

• change GPU memory to 256 or 512 MB. Low memory split is often a problem with media content on the Pi. I read you have to set it to 128MB to be able to view HD content.
• on the command line run cvlc https://vimeo.com/andreynep/zeroing and post the result here
• try lower resolution content
• try loading the same videos in VLC after logging into/starting x server
• update VLC

Hope any of this helps.

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> Do you get any errors? Are there any errors in the log file you could post here?
I'm totally new to this Raspi world, Openframe is my first project. When would those errors occur? Where would I find this log file?

> Are you able to play any other content?
Yes, from the openframe stream most shaders work, some images and the nice stop motion video with the foil runs fine (even it takes some time to load). I hosted some test videos on imgur and dropbox in the native resolution (600x1024), they also run flawlessly with the standard mp4-player in Openframe even with 50 or 60 fps (https://i.imgur.com/6VQAHZd.mp4 or https://i.imgur.com/Gd4UYnb.mp4)

> Is Openframe working fine in general? Are other extensions working?
Yes, Raspi boots and autostarts Openframe just fine.
I installed the processing extension and tried the examples from the stream but only get a black screen.

> change GPU memory to 256 or 512 MB
Tried both with no effect

> on the command line run cvlc https://vimeo.com/andreynep/zeroing
Did that, still only sound with black screen. I ended the playback somehow and got back to the console (see screenshot).

> try lower resolution content
Tried 240p and 480p contend but still no image, only black screen with audio

> try loading the same videos in VLC after logging into/starting x server
Both videos (Starwars trailers and the vimeo clip) play fine in VLC when started from the desktop.

> update VLC
How would I do that?

I wonder if the problem has something to do with the screen being rotated 90 degrees or with a special (hardware accelerated) renderer one has to choose in VLC.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

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Addendum: I just downloaded that vimeo clip "Zeroing" in 1080p, uploaded it to dropbox and tried that with the default openframe mp4 player. Played fine as one would expect (screen shows cropped middle part from the 16:9 video).

[jvolker]

with a special (hardware accelerated) renderer one has to choose in VLC

Yeah, maybe. Could you please try to update VLC:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc

If that doesn't help run cvlc https://vimeo.com/andreynep/zeroing --verbose=2 --file-logging --logfile=~/vlc-log.txt you should then find the log file in your users directory. Please post the content here. I'm not an expert on VLC either, but maybe we can find something in there.

I don't think the rotated screen should have an influence but you could, of course, rotate it back to default and try again.

[jvolker]

I installed the processing extension and tried the examples from the stream but only get a black screen.

This is most likely a different problem. Could you please file another issue in https://github.com/jvolker/Openframe-Processing.
Please

• include your Openframe version. In case openframe --version prints 0 you might have to dig into /home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v6.9.5/lib/node_modules/openframe/package.json to find it. Make sure you are running the latest version 0.4.9.
• include what version of the extension you have installed. (/home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v6.9.5/lib/node_modules/openframe-processing/package.json)
• start Openframe with debugging output (DEBUG=* openframe) and try to run a Processing sketch. Include what it shows on the terminal. If you still see black only, you might have to login via SSH and start Openframe from there. Let me know, if you need any support with this.

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> Could you please try to update VLC

Did that and - voilà - finally an image! OF-vlc played back all test files without any hickups but the image is not resized/cropped correctly. Tried different fit/aspect/crop options in VLC with no luck.
I used this test screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdXqKCQzgPY (you find it also in the public OF stream, thought it might be useful for others, too).

This here is how it looks in OF-vlc on my frame. The aspect ratio seems correct, but it's not cropped centered and doesn't fill the screen.

The funny/strange thing is, even when using VLC from the desktop in windowed mode the player shows only that same cropped area and the rest of the 16:9 image is black, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

Whatever youtube / vimeo clip I played VLC only showed just that left part of the full frame and I have no clue how to tackle that problem.
For some reason VLC seems to be confused by the rotated screen in combination with the display resolution or there is some magic lines missing in config.txt regarding the configuration of the display.

This is how the test screen should look in of-vlc with proper cropping / filling. (default of-mp4 player linked to clip on drop box).

> I don't think the rotated screen should have an influence but you could, of course, rotate it back to default and try again.

Will test this next.

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> I don't think the rotated screen should have an influence but you could, of course, rotate it back to default and try again.

Rotated to default and of-vlc showed the correct image

Tried 90 degree rotation in VLC 3.0.8 on Win10 (64bit) and it cropped and filled the screen properly.

Since that worked as expected I think there's a bug/issue with the Raspi version of VLC when it comes to screen rotation.
Maybe you could rotate your Raspi screen by 90 degree and try the test screen in VLC. Maybe you have more luck to get the correct image output.

Thank you!

[jvolker]

Could you please try to update VLC

Did that and - voilà - finally an image!

Great to hear. I'm going to add those update routines to the install script.

Thanks for testing so thoroughly and posting your results here. I've tested with rotated screen and found the same situation. height or width or autoscale are not working either. I agree, it looks like it's mixing up the height and width of the screen resolution.

I've created a bug report and used your images to describe it. Hope that's okay:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/23048#ticket

This might be related to this: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/22128

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Thank you!
Will look at the processing issue next... ;-)