Can't play videos using VLC

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wesnewell
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Can't play videos using VLC

Post by wesnewell »

Mythtv v30
xubuntu 18.04lts
kernel 5.0.1

Command in FE setup = vlc %s
Error in vlc;
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'myth://Videos@mythfe0/img_0003.mp4'. Check the log for details.

Plays from vlc app or cl using vlc filename.
What am I missing?
Video will play using default internal player but plays sideways. vlc plays it right.
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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paulh
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by paulh »

VLC doesn't have support for the myth:// urls used so can't play the files over the MythTV protocol. It is possible to write a plugin for VLC to support it, I do have one that I used to test playback using a libVLC but the switch to VLC 3.0 broke a few things and haven't bothered to fix it other than getting it to compile.

If the files are available in the local file system you could write a script to find the file using the given filename searching the storage group directories to get the proper full path to the video file which you can then pass to VLC.
wesnewell
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by wesnewell »

Good to know. Maybe that should be noted in the wiki, as it doesn't say that.
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/VLC
Using the unique player setting vlc /sdb/videos/filename allows the video to play in vlc. is there a variable like %s that just passes only the filename? Or is there a way to rotate the image with the mythtv internal video player that I've missed?
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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paulh
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by paulh »

I'm not aware of any feature to rotate the image in the internal player.

Looks like only %d and %s are available in the external command substitution.
https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/blob/m ... nd.cpp#L26

Wouldn't be too difficult to add say %f to pass only the filename or could be more adventurous and get the storage group stuff to do the search for the video file and pass the full path :) would only work on combined frontend/backend matchines though.
wesnewell
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by wesnewell »

Long ago I used to set up NFS shares for music and videos before there was internal support in mythtv on remote FE's. I'm assuming I could still do the same for remote FE's now.
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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paulh
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by paulh »

No reason why you can't do that.

It would still be nice to figure out why the internal player doesn't work properly. What is the source of the video files? Does vlc figure out how to play the files without having to configure something? What about mythffplay or ffplay does that work?
wesnewell
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by wesnewell »

Not sure of the source of the file. Maybe a cell phone, but not sure. It came via email to an ipad. I mounted the ipad to my machine and copied the file over to my video dir. Default vlc plays it right side up. Mythtv internal player plays it on it's sidewith the top part to the left. Here are some screen shots. Had to shrink them. They were too big.
myth.jpg
vlc.jpg
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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dizygotheca
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by dizygotheca »

Vlc should work with NFS set up. That wiki page is old and relates to that.
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Video_Library#Disadvantages documents that it won't work with Storage Groups, as you've found.

The metadata of the video will contain an 'Orientation' property (ffprobe should show it).
Modern players will use it but MythPlayer never has.
wesnewell
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Re: Can't play videos using VLC

Post by wesnewell »

Well, it's pretty much a mute point now. I used ffmpeg to just fix the rotation in the file and it plays right with the internal player.
BE/FE-Asrock AB350 Pro Ryzen 3 3200G, 6 atsc tuners. FE's-GF8200's Athlon II, Ryzen 3 2200G. Mythtv user since 2005.
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