No video playback with mediaplayer app

Eric H

Hello all,

I cannot read videos with the UT mediaplayer app on my Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC (surya - focal).
The application launches properly, but the screen remains black and there is no sound.

Please notice that

I can play videos using mpv snap (by typing mpv video.mp4 in the UT terminal)
I can record videos using UT camera app and watch them on my laptop or using mpv snap

Eric H

Before posting my question, videos in MP4 format did not work.
Later, I re-installed UT with the graphic installer (without erasing the user data).
So I tested an MKV video, and it worked !
So I re-tried MP4 videos and all them worked !

hlbkv

Unsure if I there is something missing on my end, but I can't play any video on the default UT media player.

arubislander

@hlbkv What device are you using? And what format are your video files?

hlbkv

@arubislander the Lenovo tab (X306F); admittedly, I had only tried with a couple of .mkv files, which don't work. MP4 videos seem to be working fine. But can't one install codecs for MKV?
I can play them with mpv and vlc through Libertine, but playback is choppy.

arubislander

@hlbkv playback is choppy in Libertine because apps installed in a Libertine container are not hardware accelerated.

A user above claims that .mkv videos work for them. If they don't work for you it might be that your GPU does not support those codecs. Support varies from device to device. And I am guessing that even if you could install the codecs, the best you'd get is software rendering and so the same choppy experience like you have with Libertine.

AppLee

@hlbkv
MKV is just a container, not a codec (MP4 as well).
Video format are complex and it's really difficult to debug if the parameters are uncertain.
Because sometimes you'll have proper video codecs, but not the audio ones, etc.

hlbkv

@AppLee Is there a way, though, to just check the media playback capabilities of the device? e.g. from the GPU model?

hlbkv

I noticed ubuntu-restricted-extras is not present in the system image. Would installing it help in this regard (though I'm aware it's not recommended)?