Two seperate VLC playback issues

[ecc]

VLC seems to not like certain DVDs or parts of DVDs. One NTSC DVD I tried playing in it started well with the menus but when I hit play, the playback screen was black with pixelation or lime green with pixellation. The same DVD played back in PowerDVD and Media Player Classic.

Another PAL DVD I tried to play in VLC played the menus fine. When I opened an extra feature, it played back without subtitles (even though they were enabled) but when I played the feature, the screen had pixellation again (I think the actual video image might have been there behind it) but it also opened up a second black screen titled RGB DirectX output. Once again, this DVD plays fine in other software players.

[jagabo]

You ought to be posting in the Videolan forums.

[redwudz]

What version of VLC? I would try a different one. What you describe sounds like a corrupted codec, and since VLC uses internal codecs, maybe the program itself is corrupted. I would delete your version and install a new one. Make sure you check the box to remove preferences during the new install. The VLC forums are here: http://forum.videolan.org/

[ecc]

I downloaded the newest version today to see if that solved problems. I searched through the VideoLAN forums (and posted there) but I don't really know what to look up. I did disable video overlay as suggested with problems related to DirectX output but I still get this:

[Ai Haibara]

(Edit: Just saw that redwudz did suggest making sure the preferences were deleted during install. You did do that, right?)

Have you tried deleting your VLC settings and starting fresh? (Note: this is not the same as uninstalling VLC and reinstalling - the settings folder in Application Data usually isn't modified or erased when doing that, unless you do choose to erase the settings during installs. Evidently, it's easy to corrupt the settings.)

If you haven't, there should be a button for it in the settings (I'm not at a system that has VLC installed, right now, so I can't check). Or, you can: (be VERY careful if you do this!)

Go to Start menu > Run box. Enter "%appdata%" (without the quotes) in the box, and click OK or press Enter. The Application Data folder should pop up. Look for the 'vlc' folder, and delete that folder only.

After using either method, open VLC again and see if the problem persists.

[ecc]

Scratch that. Deleted the app folder, and trying again.

The problem persists but now the audio skips with the pixelation which flashes over the image (when I hit pause, the image looks okay). The other thing I noticed is that the film is 16:9 but the main VLC window is 4:3 letterbox while the RGB DirectX Output box is 16:9 (but there's nothing on that window but a black screen).

It just seems to be with certain discs (which play fine in other players) because I tried another disc and it looked fine for the minute or so I looked at.

[jagabo]

Are you trying to play commercial discs or discs you burned yourself?

[ecc]

Are you trying to play commercial discs or discs you burned yourself?

These are commercial discs.

[jagabo]

The symptom looks like what you get when trying to play CSS encrypted discs without decryption. VLC includes a CSS decrypter but maybe something's interfering with it?

[ecc]

Is CSS encrypting common? The two discs I had problems with were:

SEOM (Spanish R2 PAL - De A Planeta)
DUST DEVIL (US R0 NTSC - Subversive)

The other discs I have just looked at in VLC that have not had any problems are:
PHANTASM II (R1 - Universal)
AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (R1 - Universal)
COLD PREY (R1 Anchor Bay)
BULLET IN THE HEAD (R2 - Hong Kong Legends)
BULLET IN THE HEAD (R0 - Joy Sales)

[jagabo]

In my experience most retail DVDs sold in the USA are CSS encrypted. I have a few Hong Kong imports and they're not. I think about half my UK imports are.

[ecc]

It seems to be the discs themselves. I ripped THE ISLE to my harddrive and used the "open folder" option in VLC and it played without distortion (although I had to maximize the window to get the 16:9 image since like PowerDVD, VLC seems to have trouble transitioning between 4:3 menus and 16:9 video and vice versa when playing from the hard drive).

[jagabo]

It seems to be the discs themselves. I ripped THE ISLE to my harddrive and used the "open folder" option in VLC and it played without distortion

What do you mean by "ripped"? Did you use DVD Decrypter, DVD43, or something similar? That removes CSS encryption.

[ecc]

I used the free version of DVDFab Decrypter. Okay, so it removed the encryption and that seems like it'll be the solution for reviewing (I don't particularly enjoy watching entire films on my computer screen anyway). If CSS encrypting is fairly common, I'm still not sure why VLC is picky with certain discs.