Question about VLC playback with MKV BluRay rips

MKV playback, recompression, remuxing, codec packs, players, howtos, etc.
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OliverTwist
Posts: 35
Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2013 2:04 am

Question about VLC playback with MKV BluRay rips

Post by OliverTwist »

Pardon me if this has already been asked, but I'm hoping that someone might be able to steer me in the right direction.

I have both VLC and MPC-HC x64 installed on my laptop. I tend to use VLC as my default, as it seems to handle interlacing better than MPC-HC, particularly with older films and animated titles.

Recently I've been ripping MKV files from Blu-Ray discs and in a number of circumstances (though strangely not across the board) I encounter a problem with playback on VLC. I recently attempted to watch a silent short from 1922 with VLC and it just appeared as a green screen with horizontal lines. It almost looked like those old SMPTE color bar test patterns that you'd see on early morning TV stations before the networks broadcast their programming, only in a monotone green wash. The sound still played back perfectly. I encountered a similar problem on my Blu-Ray rip of "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Strangely, I've been able to play other MKV BR rips fine in VLC, so I can't quite seem to pinpoint the cause. I was initially concerned that these files were somehow corrupted and that perhaps MakeMKV had failed to process them correctly, but when I switch to MPC-HC, they play back perfectly and without issue.

Now while I seem to have found a solution by toggling between media players as necessary, I'm actually hoping to resolve the playback error within VLC. I dump all of my MKV files onto a 4TB Seagate external drive, and I often make compilations of film shorts, cartoons, etc. that I place in various folders. I'm able to watch them fluidly by right-clicking the folders and choosing a single media player for viewing; thus all files will playback consecutively. This obviously doesn't work if I'm needing to switch between VLC and MPC-HC players.

Can anyone offer some insight into why I might be encountering this issue with VLC and BluRay MKVs; specifically why I'm only seeing this with certain BR files and not others? Any suggestions for fixing this problem?

Thanks very much!
Woodstock
Posts: 10331
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:21 pm

Re: Question about VLC playback with MKV BluRay rips

Post by Woodstock »

It is probably a VLC issue.

For what it is worth, I do not use the current version of VLC, because of unresolved stability issues with every 2.2.x version I've tried. Each "fix" seemed to make things worse.

But v2.1.x seems to play back everything found on Bluray for me. No h.265 support, but that isn't a problem for me.
Krawk
Posts: 276
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 12:10 am

Re: Question about VLC playback with MKV BluRay rips

Post by Krawk »

What codec pack is installed?
I have seen glitches with certain file headers and certain codec packs.
I use K-Lite for the Codec Pack and MPC-HC x64 as my primary player.
Don't want to install a codec pack? Have you tried MPC-HC Black Edition or Kodi?
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