[mythtv-users] black screen during playback

[Joey Morris]

Joey Morris <rjmorris at nc.rr.com> wrote on Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 09:40:15PM -0400:
> I recently upgraded a combined backend/frontend and two frontends from
> 0.24 to 0.25.2. Several months ago, while I was on 0.24, one of my
> frontends suddenly stopped displaying video when using a VDPAU
> profile, instead giving me just audio with a black screen. It worked
> fine once I switched to a CPU-only profile. I mentioned it in
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/514994, but I never
> resolved the problem, so I just stuck with the CPU-only profile.
> 
> I hoped the problem would resolve itself in 0.25.2, but it's actually
> worse. Now I get audio but no video even on the CPU-only profile. I
> tried VDPAU Normal, one of the OpenGL profiles, and Slim. All produce
> audio and a black screen. One difference is that the OSD is displayed
> when using VDPAU Normal but not when using Slim (I don't remember what
> happened with OpenGL.) The video plays fine in VLC.
> 
> I've tried the following with no changes:
>   - swapped in a different video card
>   - connected via VGA instead of HDMI
>   - copied the file to the local drive, added it to the video gallery,
>     and played it from there
> 
> I captured logs with -v playback while using the VDPAU Normal profile
> and the Slim profile. I would be very grateful if someone could review
> these to see if anything looks amiss. I'm happy to provide other
> information or logs if needed.
> 
>   VDPAU Normal: http://pastebin.com/KvZE1bZY
>   Slim: http://pastebin.com/r7hzd5G3
> 
> I also captured the log on my working frontend running the VDPAU
> Normal profile and compared it to the one above. The only difference
> that seemed like it might be significant is the lack of "Video is
> d.ddddd frames behind audio" messages on the working machine, so I'm
> not optimistic that these logs I've posted will reveal the problem.
> 
> This is on Mythbuntu 11.04 with an NVidia 210 card.

Tonight I tried using the onboard graphics instead of the 210 card. My
CPU is the i3-540, which is a Clarkdale. This time I did get video
using the Slim (and Normal) profile. I didn't get video using the
OpenGL Normal profile, however.

At least I have one usable configuration now, but I'd really rather
have VDPAU working. Does anyone have any ideas?

Since both of my 210s work on my other frontend and neither work on
this one, I don't think the card is to blame. I'm beginning to suspect
it might be a motherboard problem. But before I start buying new
hardware, I think I'll first see if I can get VAAPI going on this
system. Maybe that will be good enough that I can live without VDPAU.
If not, I'll try a reinstall from scratch.