Video not playing in BigBox but does in Launchbox

[throwingmuse]

I have discovered several videos which play correctly in Launchbox but do not play correctly in BigBox. I hear the audio of the video file in BigBox, but there is no picture. What is the difference in video playback between BigBox and Launchbox?

[Eli631]

make sure all the video files are in .mp4 format.

[throwingmuse]

Yes, all video files are in mp4 format. I've discovered multiple files which play correctly in LauncBox but do not play correctly in BigBox. What would be a difference in the video playback between the two apps?

[neil9000]

Both apps give you the choice of VLC and WMP, and they are set separately in Bigbox and Launchbox. 

[throwingmuse]

I compared the LaunchBox and BigBox video playback settings. BigBox was set to WMP and LaunchBox was set to VLC. I changed BigBox to VLC and now the game videos play correctly.

However...

Now, Platform Category videos do not show video, but do play audio, after category wheel changes. It seems as if the video is sitting at a lower layer on the screen when changing wheel categories. Exiting to the option menu and immediately returning pushes the Platform Category video to the foreground. This behavior only occurs when using VLC. When BigBox is set to use WMP, the Platform Category videos play correctly in the foregraound after wheel changes (but the aforementioned game videos have issues).

 

1. WMP has issues playing several game videos. VLC does not have issues playing the same game videos.

2. VLC has issues playing Platform Category videos in the foreground after wheel changes. WMP does not have issues playing Platform Category videos in the foreground.

 

Frustrating to find a solution to this.

[neil9000]

9 minutes ago, throwingmuse said:

I compared the LaunchBox and BigBox video playback settings. BigBox was set to WMP and LaunchBox was set to VLC. I changed BigBox to VLC and now the game videos play correctly.

However...

Now, Platform Category videos do not show video, but do play audio, after category wheel changes. It seems as if the video is sitting at a lower layer on the screen when changing wheel categories. Exiting to the option menu and immediately returning pushes the Platform Category video to the foreground. This behavior only occurs when using VLC. When BigBox is set to use WMP, the Platform Category videos play correctly in the foregraound after wheel changes (but the aforementioned game videos have issues).

 

1. WMP has issues playing several game videos. VLC does not have issues playing the same game videos.

2. VLC has issues playing Platform Category videos in the foreground after wheel changes. WMP does not have issues playing Platform Category videos in the foreground.

 

Frustrating to find a solution to this.

Well i have never heard that before, what theme are you using? You can try downloading a codec pack and switching back to WMP, WMP is missing codecs compared to VLC but can be added. Just do a google for K-LITE codec pack.

[throwingmuse]

I use the most updated Shark CODEC pack (both x86 and x64).

I use the Fundamental theme along with Viking's 4x3 Nostalgia Platform Category videos.

I see that the VLC version that LaunchBox uses is from 5/2017. Is there any plan to update it to the current 3.04 version from 8/2018? I attempted to manually change it for testing, but I discovered that the libqt_plugin.dll in the new version does not contain two methods used by LaunchBox: input_item_GetNowPlayingFb and vlc_stream_Delete.

 

[neil9000]

19 minutes ago, throwingmuse said:

I use the most updated Shark CODEC pack (both x86 and x64).

I use the Fundamental theme along with Viking's 4x3 Nostalgia Platform Category videos.

I see that the VLC version that LaunchBox uses is from 5/2017. Is there any plan to update it to the current 3.04 version from 8/2018? I attempted to manually change it for testing, but I discovered that the libqt_plugin.dll in the new version does not contain two methods used by LaunchBox: input_item_GetNowPlayingFb and vlc_stream_Delete.

 

Hmm weird, i have used the fundamental theme a lot myself and have never had issues with the videos in it. I dont use Vikings 4:3 platform videos however, so it could be related to the videos or the aspect ratio somehow i guess.

[Jason Carr]

@throwingmuse Please test some different themes to see if the issue is theme-specific. It is a known issue that WMP will not always play all videos (due to missing codecs, etc. which are really out of our control), but I am not aware of any issues with videos not showing up in VLC.

[Jason Carr]

I will look to update VLC here soon.

[throwingmuse]

I checked some other themes and discovered this:

1. VLC Platform Category Videos do display properly in the foreground on wheel changes using the Default and CriticalZone themes.

2. VLC Platform Category videos do not display properly in the foreground on wheel changes in Fundamental and BarTop themes.

So, it appears that there is something inherent in a theme which is causes VLC to not present the video properly in the foreground upon wheel changes. Other than reaching out to the theme author and finding out if there is a known issue, all I can attempt to do is compare the various xaml files between the working and non-working themes to see if a pattern emerges. It could be anything and may not be intuitive. 

Again, I'm using Viking's 4x3 Nostalgia Platform Category videos. 

I previously had BigBox configured to use WMP so I never saw this issue. It only came to light when I found that WMP was not able to play some select game videos. I changed to VLC to correct the game video playback.

[Jason Carr]

Since it's a theme-specific issue, I would request that we go through the theme developers in order to troubleshoot it. Otherwise, I would recommend trying some different codec packs and sticking with WMP; you should be able to find codecs that fix the issue.

[throwingmuse]

Although I do understand that contacting the theme developer would be a logical first step, they should be subject to the theme rules contained within LaunchBox itself, correct? I mean, there is nothing they can do in a theme that LaunchBox doesn't allow them to do. With that point, what could LaunchBox be doing internally to show videos differently when using VLC vs. WMP across different themes? It doesn't sound like it would be a CODEC issues since the videos play properly in one theme but not another.

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, throwingmuse said:

Although I do understand that contacting the theme developer would be a logical first step, they should be subject to the theme rules contained within LaunchBox itself, correct? I mean, there is nothing they can do in a theme that LaunchBox doesn't allow them to do. With that point, what could LaunchBox be doing internally to show videos differently when using VLC vs. WMP across different themes? It doesn't sound like it would be a CODEC issues since the videos play properly in one theme but not another.

The thing is though i have never experienced any video issues with either WMP or VLC in the fundamental theme at all. I'm going to download some of vikings 4:3 videos and see if i can reproduce what you are seeing here.

EDIT:

Also to add, the theme has no control over the video files you use obviously it just hooks into either WMP or VLC.

[Jason Carr]

The codec thing is specific to WMP. The theme works with WMP on your system, so all you should need to do is get the right codecs to get all the videos to play using WMP. VLC does not need codecs, of course, but the issue there will be difficult to solve, since it seems to be specific to both your machine and those themes. A much easier solution would just be to get the right codecs for WMP.

[neil9000]

I just recorded this video with both VLC and WMP in the Fundamental theme, and i havent got any issues myself with it.

[Vlaryn]

Did anything ever get solved on this. I am running into the same issue with the realtastic theme. @faeran

[throwingmuse]

I had to change the theme XAML I used for reference to remove the video from a different container.

<transitions:TransitionPresenter Name="PlatformVideo" Grid.Column="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="4" Grid.RowSpan="9" Content="{Binding ImageVideoView}" IsContentVideo="true" Panel.ZIndex="1" StretchVideo="True" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" />

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by throwingmuse

[Vlaryn]

Thanks for the reply. I actually finally found my issue in the Platformswheel1view.xaml file. I messaged the themes author who was chatting with me in the forums about how I fixed it for my wheel. Hope I was able to help find a bug.

In my case even if I had VLC set in bigbox as my default player it would always default to WMP for the platforms wheel. If anyone else has similar issue check out my post here.

 

~Vlaryn