Re: NVIDIA Problem

[t_pol]

On Wed, 1 Apr 2020 08:52:21 -0300
"George N. White III"  wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Mar 2020 at 23:25, t_pol  wrote:
> > Hi list,
> >
> > I've decided to switch from nouveau to Nvidia drivers.
> > Everythings seems ok but I cannot play anymore h24 videos.
> > Both VLC & SMPLAYER just play sounds but no video.
> >
> > this is the error message:
> >
> > Codec not supported:
> > VLC could not decode the format "h264" (H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10))
> >
> > Before the switch everything were OK.
> >
> > I'm running Fedora 31 on an a laptop HP Pavilion dv5.
> > Thanks in advance for any suggestion.
> >
> > Angelo
>
> This is a common problem that runs across distros:
>
> https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=303173
> https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/530278-VLC-not-playing-mp4-files
>
> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=169279
>
> Workarounds include configuration tweaks and using ffmeg to reencode a file
> to get something VLC supports.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding  explains the underlying
> problem:
>
> The commercial use of patented H.264 technologies requires the payment
> of royalties to MPEG LA and other patent owners. MPEG LA has allowed
>  the free use of H.264 technologies for streaming Internet video that is
> free
> to end users, and Cisco Systems
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Systems pays royalties to MPEG LA on
> behalf of
> the users of binaries for its open source
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software H.264 encoder.
>
> Is your video "streaming Internet video that is free to end users"?    Do
> you
> have rpmfusion ffmeg and vlcextras?
>
> --
> George N. White III

Thanks for your answer George.

Yes I have ffmpeg and No I don't have vlcextras. (I'll install it right away).
Yes I have rpmfusion repos but the driver has been installed from
official NVIDIA site.

The suggested tweaks to reencode every file sounds very annoying.

Coming to the royalties thing, I have to admit I didn't know that.

What is confusing me is:
 - with the nouveau drivers the problem did not exist.
 - vlc and smplayer are not playing even AVI files.

I'm seriously considering to revert back to nouveau.

Anyway thanks very much again for your help.

Ciao,
Angelo