why does black text become transparent over the VLC player?
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Please post only Windows specific questions in this forum category. If you don't know where to post, please read the different forums' rules. Thanks.
Please post only Windows specific questions in this forum category. If you don't know where to post, please read the different forums' rules. Thanks.
why does black text become transparent over the VLC player?
Perhaps it is just part of the VLC player, but I am confused about that transparent black text effect when playing a video. When any window that has black text is placed over the VLC player that black text becomes transparent. I have searched through posts here, but didn't seem to find an answer as to why that happens. I am probably missing something simple. Thanks for any help!
Hi,
this is due to the "overlay" mechanism offered by DirectX (you can deactivate it in vlc settings). The principle is that the video is rendered on the screen directly by the video card; all that VLC has to do is to draw a black rectangle (or blue, it depends, anyway it's known as the "overlay color") on the screen, and the card merges the video into this black area (i.e it's not done by software). This explains that if you draw anything with the overlay color over the video window, you will see the video picture instead.
this is due to the "overlay" mechanism offered by DirectX (you can deactivate it in vlc settings). The principle is that the video is rendered on the screen directly by the video card; all that VLC has to do is to draw a black rectangle (or blue, it depends, anyway it's known as the "overlay color") on the screen, and the card merges the video into this black area (i.e it's not done by software). This explains that if you draw anything with the overlay color over the video window, you will see the video picture instead.
Thank you very much, that explains it. I did turn off "overlay video output", but now all I get is a black screen (audio works fine). I have tried changing settings for DirectX video output, without good results. That is ok though, I can hopefully find more info on that problem through soem searches.
After turning off overlays, I turned off "use hardware YUV-> RGB conversions" under DirectX options and the video turned purple. I have seen a number of posts in these forums that mentioned the purple problem, but I am certainly no expert (obviously), and wasn't able to apply what I read. I have a feeling that if I don't use overlays, I won't get proper playback, that i just the way it is. I am curious about it, though.
more replies to myself - I found that switching the video output module to OpenGL (and no overlays) solves the purple problem, but the resulting quality isn't as good; the video is choppy. Since I don't have the latest computer, I think that my real problem is that I don't have a particularly powerful PC.
Well, overlay rendering has two purposes:
- scale the video in hardware (the video card resizes the video to fit into the black rectangle I was speaking of)
- perform YUV -> RGB conversion in hardware too. YUV is a color format used to encode videos (i will enter into details but this format allows a better compression), and if you don't do this conversion the colors are completely messed up of course.
If your card doesn't do this job it has to be done by software, that's why opengl output is much slower. However this doesn't explain why directX without overlay doesn't work for you, maybe it is a bug in your driver...
- scale the video in hardware (the video card resizes the video to fit into the black rectangle I was speaking of)
- perform YUV -> RGB conversion in hardware too. YUV is a color format used to encode videos (i will enter into details but this format allows a better compression), and if you don't do this conversion the colors are completely messed up of course.
If your card doesn't do this job it has to be done by software, that's why opengl output is much slower. However this doesn't explain why directX without overlay doesn't work for you, maybe it is a bug in your driver...
-
Guest
Ok now...version 0.8.1 was working fine then wh this one is not......i tried all the above methods but one yield in distortion of picture other just making the screen black,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
An help plz.........is VLC gonna forget the people with some low CPU capacity(i have p3).............So should i turn back to older or still their is a solution to this
An help plz.........is VLC gonna forget the people with some low CPU capacity(i have p3).............So should i turn back to older or still their is a solution to this
Thanks for all the help. I checked my video driver, and it was the same as when I bought the computer in 2001. I did a little searching, and even though I found out Intel no longer supports what I have, they did still have the very last driver update for my devide (from 2002). I installed that, and then went back to the VLC player and it appears everything is fine now.
My advice to anyone who wants to disable the the transparent text is to turn off the settiing for overlays - you have to check the "advanced" box to see that option. Then, if things go purple, try to update your device driver. It worked for me. I am somewhat surprised I couldn't easily find this information in some sort of "newbie FAQ", but maybe anyone looking for a solution will see this thread. Most of the time I spent in frustration was because I knew nothing of overlays before. I wish a search through the forums or the internet would have pointed me to "overlays". If I had seen a bit of information that said "if you want to disable the transparent text effect, uncheck the overlays options", I might have been able to go from there. I learned a lot though.
My eternal thanks to the kind folks who read these questiosn and give us answers, it is highly appreciated. Now I need to go watch some videos
My advice to anyone who wants to disable the the transparent text is to turn off the settiing for overlays - you have to check the "advanced" box to see that option. Then, if things go purple, try to update your device driver. It worked for me. I am somewhat surprised I couldn't easily find this information in some sort of "newbie FAQ", but maybe anyone looking for a solution will see this thread. Most of the time I spent in frustration was because I knew nothing of overlays before. I wish a search through the forums or the internet would have pointed me to "overlays". If I had seen a bit of information that said "if you want to disable the transparent text effect, uncheck the overlays options", I might have been able to go from there. I learned a lot though.
My eternal thanks to the kind folks who read these questiosn and give us answers, it is highly appreciated. Now I need to go watch some videos
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