The VideoLAN Forums

I'm posting this here because I'm using the Windows version of VLC, and haven't tested the bug in any other version of VLC, but I know for sure it does exist in the Windows version of VLC.

When playing an mp4 video file with h264 compressed video, and doing ctrl+j to see the codec info, it's missing an important piece of info now. Previously (in an older version of VLC player, I think one of the later 2.x versions or earlier 3.x versions) it would say if it was YUV full range, or partial range (or any other YUV format info, like if it was YUV444 or YUV420, etc), under the "Decoded format" info. Now that info is missing. Here's a screenshot.


Please fix this soon.

It's not a bug. The reason the Decoded format field is blank is because "Hardware-accelerated decoding" is enabled in Prefs ---> Input / Codecs menu. When that's set to "Automatic" the GPU handles graphics instead of the CPU. If you want to see data in the Decoded format field set "Hardware-accelerated decoding" to disabled. Save, exit and restart vlc.

It's not a bug. The reason the Decoded format field is blank is because "Hardware-accelerated decoding" is enabled in Prefs ---> Input / Codecs menu. When that's set to "Automatic" the GPU handles graphics instead of the CPU. If you want to see data in the Decoded format field set "Hardware-accelerated decoding" to disabled. Save, exit and restart vlc.

Thanks. I had no idea that would be an issue. Doesn't the MP4 container format have a metadata field though, that VLC can read, that tells it what the decoded format is, even if VLC doesn't perform the decoding and offloads that to the GPU? That's that kind of metadata that SHOULD be displayed no matter what, just so the user knows that VLC isn't broken. Leaving a blank field in the codec info like that isn't good, and makes VLC seem broken. I like the increased speed of using GPU decoding, but should also have access to all metadata regarding the video stream that is stored in the video container file (MP4 in this case).

You can download the MediaInfo tool for more info. https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Screenshots