VLC pixelated gray screen

[kmhofmann]

I am seeing the exact same issue.
Windows 10, ample processing power (Core i7-5960X, 2x NVIDIA Titan X), hard drives set to not power down; issue also occurs when playing from SSD.

Disabling hardware acceleration does not fix the issue.
Increasing the cache might help, but has other, undesirable side effects (longer seek/stream switch times).

[floh]

Hello, I have the problem of the pixelation too, but just when I play x.265 files.
I changed the file caching but I wasn't able to solve the problem.

Isn't there any good news?
Some suggestions?

[Rebel]

The new version (2.2.3) didn't help at all.

[momentarydogma]

I just started having this issue about a week ago on my mid-2013 MacBook Pro Retina. I have a 128GB Transcend JetDrive (which is an SD card that doesn't stick out of an MBP slot) that I use for all downloads, and I have never had any issue playing video files from it on VLC before, regardless of format, size, codec, etc., but moving the files to my MBP's main SSD fixed the issues 100%. I tried all of the suggestions for settings listed in this thread with no change whatsoever (except for the gray screen turning green), but it appears to be some sort of speed/latency issue with using external storage. Just tried playing some files from a 1TB external USB 3.0 drive and experienced the same problem, but every file plays perfectly from the Mac's internal SSD. I am not having this issue playing from external drives on any of my Windows 7 or Windows 10 systems using the Windows version of VLC. I don't see any reason why an SD card would be too slow to play files properly on VLC (I do not have any issue with playing files on QuickTime Player from the same drive), and I have played hundreds of video files on VLC over the past couple years directly from the same card with no problem at all, so I don't know why this would be happening all of the sudden. Has anyone tried defragmenting their external drive or something like that? I'll try formatting the drive and see if I have the same issue when it's freshly formatted.

[Bicycle Stipe]

Hello team,

I have the same problem mentioned in this forum thread. I'm running the latest VLC with Windows 7 64-Bit (Build 7601). I dunno what happened to the file, it somehow got corrupt and will not play in VLC or any other player for that matter. Symptoms are grey and green blocky artifacts throughout the H.264 video which is within a MKV container. Funny thing is, I can import the file into VideoReDo and play it fine. I'm at a loss....what do you think?

[sadhikary]

I think I have found a solution... And so far no pixelated screen any more...

I have a NVIDIA CUDA graphics card in my laptop (2GB of video memory)... During playback of a video go to Video in Preferences and change the output to video memory output... That'll cut the beef...

Only problem you might face when playing another video... Probably, you won't even be able to see the video track... Just go there, and reset all preferences or change the output to Auto and come back... Your video starts nicely... Go back there and change it to video memory output...

In my opinion, this is due to unavailability of video memory... 1080p videos need more memory than the 720p ones... That's why you lose the frames... If you can allocate a video memory somehow in your system or say you've a GPU like me, that'll do the trick... You just need to assign it to the proper hardware...

Thanks again...

[Kristov]

I know this is an old thread, but its coming up at the top of the google search and no one posted a fix. Here's the fix. It worked for the guy who posted it on youtube and it seems to have worked for me. I hope that it works for you too! (Im alost certain it will!) Click on Tools>Preferences. In bottom left (under "Show Settings") check the "All" box. Click on "Input/Codecs". On the right, scroll to the bottom. The first listing under Advanced is "file caching (ms)". Change this value to 1000. Click save. Problem solved. Seems to be the fix!!!

[kmhofmann]

Unfortunately these glitches still happen for me when I change the file caching value to 1000, or even to 2000. I'm playing videos from mostly hard drives, but they're certainly not of the slow or ancient variety.

[amanda9152]

I seemed to have fixed the same issue by moving my home movies from my external hard drive (500GB) to my laptop running with a 256GB SSD, so I think this is definitely a read speed issue. I was experiencing the issue like others after pausing, but it became more frequent in random bursts like others were seeing the longer the video and also the further into the video too, until eventually it made the video unwatchable. Bit of an annoying work around but do-able.

[_fred_berg_]

I'm experiencing this too, and I discovered that it on the copy.
I mean the file your trying to play has the problem. Well thats what happen to me.

[gohanrage]

I am always getting the grey screen when I start a video.

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series. I checked for updates. VLC says I have the latest version. I find it rather annoying. its not even the first frame. I start the video its clear and then I get the grey screen a few seconds in to the video clip.

[RaDDx]

You know what is more Annoying than a pixelated screen while watching a movie, is looking to a forum for an answer to a solution, and all everyone keeps posting is "I am having the same issue" instead of actually posting a solution......The original poster is looking for a reply with a solution to their problem, not continual posts from people saying they are having the same issue, and offering no solutions....FFS...

Here is a SOLUTION that worked for me: iN VLC, Go into Tools, Select Preferences, select "All" at the very bottom, select "Input Codecs" in the list, to the right, change "File Caching (ms)" to 300 and Network Caching (ms) TO 1000. You can try a variety of numbers, these are the ones that worked for me.

[Vincent Summers]

Hm. I'm not a computer whiz, but I am an observing person. I believe I experience this issue mainly when I also have a browser window open.

It is my suspicion Windows is undertaking sneaky means to discourage VLC use in favor of Windows Media Player.

[lauredis]

solution that works.

Download K-Lite codec pack, and then use MPC-HC x64

works fine guaranteed . Finally after months of getting grey vids I can see my vids

[thesandvolcano]

The previous poster who said this issue is not power management related is wrong. The problem is caused by the AHCI power management feature's, HIPM & DIPM. Specifically, your mechanical hard disk cannot handle these power states as well as your ssd. This is why watching a movie from the ssd works better than mechanical storage using AHCI over SATA. Another poster suggested increasing the file cache which will lessen the phenomena, but HIPM & DIPM will still cause problems. I have known this problem/solution for years and am frankly shocked that this is still an issue in 2016. So much so I have created this account for y'all.

Solution 1: Switch mechanical drive over to IDE mode, if you wish to retain HIPM & DIPM functionality for your ssd.
Solution 2: Use a RamDisk (ImDisk is free) to pre-cache media to RAM.
Solution 3: Download the *.reg files from this site: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/17 ... -dipm.html. Install into registry. The reg file makes HIPM & DIPM options available in Windows 7. Finally, open your advanced power management options and disable HIPM & DIPM under the 'hard disk' section.

I use 'Solution 3' and can confirm it works on my old AMD based rig, and my new x99 Intel - Nvidea rig. If I had known this problem would persist for so long, I would have created an account here years ago. In my opinion the VLC team have been very slow in addressing this issue as there must be a programatic solution, as not all media players are affected as bad by HIPM & DIPM.

[k9dog]

This was a bit annoying: I got various machines. With graphics messing up like desciped, I been flipping VLC settings without much luck.
Other players didn't have problems.
The problem turned out to be exactly what thesandvolcano described.
I don't know it would be possible, but it would be nice if vlc inhibited these settings or at least informed about their current settings. I might look for an extension for when laptop isn't plugged in.

[obiwanbill]

Thank you sir, your solution worked for me too.

I was doing file transfer testing yesterday, because I thought it was my problem. I have two file servers and I was testing file transfers speeds.

CASE 1 -> Playing an ISO from the local SSD (with VLC default settings)
This works perfect. I tested it on a MacBook Late 2008 and a MacBook Pro Mid 2012. Both Perfect. But, this isn't what I want. Transferring an ISO from my RAID array takes 1 to two hours. If I have to do that, for every movie I want to play, that sucks!

What I really want is to play my ISO's directly from my File Servers.

CASE 2 -> Playing an ISO from the File Server (with modified settings below)
After extensive testing I discovered my file transfer speed from my File Server (RAID 5 array of 1.5TB HDDs) to my MacBook Pro Mid 2012 with a Crucial MX300 SSD is ... ~25MB/s (or 200Mbps on a 1Gbps Switch). There was no other traffic at the same time. Hmm ... if other people are getting faster file transfers I want to know what you are doing. I was testing with "rsync". Anyway, bottom line I was still getting the artifacts described in this article.

After following RaDDx's suggestions ... I maxed out ALL settings ...
File Caching = 6000ms
Live Capture caching = 6000ms
Disc Caching = 6000ms
Network Caching = 6000ms

My artifacts on my screen disappeared. ALL my ISO's play PERFECT on both my MacBook Pro Mid 2012 (4GB RAM) and my MacBook Late 2008(8GB RAM). I also noticed that ... when playing my ISO the network transfer speed is about 5MB/sec. What that means is, I think , as long as you are playing your Movie (ISO, mkv, whatever) from a device that can sustain at least that speed, (perhaps double or 10MB/sec), with the settings suggested by RaDDx I think it should work.

I hope this helps the next guy.

You know, this has been a thorn in my side for many years now and I really wasn't sure where the problem was. I thought I remembered this working better with an earlier release of VLC and I was right because another person confirmed it here. Oh well. Please VLC, consider changing your default settings so this works "at default settings". Or, at least explain what the consequence is for the changes we are making.

Thanks,

Bill

PS. I just created this account to post this reply. Obviously I am a little excited to finally have this solution!

You know what is more Annoying than a pixelated screen while watching a movie, is looking to a forum for an answer to a solution, and all everyone keeps posting is "I am having the same issue" instead of actually posting a solution......The original poster is looking for a reply with a solution to their problem, not continual posts from people saying they are having the same issue, and offering no solutions....FFS...

Here is a SOLUTION that worked for me: iN VLC, Go into Tools, Select Preferences, select "All" at the very bottom, select "Input Codecs" in the list, to the right, change "File Caching (ms)" to 300 and Network Caching (ms) TO 1000. You can try a variety of numbers, these are the ones that worked for me.

[RockyTDR]

After following RaDDx's suggestions ... I maxed out ALL settings ...
File Caching = 6000ms

6000 ms = 6 seconds... which is NOT the maximum. VLC allows to chache up to 60 000 ms (60 seconds or 1 minute).

[Hogar]

Ok, so I have the same problem and I've tried many of the proposed solutions - nothing helped with the VLC player. I am also using the NAS hard drive for viewing videos on MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013, 2,3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM). It is a TERRIBLE experience, the drop-outs and pixelisation are very frequent. I even tried with fixing the Western Digital Intellisleep issue with the HDD in NAS.

I then tried another player - MPV. It worked PERFECT with any video codec I tried. But it lacks a lots of customization and hotkeys that VLC have.

THEN, I did this:
- In VLC Preferences, I selected "Input/Codecs" section (NOTE that I can/t find this option when you turn on the "SHOW ALL" options, only when "Basic" options are chosen);
- Under "Network", open "Edit default application settings for network protocols"
- Everywhere where it was an option, I chose "MPV" instead of "VLC" or "Finder"; only two (RTMP and SFTP) had "VLC" as the only option. REMINDER: I previously installed MPV player on my Mac.

Since then - BOOM, NO PROBLEMS WITH PLAYBACK!!!

[pjcamp]

Cache settings don't fix it.

Hardware on or off doesn't fix it.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with hard drive speed since the same file from the same hard drive plays perfectly in Windows Media Player as well as in MPV.

It has everything to do with VLC's decoding and if I knew a way to downgrade to a point before White Whale, or whatever its called, I would try that.

[drloveduke]

So I've tried several of the suggestions on here.

File Caching = 6000ms etc. - did nothing at all
Tools - preferences - video - untick ---didn't help
Downloading K-lite codec pack -didnt help VLC but did let me play with windows media player. WMP is kinda juddery when there is a pan or zoom but no grey screens at all.
So unfortunately I'll be using WMP for now. I hope VLC can fix this issue though cause it's what I'd like to use if it worked.

[jokerzz81]

Nvidia system control
Adjust video color settings
Select, With the nvidia settings
advanced setting
Select dynamic range 0-255
And save

screenshot http://share-your-photo.com/4610142005

That was my solution
I can not good english was translated via google

[aref]

Hi, for anyone who has changed their VLC and Power Management settings and STILL experiencing grey & pixelated screens, you may want to see if your laptop is overheating.

I spent countless hours trying different settings, however the only solution I found was to prevent my laptop from overheating.

Hope this helps

[computerguy]

This is extremely annoying when it happens, although I've noticed that it only seems to happen when another process is making heavy I/O demands.

Frankly I'd prefer if VLC just stalled for a moment rather than having decode errors which cause this grey screen. I've tried disabling frame skip and all the other options that I could think of, but nothing helps. There must be some way - some setting - that will make VLC wait if necessary to read the required data instead of just turning grey. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[thesandvolcano]

This is extremely annoying when it happens, although I've noticed that it only seems to happen when another process is making heavy I/O demands.

Frankly I'd prefer if VLC just stalled for a moment rather than having decode errors which cause this grey screen. I've tried disabling frame skip and all the other options that I could think of, but nothing helps. There must be some way - some setting - that will make VLC wait if necessary to read the required data instead of just turning grey. Does anybody have any suggestions?

While I don't speak for the VLC team, the short answer is no. Resource contention problems sepecifically regarding mechanical drives has always been there. It generally is not the responsibility of each software vender to monitor and adjust it's programs behaviour, based on current/predicted system load. That responsibility has always belonged to the operating system.

If you have read my listed solutions to this problem up the page a little, your particular problem could be solved by precaching media to ram. Heavy IO on a mechanical disk will inevitably result in this grey-pixelation, as will HIPM/DIPM enabled mechanical drives over AHCI-SATA links. The read request simply cannot be fulfilled in a timely manner.