VLC fails to play DVB-T h264/mp2 broadcast (mplayer can)

[Drain Pipe]

I have two DVB-T USB TV dongles.
VLC has never been able to play TV with them.

VLC can scan and generate a frequency playlist. But not 'play' any stations.
If I load the playlist and click on one of the stations it will display the current program in VLC title bar but no picture or sound.

So I tried mplayer.
It too couldn't play until I got it to use 'lavf'

So this works:

Code: Select all

$ mplayer dvb://"TV3" -demuxer lavf

It stutters a bit when watching live but, here's the thing, if I save the stream from mplayer and then encapsulate as an .MKV (or .MPEG) with ffmpeg VLC can then play it no problem!

Code: Select all

$ ffmpeg -i mplayer_capture.ts -c:v copy -c:a copy ffpmeg.mkv

Interestingly VLC can't play the captured mplayer .TS file, only the ffmpeg processed file.

Any one any ideas whats going on?

On another computer running Debian 8 the same thing happend: VLC wouldn't play but Me-Tv did.

The DVB-T broadcast system is Saorview and uses h264 video and MP2 audio.
Ubuntu 17.10
VLC 2.2.6 Umbrella

[Drain Pipe]

Maybe some more info and logs might help.

My system:

• Kernel: 4.13.0-16-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.2.0
  Quad core Intel Core i5
  Intel HD Graphics 530

The main VLC debug log for trying to 'play' live DVB-T broadcast is 2 MB and is too big for pastebin.
So i have to try find some where to upload it to. Any tips are welcome.

I do have some logs for:

mplayer dump of the DVB-T transport stream (VLC can't play this)

• Media info
  ffmpeg -i info

ffmpeg remux of mplayer dump as MKV (VLC can play this)

• Media info
  ffmpeg -i info

and here is VLC's debug log trying and failing to play the mplayer dump of the transport stream. This might have the answer. The 2MB log seems to be full of superfluous EPG guide info.

[InTheWings]

Nightly Build of VLC

[Drain Pipe]

Will the the nightly version clash with the default Ubuntu VLC?
Do I have to remove default version first?

[Drain Pipe]

Will the the nightly version clash with the default Ubuntu VLC?
Do I have to remove default version first?

Anyone? I don't really want to mess up my system if I don't have to.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The PPA, yes. The snap, I think not.