Issue: when playimg some mkv files, I get only sound, no video output.
I researched the topic and there was no clear conclusions, other then that Rasberry Pi 3 (or ARM architecture) doesn’t support certain codecs. Because mkv is a container format and various codecs can be used to create it, some mkv file play well, some have only sound, no video.
This suggests that there is nothing to do. Is it really? Is there any codec I can install to try if it helps? or maybe I need some optional dependecies that are missing on OSMC?
Other solutions to this problem suggested changing the render method, but as usuall, it doesn’t work, because render method is grayed out, and all answers point out that this is not supported by hardware (Pi 3).
Again, the same question, is it really true or maybe I can install some packages that could fix it?
10 bit h.265 @ 1080p is asking a lot out of RPi 3. If you want to play those you really need something more powerful. The Vero and RPi 4 would both play those files without issue. Otherwise stick with h.264 files. You can transcode them from one to the other with something like handbrake on a PC, but that is a bit of a task.
The TV is 720p only, so it should scale it down. Regardless of the hardware effort, the system doesn’t even try to open it. I only see spinner, then hear the sound and spinner runs infinitely.
So every time I see h.265, it won’t run? All rips from the current running TV shows work flawlessly and instantly, even if they are 1080pm only old series ripped from Bluray aren’t working. So I guess there is no work around it. Transcoding them is out of question.
I think that particular RPi has a little hardware support for h.265 but I think that only gets you working for less demanding encodes with lower resolutions. To decode these kinds of files without dedicated hardware is a huge ask. They are much more intensive to decode than h.264 and you wouldn’t even be able to play full HD AVC on a RP3 very well without the hardware support it has to offload the task. There is no magic racing stripe that would make your hardware significantly faster in this regard.
Hi, I’ve got two PIs and had this same problem with the PI3. I had updated it to the newest Kodi 19.4 and it stopped playing the video in mkv files. The PI2 on the other hand with Kodi 18.9 had no problems. So I rolled the PI3 back to Kodi 18.9 and supty- do, it now plays mkv files again with no problems. Hope this helps.
From what I understand, my issue is different. It’s about the codec and compression. H264 plays fine, H265 is too heavy for Pi3 (and by extension for Pi2).
As long I avoid H265 videos, all .mkv files work fine for me.