VLC & MKV embedded subs are black

CiBi · Jan 25, 2019

Hello guys,

I've recently upgraded my TV to a Samsung Q6FN 4K HDR TV. I've built an HDR 4K capable HTPC but now I'm having a particular problem with VLC.

When watching MKV 4K HDR content through VLC and using the embedded (non hardcoded) subs, they are all black, black color and black outline. VLC subtitle settings don't affect the build in subs so no help there.

I also noticed that when I change the volume in VLC its also displayed in black and not white like it normaly is.

HTPC is an Intel nuc8i3beh with 8GB of DDR4 and an Intel 660 SSD, movies are stored on an external hard drive. I'm running windows 10 pro on it with all the latest updates and all updates for the intel iGPU. I have no other issues.

I assume I could extract the subtitles from the MKV file then save those as SRT files and change subtitle settings in VLC but I'm looking for the root of the problem here.

I find no similar problems through google.

Does anyone have any idea what causes this or how I could get rid of it?

JackCY · Jan 25, 2019

Yeah, don't use VLC. Embedded subs can be SRT, doesn't matter if they are in an MKV or as a separate file.

CiBi · Jan 25, 2019

JackCY said:
Yeah, don't use VLC. Embedded subs can be SRT, doesn't matter if they are in an MKV or as a separate file.

In any case my subtitle settings in VLC don't affect those MKV embedded subtitles, not color, not size, not font.
Do you suggest I use another media player? If so, which one? I've had nothing but good experiences with it up until now

Dotachin · Jan 25, 2019

CiBi said:
In any case my subtitle settings in VLC don't affect those MKV embedded subtitles, not color, not size, not font.
Do you suggest I use another media player? If so, which one? I've had nothing but good experiences with it up until now

https://www.codecguide.com/features_standard.htm
This is all you need. Pick MadVR.

JackCY · Jan 25, 2019

MPCHC with builtin LAV + MadVR, or MPCHC + external LAV + MadVR
PotPlayer with it's built in codecs + LAV splitter (+LAV Audio decoder if you prefer it due to it's settings) + MadVR (it's pretty much a successor to KMPlayer which also had a lot of settings and features)

Both of these do animated subtitles. There are some tiny things in terms of performance to not use LAV Video decoder and use built in from PotPlayer, and some rare issue I don't remember anymore of some format that, oh yeah it was 4k at ridiculously high bitrate (70GB+ fan movie) that would choke and stutter on PP's built in splitter so just use LAV splitter (source) and it works fine.

The PP as written above is what I use now and it will play anything new or old obscure and you have a crap ton of settings to choose from + MadVR with it's endless processing that is useful for poor old sources such as DVDs.

Never had much luck with VLC at any time, sure it's better nowadays and maybe it allows you to switch to different filter now, who knows.

If you're getting even OSD messages in black and it's not set black in VLC's settings then it's an issue with VLC itself or the subtitle renderer it uses.

For a decade or more you don't need those Klite mega codec pack, or CCCP codec pack, or what ever other crazy pack... all they are nowadays is some player such as MPC + LAV + MadVR for convenience, but you may get some older versions, some bloatware from the pack installer, etc. They may be clean nowadays who knows but they used to be riddled with so many codecs to install it was ridiculous.

Dotachin · Jan 25, 2019

JackCY said:
MPCHC with builtin LAV + MadVR, or MPCHC + external LAV + MadVR
PotPlayer with it's built in codecs + LAV splitter (+LAV Audio decoder if you prefer it due to it's settings) + MadVR (it's pretty much a successor to KMPlayer which also had a lot of settings and features)

Both of these do animated subtitles. There are some tiny things in terms of performance to not use LAV Video decoder and use built in from PotPlayer, and some rare issue I don't remember anymore of some format that, oh yeah it was 4k at ridiculously high bitrate (70GB+ fan movie) that would choke and stutter on PP's built in splitter so just use LAV splitter (source) and it works fine.

The PP as written above is what I use now and it will play anything new or old obscure and you have a crap ton of settings to choose from + MadVR with it's endless processing that is useful for poor old sources such as DVDs.

Never had much luck with VLC at any time, sure it's better nowadays and maybe it allows you to switch to different filter now, who knows.

If you're getting even OSD messages in black and it's not set black in VLC's settings then it's an issue with VLC itself or the subtitle renderer it uses.

For a decade or more you don't need those Klite mega codec pack, or CCCP codec pack, or what ever other crazy pack... all they are nowadays is some player such as MPC + LAV + MadVR for convenience, but you may get some older versions, some bloatware from the pack installer, etc. They may be clean nowadays who knows but they used to be riddled with so many codecs to install it was ridiculous.

OP comes from VLC. You can't expect him to manually install each driver. Klite Standard doesn't come with anything you don't need (check link in previous post). It's just what you suggested, MPCHC +LAV +MadVR in 3 clicks. You can check which versions of each of those is using in the patch notes if you care about that.

JackCY · Jan 25, 2019

Or you can install MPCHC or PotPlayer and not install anything else, 1 click

If you're that lazy. With great options and features comes time invested into setting it up and MadVR has to be set precisely to your GPU and needs if you want best quality, make custom presets per resolution etc.

CiBi · Jan 25, 2019

JackCY said:
Or you can install MPCHC or PotPlayer and not install anything else, 1 click If you're that lazy. With great options and features comes time invested into setting it up and MadVR has to be set precisely to your GPU and needs if you want best quality, make custom presets per resolution etc.

I'm not oposed to having some set-up work. My HTPC is running of the i3-8109U's iGPU only, will MadVR give me better performance then or should I not bother?
Also you talk about presets, I should be good with one for 720p, 1080p and 2160p no? Seems doable.

CiBi · Jan 25, 2019

Dotachin said:
OP comes from VLC. You can't expect him to manually install each driver. Klite Standard doesn't come with anything you don't need (check link in previous post). It's just what you suggested, MPCHC +LAV +MadVR in 3 clicks. You can check which versions of each of those is using in the patch notes if you care about that.

I'll try this first, thx

JackCY · Jan 25, 2019

Depends how strong your iGPU is, even HD4600 will run mostly performance settings in MadVR to be able to handle the scalings.
You can define persets based on various parameters even names of file, I use 480,720,1080,2160,4320p but with iGPU you pretty much are going to be stuck with 1 setting for everything, the highest performance setting you want. Even then HD4600 1.6GHz will not play smooth 4k24 HEVC.
You don't have to install MadVR but it's better to have it even with maximum performance settings than to rely on other crappy renderers.

It always takes some decent performance and setting up to be able to play smoothly issue free everything from DVDs to 8k60 VP9.

CiBi · Jan 28, 2019

JackCY said:
Depends how strong your iGPU is, even HD4600 will run mostly performance settings in MadVR to be able to handle the scalings.
You can define persets based on various parameters even names of file, I use 480,720,1080,2160,4320p but with iGPU you pretty much are going to be stuck with 1 setting for everything, the highest performance setting you want. Even then HD4600 1.6GHz will not play smooth 4k24 HEVC.
You don't have to install MadVR but it's better to have it even with maximum performance settings than to rely on other crappy renderers.

It always takes some decent performance and setting up to be able to play smoothly issue free everything from DVDs to 8k60 VP9.

This is my cpu and gpu in my htpc

https://ark.intel.com/products/135936/Intel-Core-i3-8109U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3-60-GHz-

bkdroid13 · Jun 19, 2019

Thank you very much for your extensive answer!

KastGrin · Aug 2, 2021

I think that the default app for watching a video for Android devices is pretty good. I don't see any sense in downloading another app for this purpose. Recently I started to use Apple devices, and I was wrong by deciding to transfer to Apple. The default apps for reading music, videos and images are good, and it is very qualitative and easy to work with, but the main problem is that it can't read video files of any format. It reads only mp4 files. This is why I had to download an additional app for this purpose. I am using OmniPlayer.

VLC & MKV embedded subs are black

CiBi

JackCY

CiBi

Dotachin

JackCY

Dotachin

JackCY

CiBi

CiBi

JackCY

CiBi

bkdroid13

KastGrin

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