# VLC media player's essential settings (brightness, gamma etc.) don't work



## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

None of the sliders in the "Adjustments and Effects/Video/Essential/Image adjust" group, which includes Hue, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Gamma, has any effect on the video. Why?

(I can use the same version of vlc, 3.0.16, from a remote linux machine on the same display and that works)


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## Geezer (Oct 6, 2021)

Works perfectly on mine.

Did you click on the Image Adjust tick box?



laufdi said:


> I can use the same version of vlc, 3.0.16, from a remote linux machine


[rhetorical] So? [/rhetorical]


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

laufdi said:


> None of the sliders in the "Adjustments and Effects/Video/Essential/Image adjust" group, which includes Hue, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Gamma, has any effect on the video. Why?
> 
> (I can use the same version of vlc, 3.0.16, from a remote linux machine on the same display and that works)


Are you using multimedia/vlc from ports or packages? The premade packages are pre-made with VERY conservative options set at compile time. Installing from ports makes a difference, you can easily set any option you want. On my rig, I compile VLC from ports, and when I run `make config`, I select every single option available. One reason I do that - my issue with VLC was inability to render subtitles, even though the package version allowed me to select subtitles in a movie file.


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## mer (Oct 6, 2021)

FreeBSD 13 system here, vlc from pre built packages, i915 video driver, works just fine here.  Yes you need to check the box as Geezer points out in post #2.


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## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

Geezer said:


> Works perfectly on mine.
> 
> Did you click on the Image Adjust tick box?
> 
> ...


Of course. The sliders wouldn't move otherwise.
Self built port, but not ALL build options checked. FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3.


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

laufdi said:


> Self built port, but not ALL build options checked. FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3.


just a heads up, if you overdo on selecting ALL build options, you may run into circular dependencies. For multimedia/vlc, multimedia/ffmpeg is a dep, but build that w/o multimedia/vapoursynth...


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## mer (Oct 6, 2021)

laufdi said:


> Self built port, but not ALL build options checked. FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3.


Have you tried the pre built package?  I'm not familiar with the build options, but perhaps something left unchecked is causing it.


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

mer said:


> Have you tried the pre built package?  I'm not familiar with the build options, but perhaps something left unchecked is causing it.


mer - as I pointed out earlier, the prebuilt package allowed me to select subtitles, but failed to render them. Compiling VLC from ports (with ALL options enabled during the `make config` stage) fixed that. OP has the same kind of issue.


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## Geezer (Oct 6, 2021)

To clarify: Built from ports with no change to config.

What video card are you using?


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## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

Downgraded to vlc-3.0.16_4,4 (pre-built) from vlc-3.0.16_5,4 (self-built): no difference.
It's an Intel 620 card (i5-8250U)

`[0000000814c7a3e0] avcodec decoder: Using Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 21.3.4 (intel-media-21.3.4) for hardware decoding`


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

yeah, so GPU acceleration is not supported on that... I think that GPU is not relevant to solving the issue. Just because VLC's GUI allows you to select an option does not mean that option is actually compiled and available. The pre-built package allows me to select subtitles - but fails to render them.


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## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

Now I selected VDPAU instead of Auto in the Simple Settings/Hardware Decoder and it's working - Thanks


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

Nice! 

For some reason, I remember that VDPAU *is *among the makefile options for the port, but I don't remember if it's enabled by default for pre-made stuff. After all, those makefiles normally start out with the same defaults that are selected for pre-made stuff.


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## mer (Oct 6, 2021)

astyle said:


> mer - as I pointed out earlier, the prebuilt package allowed me to select subtitles, but failed to render them. Compiling VLC from ports (with ALL options enabled during the `make config` stage) fixed that. OP has the same kind of issue.


Understood, but a pre built package gives a definitive point of "this configuration should work".  OP also did not say anything about rendering subtitles so "same but different".


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

mer said:


> OP also did not say anything about rendering subtitles so "same but different"


Yeah, that was just my own diagnosis based on personal experience. Sometimes, the same logic pattern can be applied to different-looking problems.


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## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

... But now CPU usage is at 130%, so this is not the solution. With mpv I can get hwdec and adjust brightness, contrast, gamma etc. Same for mplayer with "-vo gl"
I guess  I have to find the right setting for opengl output and hwdec input, right?


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## astyle (Oct 6, 2021)

laufdi said:


> ... But now CPU usage is at 130%, so this is not the solution. With mpv I can get hwdec and adjust brightness, contrast, gamma etc. Same for mplayer with "-vo gl"
> I guess  I have to find the right setting for opengl output and hwdec input, right?


I'd suggest recompiling VLC from ports, then. Sometimes, a makefile will include options for LTO (Link-Time Optimization). That makes for longer compile time, but the result will make better use of your hardware without stressing it that much. 

(Oh, and select as many options as practical!)


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## laufdi (Oct 6, 2021)

I did recompile it already, with a few less options than all ...

... selecting VA-API decoder instead of VDPAU for ffmpeg makes it go down below 20% CPU.

... no, selecting VA-API makes image adjustment non-working ...


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