Cannot find hevc/h265 codec - Fedora Kinoite

Hi all,

I’m trying to watch a video in h265 using VLC, but I get the error VLC could not decode the format "hevc" (MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265)). MPV doesn’t work either, but no error message is shown.

I think it might be due to the lack of appropriate codecs, but I am honestly lost among the various packages I need to install, especially because I’m on an atomic variant, Kinoite, so I have to layer lots of packages. I tried to follow some guides, but it still hasn’t worked.

My current ostree deployment (with layered packages) is the following:

Version: 41.20250118.0 (2025-01-18T01:56:45Z)
               BaseCommit: f79749adacf752681b5abae314f70896e365a96c74c100da18412ac2bdbd401a
             GPGSignature: Valid signature by 466CF2D8B60BC3057AA9453ED0622462E99D6AD1
      RemovedBasePackages: mesa-va-drivers 24.3.3-2.fc41
          LayeredPackages: gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-vaapi icu libde265 mesa-va-drivers-freeworld x265-libs
            LocalPackages: rpmfusion-free-release-41-1.noarch

And this is my system:

Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.2.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.10.0
Qt Version: 6.8.1
Kernel Version: 6.12.9-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 7640U w/ Radeon 760M Graphics
Memory: 14,9 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 760M
Manufacturer: Framework
Product Name: Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040Series)
System Version: A5

Thanks!

1 Like

The easiest way to make this work is to use VLC from a Flatpak.

Test it and let us know :slight_smile: I do not have atomic to test.

Otherwise adapt this guide Howto/Multimedia - RPM Fusion to atomic Kinoite

1 Like

Thanks! Forgot to specify that I am already running VLC from a Flatpak

Hi @decimosesto,

You could try the mesa-va-drivers-freeworld package instead

Oops you already had that, sorry my bad

Fedora Flatpak I assume… these are a headache

Remove the fedora remote, add flathub.

flatpak remote-delete fedora

Installing RPMs has no effect on flatpaks so you can rpm-ostree reset, speeds up updates a ton.