Silverblue (newbie) : can't decode eac3 and hevc (codec issue ?)

Hello community !
I just install Fedora SilverBlue on my computer, and I got an issue when I try to watch some video/audio. I think it’s a codec issue. I installed VLC and got this error (same with gnome video and mpv):

VLC can’t décode « eac3 » format (A/52 B Audio (aka E-AC3))

or

VLC can’t décode « hevc » format (MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265))

In Gnome Softwares/Codes, I got this:

According to docs.fedoraproject.org

There are also media players that include all relevant codecs by themselves. Consider using one of the following for offline video viewing:

    VLC, available from the vlc package

    MPV, available from the mpv package

Any idea how to install these codecs ?

thanks from France :slight_smile:

Did you add flathub and install vlc from there?

Thanks! I installed them with rpm-ostree.
With flatpak, works great. Don’t know why.

Is it better to install this kind of apps with flatpak ? Sale with browser ?

Thanks again

Ajout de video

Fedora does not package the proprietary codecs.

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It’s generally better to use Flatpaks for applications on Fedora and the ones from Flathub if you need more codec support.

Thanks for this advice :slight_smile:

Fedora ships incomplete codecs for legal reasons. Other countries still have the same laws but they are not enforced. Those codecs are nonfree, meaning Fedora would need to pay money for every download, making them poor very quickly.

Rpmfusion is hosted in France, where those restrictions are not enforced.

Then there are ublue variants of the Atomic images, which may have some downsides (like no automatic version upgrades, or not using an ostree remote but OCI containers), but they preinstall those codecs.

If you use Flathub Flatpak Firefox and media players (Celluloid or VLC are good), the codecs come from Flathub which also doesnt need to fulfill those legal requirements for some reason.

The only problems where you need local codecs are:

  • Thumbnails for nonfree videos in Filemanager
  • using binary or Fedora Firefox
  • using ffmpeg or other locally installed tools for efficient media manipulation

Thank you very much people! This really works when fresh install of Fedora refuses to play big video files with VLC. I just had to uninstall VLC from repos and install VLC from Flathub. And it worked.

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