VLC + plugins + HEVC

Ask Fedora
1

I just got a new laptop and one of the first applications I installed after installing Fedora 44 was VLC. Now the problem is that I can no longer play videos I could play with my ten year old laptop, that currently has Fedora 43 on it. The error message I get is “VLC could not decode the format hevc (MPEG-H Part2HEVC(H.265))” So I thought it was just about installing the right plugin, but even though I pretty sure I’ve installed every conceivable package that could provide this capability and I’ve compared to the package list on my old laptop. Still I keep getting this same error message.

Any ideas about what’s wrong?

2

Have you installed the patented codecs from RPMFusion?

3

I finally got VLC to play H.265 videos. I had to reinstall VLC. Even though I made installed every supporting package it would complain “VLC could not decode the format hevc (MPEG-H Part2HEVC(H.265))” . I had originally installed VLC from Gnome Software, the default flatpack. I removed that one and installed the rpm instead. Then everything started to work.

4

Flatpaks often do not keep up with what is available with the rpm versions.

I prefer to use the native rpm packages as long as they are available and avoid the flatpak packages on my Workstation.