Frequently Asked Questions

QUESTION:

My FLV file won’t play back properly with VLC. What do I do?

ANSWER:

In our experience, VLC is not reliable for playing back FLV files. If you are having trouble with FLV playback in VLC, we recommend cross-checking playback with another reliable third party player such as Elmedia. If your file plays correctly on other players, this may be a VLC-specific issue, rather than an issue with your file.

The primary bug we encounter is that the FLV file needs to have incrementing timestamps only, or else VLC will print out debug messages about skipping frames. In order for VLC to play back video properly, the timestamps of each frame must not be out of order. For example, if audio is written ahead of video for certain frames, VLC may not display those frames. This will be reflected in the VLC ‘Messages’ window when set to ‘debug.’ (In some versions of VLC, you will have to enable debug logging by going to Preferences > Show All > Advanced > Advanced Settings > Logger, then choosing the name and location of the log file, and setting the verbosity to Debug. Save and restart VLC.)