[cyMax]

Hello,

- I have a Raspberry Pi 2 running Rasbian
- I installed kodi (official v15.2) by "sudo apt-get install kodi"
- Videos are accessed on a network storage via Samba
- My Pi 2 is connected to the local network with a Ethernet cable

The problem is I can't play any video, I just get the sound. Instead of the video I get something like a turning checkerboard with rainbow colors (no, I don't take any drugs) ...

I tested both hardware acceleration options (omxplayer, MMAL).
Without hardware acceleration, I got one video playing but not smooth and blurried.

My network bandwith isn't the problem, because I can play the videos through the network on any Android device.

I didn't use a ready to use image disk (OpenELEC for ex.) because I want to use my Pi 2 for other things like domotic or web server.

I wonder if I need to install a developper release (v16 ?), recompile something, or install it another way ?

Any help appreciated,
Thanks !

[Bosse_B]

That is because you did not purchase and install the MPEG-2 license for the RPi2.
Go to the Pi store and order the license and then install it using the instructions provided.
Then the video will play just fine.

[cyMax]

Thanks for the reply,
I knew about this licence for MPEG-2 and AVI, but most of my videos are encoded in H264 and none is playing.
Thus I think It's not the problem ?

I insist on the "turning checkerboard with rainbow colors", I didn't found anything about it.
I read about a small colored square at the top right when the power supply is too low, but in my case the thing is full screen (at the place of the video).

[menakite]

Check gpu_mem in config.txt.

Debug log (wiki) would show what's happening.

[skymoo]

I had a similar problem, most of my videos are H264. Increasing the amount of Video RAM got things working for me.

[cyMax]

Ok,
In the meantime, I was suspecting the power supply.

Thanks a lot, I will try that ASAP.

[Bosse_B]

I insist on the "turning checkerboard with rainbow colors", I didn't found anything about it.
I read about a small colored square at the top right when the power supply is too low, but in my case the thing is full screen (at the place of the video).

Well,
in my case it was definitely the license.
It looked exactly as you describe it: sound but dancing greenish checkerboard instead of video.
Installing the license immediately solved the problem And it is not overly expensive either...

The colored square is a low voltage power supply indicator and is only visible when the input power voltage is below about 4.6 V (but high enough so that parts of the Pi can run and show the indicator)

[cyMax]

In my case, increasing gpu_mem resolved the problem (thanks again for the help)
I set it to 256MB instead of the default 64MB and all my H264 videos are playing correctly.

Then I ran into a buffering problem because I read my videos from a network storage via Samba, and the speed is limited to 10MB/s. So I set cachemembuffersize to 150MB in advancedsettings.xml. It solved the problem too, no more jerky videos when the bit rate is compatible with the speed of my network.

Finally, the last problem I have to resolve is :
- Small random sound cuts, every 10 or 20 seconds for example (whatever the encoding)

I don't know what to look for ?

[cyMax]

I tested OSMC and it worked perfectly, no small random sound cuts.
I can't stay with OSMC, I prefer Raspbian + Kodi because I want a X11 environment, so does anyone have an idea why I get this sound problem ?