A strange issue has been identified in Ubuntu where video takes on a blue colored tint. Other descriptions of the problem include inverted colors, blue skin tones, or distorted video hues. The problems have been reproduced with Totem (Gstreamer), Totem (Xine), Mplayer, as well as VLC and other players.
The common theme with this bug seems to be the use of the Nvidia closed source drivers.
Here is an example showing the blue tint problem.
Here are the specific steps to fix the issue for the Totem (Gstreamer) player. There may be similar methods for other players.
The first thing you need to do is make a change to gstreamer-properties.
Open gstreamer-properties from within a terminal.
$ gstreamer-properties
Now click on the Video tab. From the Plugin dropdown box select Custom. Finally add the following line to the Pipeline box.
videobalance hue=-1 ! autovideosink
The window should look like this.
Restart Totem for these changes to take effect.
Comments (19)
on March 24, 2009 at 9:53 am
does anybody know the specific steps for other players?
thanks
on April 23, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Well mantvydas, that is pretty simple. Most of the gstreamer settings are general, so with changing this settings will also have effect on VLC.
on May 31, 2009 at 6:56 am
unfortunately, doesn’t work on VLC… any other suggestions?
on November 4, 2009 at 8:36 am
Thanks, works great for Totem. Hopefully there will be enough of us linux users soon that companies will have to stop making second rate products for us.
on November 14, 2009 at 6:29 am
Hello,
thnx for tips.
It works for totem player perfectly.
In case of MPlayer you need to play around with
mplayer’s video preferences (I’ve switched driver xv —> gl) and everything looks great.
Cheers,
Jan
on November 19, 2009 at 12:07 am
Great hint. Thank you and the google.
on December 10, 2009 at 2:50 pm
worked great! thank you very much
!
on January 4, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Thanks a bunch. Very helpful.
on January 12, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Thanks. Worked great.
Worth mentioning that if you -like me – automatically sudo’ed the gstreamer-properties command, this will not work. I guess that sets the properties for the root user, not your current user.
… Now if I can only get rid of the video-tearing, I can free up my Windows partition for good
on February 2, 2010 at 11:10 pm
See workaround in this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/totem/+bug/395476 , assuming you’re using the closed-source nvidia drivers:
# open totem via Applications > Sound & Video > Movie Player
# open the preferences window via Edit > Preferences
# select the Display tab
# click the Reset to Defaults button
… that fixed the blue tint problem for me in mplayer, VLC, and totem.
on April 22, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Worked like a charm, cheers
on May 13, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Thank you, it solved my issues with weird colors video playback on all players on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. But I use ATI closed-source drivers, so it seems to be not only NVidia problem.
on May 30, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Thank you!!!!I was really start to think that I am doomed with the new drivers of nvidia…
on June 10, 2010 at 4:16 am
Thanks Nick J what a hero
on June 15, 2010 at 3:25 pm
THANK YOU!
on June 17, 2010 at 7:25 am
For me the problem was in the “NVIDIA X-Server Settings” and the tab called “X Server XVideo Settings”. The HUE was at the wrong setting ( all the way down ). Use “Reset hardware defaults” to bring it back to its nominal value. Voilà!
on June 17, 2010 at 7:32 am
Thanks Nick J, your solution works
on July 10, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Thank you for your help. It works.
on July 20, 2010 at 11:03 pm
I tried the gstreamer-properties solution which fixed the issue for the Totem player but that left all other video players with the same problem. Tonight I decided to try changing my NVIDIA driver to the one not yet active. I also removed the Totem property setting for testing purposes.
After rebooting I popped a DVD in and Totem appeared to display the color correctly and so does VLC which previously displayed the color incorrectly. So then I changed the video driver back and….still no problems. I think one of the Ubuntu system updates that I have applied after the fix described in this post must have fixed the problem in general.
Can anyone else confirm that this problem has gone away (after updates) system wide?
Trackbacks (2)
on November 21, 2009 at 10:38 pm
on May 13, 2010 at 6:55 am