obsproject / obsproject/obs-studio
Videos render as grey blobs for first few frames
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- Dominant language
- C
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Description
Operating System Info
macOS 11.5
Other OS
No response
OBS Studio Version
27.0.1
OBS Studio Version (Other)
No response
OBS Studio Log URL
https://obsproject.com/logs/iMtIcCPaUcbCFDtI
OBS Studio Crash Log URL
No response
Expected Behavior
Videos should be rendered correctly from the first frame.
Current Behavior
Observed in portrait videos from phones (mov/mp4 containing h.264/AVC and h.265/HEVC), mostly in VLC Video Source. Unsure if it applies to other videos or Media Source.
Looks like it's somehow missing the first keyframe and starting instead from a blank grey frame, and then rendering frame diffs until the next keyframe at which point it sorts itself out.

Steps to Reproduce
- Add VLC Video Source to a scene.
- Select the attached video as source.
- Observe incorrect rendering.
Anything else we should know?
This is possibly related to #5250 but after a glance at the code I think they're separate issues, hence the split.
VLC itself renders the videos correctly.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the VLC Video Source path and reproduce the issue using the attached MOV on macOS 11.5, then inspect the provided OBS log. Compare the first rendered frames with VLC's output and verify the result across the stated H.264/HEVC cases; done means portrait videos render correctly from the first frame.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- c, cpp
- Domain
- audio-video-rtc
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100