[BUG] HEVC/H265 video files fail to display in browser under Hyprland

[PrymalInstynct]

Describe the bug

This may be a personal issue more then something that needs to be addressed in the repo, but given I found a solution I thought I would report and if you want to integrate that would be great.

I am running Arch with Hyprland and your dot files on an AMD Ryzen 5700U base system. I have always had an issue with HEVC/H265 encoded video files rendering via a browser. I have tried Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Zen Browser and Brave...all just displayed a black screen but the audio from the video file would play.

Steps to reproduce

Given it is possibly hardware dependent I dont know if the steps to reproduce matter, but attempt to play a H265 encoded video in a browser. I am using Plex as the source of the video, but Jellyfin can work as well.

Expected behavior

The video plays rendering the image and the audio

Screenshots

No response

Distribution

Arch Linux

If Other, specify

No response

Additional context

I found that by adding the below setting to my hyprland config the video and audio would play without issue.

I specifically put the setting in hypr/conf/misc.conf

render {
    direct_scanout = false
}

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[Kalebking123]

"Hi @PrymalInstynct,

Nice find on the direct_scanout = false fix! To add some context:

This issue often occurs on AMD APUs (like your 5700U) because Direct Scanout tries to bypass the compositor's rendering to save latency, but it frequently conflicts with how browsers handle VA-API (Hardware Acceleration) for HEVC/H265 content.

A few things to check that might allow you to keep performance high without disabling direct scanout globally:

VA-API Drivers: Ensure you have libva-mesa-driver installed.

Browser Environment Variables: If you are using Firefox, ensure you have these in your /etc/environment or profile:

    MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1

    LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=radeonsi

Hyprland Version: If you are on an older version of Hyprland, updating might help as they have been actively refining how direct_scanout handles different buffer formats.

If you prefer to keep the fix as is, you could also try setting direct_scanout = 2 (if available in your version), which tells Hyprland to be more 'selective' about when it uses the feature, potentially solving the video bug while keeping the latency benefits for full-screen games." This has happened to me before?