VLC Media Player is a free and open-source, multi-platform media player that supports all file formats, regardless of the codecs they need. It started as a basic media player but, over time, developers added more features. It also has advanced features, such as playing videos while they're still downloading.

The program is user-friendly and has many tools to fix damaged videos. Use the VLC Video Repair tool outlined in this article to fix your corrupted video.

How to Use VLC's Video Repair Tool to Fix Damaged Video Files

You can use the VLC media player to convert your video file to another format, which might fix it.

The following steps will walk you through the process of recovering a damaged video file.

Step 1: Open VLC, and click the “Media” tab. Then click the “Convert/Save” button.

VLC Media Conversion

Step 2: You can add the video to the conversion list by clicking the "Add" option.

Add to VLC Convert

Step 3: In the “Save as” field, type in a name and location for your file.

Open the video file

Step 4: Select “Convert/Save.” In the new window that appears, click on the “Profiles” tab and select an input codec.

Select Profile

Step 5: Click the "Start" button. VLC will take care of the rest.

Start Conversion

How to Repair Damaged Videos Using Video Repair Tools

The Fixo Video Repair Tool is a professional free tool to fix unplayable, corrupted, or broken videos. It runs online and repairs your videos with just a few simple clicks. It's even better than the VLC media player because while VLC conversions don't always work, a video repair software is a professional program that runs on any compatible computer.

    • Repairing an unreadable video with the tool is incredibly straightforward. Simply select the damaged video file and click the repair button. The software will then mend the corrupted video.
    • The Fixo tool supports all major video formats, such as MP4, MOV, MKV, FLV, AVI, 3GP, M4V, WMV, FLV, SWF, MPG, 3G2, RM/RMVB, and MPEG, among others.
    • Whether the video corruption occurred due to editing issues, conversion problems, or damage after recovery, Fixo tool can handle it.
    • This tool enables you to retrieve videos from various sources, including external hard drives, damaged hard disks, USB flash drives, SD cards, cameras, dashcams, CCTV, pocket cameras, and more.

Download this video repair tool to fix corrupted and virus-infected videos.

Step 1. Launch Fixo on your local computer and click on “Video Repair.” Add the corrupt MP4/MOV/AVI/MKV/3GP/FLV/MKV/WMV video file by clicking on “Add Video.”

Repair videos with Fixo

Step 2: Move the pointer to the video you want to repair and click on the "Repair" button to start the single video repair process. Click on "Repair All" to fix all videos.

Select the video to repair Select the video to repair

Step 3. Wait for a few minutes as the software repairs the damaged video. Preview the video by clicking the Play button. To save an individual video, click the “Save” button next to the play button. To save all repaired videos, click “Save All.”

Save the repaired video in Fixo

Step 4: If the quick fix didn't work, you should use the Advanced Repair mode. Click on “Advanced Repair” and add a sample video. Hit “Confirm” to proceed.

Add sample video for advanced repair

Step 5: You will see a detailed list of corrupted and sample videos. Click on 'Repair Now' to initiate the advanced video repair process. Once done, you can preview the video and click on 'Save' to save the repaired video file to a desired location.

Click "Repair Now" to begin the advanced repair.

Additional Tip: Troubleshooting VLC Player Not Showing Video Issues

If VLC isn't playing your video, try troubleshooting with the following steps.

Method 1: Enable VLC's Built-in Codec Recovery

So, you fire up the VLC media player, but the video file doesn't play. Instead, your favorite movie shows up as a blank screen with nothing to watch.

This issue can occur even if the video is not corrupted, and you can still resolve it using the VLC media player.

Often, a video will not play correctly because its index is corrupt. VLC has a codec built-in that can recover the corrupt index from the video file and get it working again.

If the video file you are playing has indexing issues, VLC will attempt to automatically detect and fix them. This will only fix the indexing of the video file and not alter the file itself or address any other corruption issues. If you only need to fix the indexing of your video file, this can provide a temporary solution.

If that's all that's wrong, the built-in decoder will fix the index and the video will play as if nothing was ever amiss.

You can repair the corrupted index of a video file by following these steps:

Step 1: Open the VLC media player. You will see a “Tools” option on the toolbar. Click on it and select “Preferences” from the drop-down menu.

VLC Tools Preferences

2. Click on "Input/Codecs." As you scroll down, you'll see the "Broken or Incomplete AVI File" option. Once you click on it, you'll see all the available choices. Click on "Always repair."

VLC tools preferences fix (This is an image displaying the VLC Tools Preferences screen with the option "VLC Always Fix" or something similar.)

Step 3: Once you're done with the above steps, just click on “Save.” VLC Media Player will now check for any corrupt AVI files while playing any video.

Save VLC preferences

Method 2: Enable Auto-resizing for Videos

You may already know that videos can have different dimensions and aspect ratios. When a video is scaled to an incompatible aspect ratio, black bars might appear on the VLC player.

To fix video issues in this case, go to the VLC Preferences panel and click on the “Video” tab. To address video scaling problems, check the box for “Video auto-scaling.” If in doubt, follow these steps.

Step 1: Click 'Tools' and then select 'Preferences.'

Step 2: Next, click on "All" under the "Display" section. This will bring up the advanced options of VLC Media Player.

VLC showing all settings

Step 3: Check the "Scale video automatically" option to fix aspect ratio issues.

VLC Click for Auto-Scale

Method 3: Enable OpenGL

VLC has several output modules, which is great. Normally, DirectX or Direct3D is recommended, but sometimes OpenGL can be used, too.

You can change the video output settings through “Preferences” > “Video” > “Output”. Try switching to another preferred output and see if VLC can fix the video.

Step 1: Click on "Tools" and select "Preferences" from the drop-down menu.

< strong > Step 2: In the Preferences panel, click Video. Then, under Output Modules, choose OpenGL Video Output.

VLC preferences OpenGL

Method 4: Change the File Cache Value

To fix the video in VLC, you can also adjust other settings.

You can customize codec settings by selecting Preferences > Advanced Preferences > Input/Codecs. You can change how the media player caches video files by altering the value of the File Cache feature.

Click “Tools,” then select “Preferences.”

Step 2. Click on the "Show settings" drop-down menu, then click "All". The full list of VLC preferences will appear.

VLC showing all settings

Step 3. Go to Input/Codec and test the new file cache value to fix your video black screen problem.

VLC file caching

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Conclusions

This guide will detail the tricks and methods to fix video file issues using VLC media player. Since converting the video format can often repair a corrupted file, you'll learn how to transcode your video into another type. Additionally, you'll adjust VLC's advanced settings to resolve black screen errors.

If the above methods don't work, give Fixo a try. It's a professional tool designed specifically to recover videos, and it runs directly in your web browser.