I've been using VLC to watch DVDs for years. The version I'm using now is 3.0.12 which is the latest available from the Debian repository. I'm using Devuan--no systemd.

I have a 1920 X 1200 (16:10 ratio) monitor and for 16:9 (widescreen) movies, some of the screen isn't used for the movie. For a long time I had narrow black stripes at the top and bottom of the screen (ie. the video was centered up-and-down). I've recently discovered a way to force the movie to the top of the screen so there's a wide black stripe at the bottom. The point is the full screen controls don't cover up any of the picture.

This is how: Right-click for a menu, click to exit full screen, click Tools => Preferences, under Show settings select "All", scroll down to and select "Video", drag the center divider to the left so the data fields are visible, scroll down to Video alignment, select "Top", and click "Save".

My problem is I have to do this every single time. I can't understand why VLC doesn't save my choices from DVD to DVD. What's weird is most of the time the Video alignment setting remains "Top" on the preferences page but that preference is clearly being ignored. Sometimes the video is very clearly playing at the bottom--not even in the center any more. In other words, there's a wide black stripe at the top of the screen as if I had selected "Bottom".

It's almost as if--now that I've changed a preference--every time VLC starts it chooses a random setting over my preference. It almost never guesses right, either. I've looked in ~/.config/vlc/ at the two config files, but I don't see a setting for Video alignment "Top". Everything I've looked at in ~/.config/vlc/vlcrc appears to be commented out. The stuff in ~/.config/vlc/vlc-qt-interface.conf is mostly gibberish to me.

It's really only an inconvenience to reset VLC to show videos at the top, but right-click click click click click scroll click drag scroll click click every time I start a DVD is getting old real fast.

I recall someone saying: "VLC is just one big bug".

Thanks. That asymptotically approached helpful.

VLC is my media player of choice although I have to say, I rarely watch videos on my computer. The vlcrc file you reference appears to be the file you need to edit. I looked at it briefly and there are a massive number of settings, most of which are meaningless to me. I expect you've gone through the vlc faq and the documentation wiki? Not much specifically about DVDs. Are the DVDs all the same region?

https://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html

https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentationocumentation

Is the problem you describe specific to VLC, if you try some other media player with the same DVD movie does it have this problem or not?

1 members found this post helpful.

This FAQ item seems relevant: https://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html#StrangeBehaviour

If that doesn't solve it, I would - whilst VLC is running - duplicate the config directory, change and save the settings, then compare the two directories to see what (if anything) is different, then duplicate it again, stop & start VLC, and see if anything in the directory gets reset at that point?

If not already, make sure to start VLC via the command-line (in case it outputs any debugging information about the config being reset).

Also, it looks like there's a --config parameter - if the above tests show the config is changing for some reason, maybe feeding it a read-only file might be a workaround.

1 members found this post helpful.

On a more serious note, we even do not know if all these setting are meant to be saved. VLC has their own forum, and they may have an IRC channel. Being practical now, I'd head over there and see what they can tell.

Thanks!

I put hash marks (#, ie. comments) on a number of blank lines in the ~/.config/vlc/vlcrc. Then I started a new DVD. The hash marks I put in have now disappeared. Interesting...and weird. I'm pretty sure that means it's recreating the vlcrc file at some point. That would certainly explain why settings don't persist. I will experiment further to see when the file gets overwritten.

Other than the many headers (eg. "[core]"), only a minuscule fraction of the lines are not commented out.