How to Fix Video Black Screen with Sound on Windows 10/11?

Step 1. Press the Start menu on your desktop and select Settings.

Step 2. Open Update & Security and choose Troubleshoot.

Step 3. Scroll down the page to find Video Playback.

Step 4. Click Run the troubleshooter.

Step 5. Choose I want to continue with this troubleshooter and follow the onscreen instructions.

Step 6. Follow the solutions it gives and see if the problem persists.

Step 1. Press hotkeys “Win + R” on your keyboard to open the Run command box.

Step 2. Type inetcpl.cpl and hit Enter.

Step 3. In the Internet Properties window, go to the Advanced tab and select Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering*.

Step 4. Click Apply and restart your computer.

Step 5. Now, play your video and see if the picture comes back.

HEVC is a video coding format to encode and decode video data. Due to its high efficiency, it is often used to encode HD, 4K and 8K content. However, Windows does not support HEVC codec natively. If you are trying to play an HEVC video on Windows, you are likely to hear the audio only but no video.

You can check the codec of your video now. If your video is encoded with HEVC, you can install HEVC codec extensions from the Microsoft Store to easily fix the issue. Otherwise, try the next solution.

Also read: Get HEVC Codec for Windows 10 | Get HEVC Codec for Windows 11

Step 1. Launch the software and open the Converter program.

Step 2. In the converter, click Add Files to add your problematic video to the program. A direct drag-and-drop is also supported.

Step 3. Press the format image to expand the output format list. Then go to the Video format category and choose your preferred output video format. WMV and H264 are recommended formats that are compatible with Windows.

Tips. You can also choose MP4 as the output format. Then you need to open Parameter settings and configure the video encoder to H264 and the audio encoder to AAC.

Step 4. Finally, click ▼ to set an output folder and press Run to start the conversion at once. After the conversion, play your video and see if the problem goes away.

Step 1. Search “device manager” in your Windows search box and bring up the Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand Display adapters.

Step 3. Right-click on the driver and select Update Driver.

Step 4. Choose Search automatically for updated driver software and complete the update.

Alternatively, you can uninstall the driver and download the latest graphics card driver from your manufacturer’s website.

Step 1. Type “turn Windows features on and off” in your Windows search box and hit Enter.

Step 2. Scroll to find Media Features and expand the option.

Step 3. Uncheck the box before Windows Media Player. This step will uninstall Windows Media Player from your system.

Step 4. Restart your computer.

Step 5. Repeat steps 1 and 2. Then check the box before Windows Media Player to install the latest version.

Now, open your video with Windows Media Player to see whether it plays correctly.

How to check for updates on Windows 11:

Step 1. Right-click on the Start menu and select Settings.

Step 2. Navigate to Windows Update.

Step 3. Click Check for updates.

How to check for updates on Windows 10:

Step 1. Click Start > Settings.

Step 2. Select Update & Security.

Step 3. Click Check for updates.

Step 4. If there are new updates, download the updates manually.

Maybe your media player just isn’t powerful enough to play your movies. In this case, you can try a different video player such as the VLC media player that can play most video and audio files out of the box. It may be the solution to your video playing but black screen problem.