Do you have 1080p video that your dying to watch only to found out that your high end PC/Laptop seems not up to the task of decoding?
We’ll, there’s quick fix for it but let’s have quick overview on what is 1080p:
1080p is the shorthand name for a category of display resolutions.
The number "1080" represents 1,080 lines of vertical resolution (1080 horizontal scan lines), while the letter p stands for progressive scan (meaning the image is not interlaced). 1080p can be referred to as full HD or full high definition to differentiate it from other HDTV video modes.
The term usually assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a horizontal resolution of 1920 pixels. This creates a frame resolution of 1920×1080, or 2,073,600 pixels in total. The frame rate in Hertz can be either implied by the context or specified after the letter p, such as 1080p30, meaning 30 Hz.
1080p is sometimes referred to in marketing materials as "Complete High-Definition". H.264 codecs are pretty CPU intensive.
What is VLC?
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
You can speed up the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC playback by disabling loop filter for H.264 decoding.
So if your computer is dying when decoding 1080p samples from H264 using VLC, do the following.
- Open Tools > preferences
- Tick “All” under “Show settings in the lower right corner
- Expand "Input/Codec"
- Go to "other codecs" subcategory
- Select "FFmpeg"
- Select “All” under "skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding"
- Restart VLC
I love screenshots so let’s include them here:
Try watching your HD video again and see the difference….
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Never tried that, but definitely had problems watching the 4 gig Olympic Men’s Basketball at 1080P with VLC.
In the end, the Media Player Classic included the with K-Lite Codec Pack just played it no problem, low processor loads as well.
That Media Player Classic is my current go-to; it just works
This was a HUGE help … thanks! … your solution fixed 95% of the problem, however there was still an occasional stall or choppy video (that would fix itself once the scene changed).
Anything else I can do to get that last 5% of performance?
try to close unnecessary services on your PC and you will regain that missing 5% performance….
HD movies are very much CPU hungry specially if don’t have a dedicated GPU….
thanks, i was wondering why linux of all the systems i have installed on this machine is the only one who cant play 1080p smootly, this one little thingie took care of that, thanks again
I wasn’t able to play Iron Man on VLC until i followed your instructions! I very much enjoyed the movie because of this
Thank you so much!
Yep, That worked! The video playback is 100 percent better after that change!
that was a good one.impresssive.keep on posting!!!
thank you thats the first solution that worked
Thanks, that helped me a lot!
The problem is that the default codec VLC uses to decode x264 content, which I believe is part of the ffmpeg suite, is not programmed well enough to offer satisfactory performance on most CPUs.
There are a swath of codecs like ffdshow and CoreAVC which offer better performance, and would play just fine on even one core of a Core 2 duo processor. Hell, ffmpeg would work on a Core 2 duo if it was capable of multithreading to use both cores simultaneously during the decode.
Those who claim a Core 2 duo is unequal to the task of decoding 1080p x264 content are simply wrong. They do not realize that most of the codecs they try, including the VLC default, are only using AT BEST 50% of that CPU’s total power.
awwww man that didnt help me.
what seems to be the requirements for your graphics card to handle h 264?
I’m really not sure what is supposed to be the minimum requirement in order for a PC/laptop to handle a h.264. I was able to enjoy a flicker-free 1080p movie using my 3 year old Asus laptop with discreet ATI x1600 256MB graphics card.
well not worked for me, m on Dual Core machine with 8500 GTX
how about using the latest VLC version, it might help…
Good article. FWIW, I just tried watching some 1080p with the latest version of VLC, and it was totally unwatchable (choppy, blocky, etc). Plays fine in WMP 12, though, using just a K-Lite codec pack install. The reason I tried VLC was that I couldn’t figure out how to disable subtitles in WMP (the “off” option didn’t work — however, after trying again I discovered they can be turned off directly in the codec’s settings). System specs: Ph.II 720, 4gb DDR3 1333, HD 4870 1gb.
[...] trouble playing 1080p video via VLC? I was, but a solution has been found: Kramfs Tech Chronicles Choppy video when viewing 1080p using VLC Something like star wars of starship troopers was almost unwatchable before, kept breaking up and [...]
Aaesome, thanks!