How to get better performance when playing HD H.264

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

You have to patch both.

[jocamero]

You have to patch both.

Are there any instructions on how to accomplish this?

[kurkosdr]

You have to patch both.

Are there any instructions on how to accomplish this?

From j-b's sayings, I suppose you can't just click on a checkbox or add a flag to the compiler and magically make VLC compile with ffmpeg-mt instead of ffmpeg. You may need to do some actual programing to make VLC and ffmpeg-mt bond together. Is that correct?

Anyway, I still can't understand how the guys at Mplayer delivered their player with ffmpeg-mt, since ffmpeg-mt has regressions on H.264 playback. I guess bundling bleeding edge stuff in consumer-oriented packages is the way linux rolls.

PS: Does the 1.0.5 version add any speed to H.264 playback? People say it's faster than 1.0.3 (how much faster?)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

PS: Does the 1.0.5 version add any speed to H.264 playback? People say it's faster than 1.0.3 (how much faster?)

Yes. Between 5% and 20% faster depending on the sample.

[mrbeanz]

I wanted to simply voice my support for making multithreading the top priority for the VLC Player.

Simply put, when a high definition video reaches a high enough bitrate, a single core simply cannot handle the load. It's not so much that 1080p is a problem, it's when a video is encoded at a high enough bitrate that multithreading becomes a necessity.

I have some clips available which make for a perfect example.

http://mirror05.x264.nl/Dark/x264clips/

lowbitrate*.mkv is obviously a low bit rate video file.
ironman.mkv and vforvendetta.mkv are 720p files and should be playable on a single core smoothly on any recent CPU.

However, BigBuckBunny.mkv and PlanetEarthBirds.mkv make for a very interesting comparison. They are both in 1080p, however due to the scenes in the videos, they end up being VERY different.

BigBuckBunny ends up being able to stay at a relatively low bitrate, usually peaking around 5kbps to 6kbps. On my dual core laptop, this doesn't push the single core in use by VLC to 100%, of course the other core is completely idle at 0%.

PlanetEarthBirds is an entirely different story. Due to the detail of the scenes being represented, this video pushes EXTREMELY high bitrates. I see bitrates upwards of 20kpbs at times while playing this video, and obviously this completely pegs the single core that VLC will use and the video ends up being very choppy and unwatchable.

Actually, as I type this, and watching this high bitrate video, I am noticing that task manager states that VLC is using sometimes around 60% of the CPU. This means it must be using multithreading to a very minor degree, however it is obviously not enough.

I can play this same video in Media Player Classic, or heck, even Windows Media Player. With full multithreading support, this video plays back perfectly smooth.

I just wanted to bring this to the developers attention along with sample videos for them to test against. These are not my videos by the way, but make for great samples.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Use VLC 1.1 and DxVA2

[jocamero]

Is there an OS X equivalent?

Use VLC 1.1 and DxVA2

[kurkosdr]

Any of you guys still having hopes that ffmpeg-mt will be on time for VLC 1.1? I still do.



Anyway, here is a question: if I use DXVA, will it use VLC's decoders, or something else? I want to use VLC's decoders, not some other decoder provided by the graphics card vendor. I recently read somewhere that DXVA doesn't use your players codecs, the player just submits the video for decoding and the graphics card drivers do the decoding.

[mei2050133]

I don't often use H.264,so I do not much ahout his performance.Through reading the post,I understand more,it is very useful,thank you for sharing.

[hostonmark]

In order to increase the performance of HD H.264 while playing ,it consist of 3 basic parts a black USB dongle,an extension cable and a CD containing speedy conversion software and a plug-in that works with programs.]

(I)USB dongle now offers following

1.Direct-from-HD camcorder transfers.
2.Simplifying the process of locating the video clips on a connected camcorder.
3.Offering them up for conversion.

( II )Software
-> Itadds the option of higher-resolution H.264 hardware encoding assistance,enabling both 720p and 1080p transcoding with simple presets.

[S.Bartfast]

• Open the preferences
• Tick advanced in the lower right corner
• Go to "Input/Codec"
• Go to "other codecs" subcategory
• Go to "FFmpeg"
• Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all
• Restart VLC

I've just installed VLC 1.0.5 on a brand new Laptop and am trying to improve the H.264 playback but arn't able to work out how to

• Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all

Has the setting changed in 1.0.5?


EDIT: Could it be the "Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding"?
I have tried setting this to 'All' but it doesn't seem to change anything.

[LuxZg]

OK, time to shoot myself straight in the head :/ Thanks j-b ..

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

• Open the preferences
• Tick advanced in the lower right corner
• Go to "Input/Codec"
• Go to "other codecs" subcategory
• Go to "FFmpeg"
• Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all
• Restart VLC

I've just installed VLC 1.0.5 on a brand new Laptop and am trying to improve the H.264 playback but arn't able to work out how to

• Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all

Has the setting changed in 1.0.5?


EDIT: Could it be the "Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding"?
I have tried setting this to 'All' but it doesn't seem to change anything.

1.1.0 has faster h264.

[cinderwolf]

This might go without saying - but I had originally tried this method on my laptop (1.66ghz dual core AMD chip - 256L2 cache) which was HORRIBLE with alot of 72- resolutioned h.264 encoded films. Enabling this option will allow for less "skipping", but drastically reduces the quality of the video.

I've actually found that the quality being reduced as much as it is, it's simpler to either use a non-h.264 version of the film, or obtain an HD Media Player of sorts. I'm not trying to deterr, just simply stating a fact is all. I still attempt to run them myself from time to time on the laptop though!

[garlantinapple]

You would have a better performance with a high power per core CPU like C2D E8400.

[Michele]

Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all

Thank you very much for this trick. Now my 1080p videos go very well!

I just wanted to ask you what this option does. Sorry if you have told it before in this topic but it is very long and I have not time to read it completely.

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, I have understood what this option is about.

Now, I would be grateful if you can tell me what the other options mean: non-ref, bidir, non-key

[wang888]

This solved my problem with choppy h264 videos.

[mstale]

Hello,

I am trying to transcode one HD MPEG4 1080i video in SD MPEG2 video.
But transcoded video has motion blur effect on faster movements.
Because this video is football game, there are a lot of faster movements, so video is bad.
I am tray to play original video (HD MPEG) and I see motions blur effect too. So a suppose problem is decoding.
I tried with differences OS (Linux Centos, Windows HP, Windows 7 64 bit )
I used differences versions of VLC (1.1.2, 1.1.4).
Processor is I7 930, 8 MB RAM, processor does not exceed 30%
I’m attach part of a video(100MB):
http://rapidshare.com/files/418977511/arena1_hd.ts

Have anyone idea where problem can be???
A spend a lot of time to find problem, but a can’t find it 

[JohanPirlouit]

Hello,

I am trying to transcode one HD MPEG4 1080i video in SD MPEG2 video.
But transcoded video has motion blur effect on faster movements.
Because this video is football game, there are a lot of faster movements, so video is bad.
I am tray to play original video (HD MPEG) and I see motions blur effect too. So a suppose problem is decoding.
I tried with differences OS (Linux Centos, Windows HP, Windows 7 64 bit )
I used differences versions of VLC (1.1.2, 1.1.4).
Processor is I7 930, 8 MB RAM, processor does not exceed 30%
I’m attach part of a video(100MB):
http://rapidshare.com/files/418977511/arena1_hd.ts

Have anyone idea where problem can be???
A spend a lot of time to find problem, but a can’t find it

Hi,

VLC is NOT multi-threaded at this time for those kind on jobs. And I don't think multi-threading would be on the developers' roadmap until VLC's sub-components (such as the MPEG encoder module you want to use) will be multi-threaded AND bug-free! Try using other softwares, but it is a bit hard to find any that are free and that does the job fine... I've got sames difficulties to convert H264 videos (MPEG-TS 1080i files!) to other formats and VirtualDub without hacks not so easy to use (use of AviSynth for VD to read the video and demuxing the audio to import it as an external audio file!) can't do it.

(And you've got 8 GB of RAM, not 8 MB )

[AirenBunte]

I think I have some problem with the video. I was using media player and the screen size was ok but when I am using VLC, the screen size become small and tried several time to enlarge it but failed. Can anyone tell me what to do? Oh, for your kind information, I have just started using VLC and it is only 15 days.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I think I have some problem with the video. I was using media player and the screen size was ok but when I am using VLC, the screen size become small and tried several time to enlarge it but failed. Can anyone tell me what to do? Oh, for your kind information, I have just started using VLC and it is only 15 days.

Sorry, this is totally unrelated to the current subject.

Reset your preferences.

[eagle6764]

I have latest vlc. can't loop clips as I could with avi files. All other picture quality is excellent. Totallt computer illiterate so apologies for that. Help would be much appreciate. File type is 720p mkv I think on Windows 7 Home Premium.

[chrizoo]

So if your computer is dying when decoding 1080p samples from H264, do the following.

• [...]
• Go to "FFmpeg"
• Put the "skip-filter for H264" to all

Didn't have a noticeable effect on my 720p H.264 videos.
Anything else I can do?
Thank you.

[Arite]

You could try GPU acceleration (providing your GPU is supported):
http://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ#H.2 ... s_too_slow

^ Note the option described is using the "Simple" preferences.

If that doesn't work/doesn't help you could try increasing the file caching value. To do this go to:
Tools >> Preferences... >> (Select "All" for "Show settings") >> Input / Codecs >> Access modules >> File

And raise the "Caching value (ms)". Press "Save" and try a video.

Cheers, Arite.

[chrizoo]

many thanks Arite, I'll give it a try