The VideoLAN Forums

dfuhrmann, thank you ... I tried to temporarily substitute one of those other players, but nothing compares with VLC. Kudos to Videolan!

Amazing how we get accustomed to just double-clicking and getting an instant response ... and when we don't, arg!

Don't be damned ... be happy
A conflict awakened by 2.2.8 ?
Those smarter than I will no doubt find out why √

Removed AVIRA, removed the problem ... all is now well!
Not VLC, not High Sierra, not Sierra ... fo me at least :---)

After several weeks with High Sierra, slow load didn't appear for me until I installed VLC 2.2.8 ...
Is the only solution a clean install of Sierra and VLC 2.2.5.1? Yuk!

Looks as though this is a High Sierra problem ... not VLC.
– Apparently the OS is running its (time consuming) quarantine process on all large files not created on your computer.
– Various and sundry workarounds are proposed ... including running a clean (re) install of the OS

Same problem when updating to 2.2.8 ... removed preferences ... went back to 2.2.5.1.

Problem remains ... two voices in the night ... HELP!