VLC 0.8.6c stucks while playing mkv format files

[gaurav208]

I installed VLC palyer 0.8.6c on my desktop PC and it played successfully the "mkv" video format file. But when I installed the same VLC player on my laptop and tried to play the video, the video gets stuck on the first frame itself even though the progress bar moves on. I can only hear sound afterwards and video is stuck. In between it jumps to the next frame and gets stuck again.

Both my desktop PC and laptop have Win XP installed. Do I have to install any special codec to solve this problem.

Also I think I also reset the "cache and prefernces while installing the VLC player" on my laptop. Earlier I had an old version installed on my PC and laptop which I uninstalled as it did not play "mkv" files at all.

[VLC_help]

Have you tried different video output modules? And does your laptop have eoung CPU power to decode videos? VLC has all the codecs what it needs, so no need to install anything else for VLC.

[gaurav208]

I am not sure whether my laptop CPU has enough CPU power to decode videos. I think may be not. Its compaq 1700XL series laptop. So its quite old about 6 years old. I will try changing the Output Modules and see if it will help.
But I don't face any problem in playing any other video formats (e.g avi etc) with VLC player. Only playing "mkv" format gives the problem.
Any other reason that could cause this issue.?

[gaurav208]

I tried different video output modules but it did not help.
I still face the same problem i.e the video is stuck on the first frame and audio moves on. And if the switching occurs to the next frame its totally distorted.

[Arite]

It sounds like your PC is not able to handle that video very well - is it HD? Also, what video codec is used?

One thing you could try would be to increase the file caching (ms). To do this go to:
Settings >> Preferences... >> Input / Codecs >> Access modules >> File
And then change the "Caching value in ms" to a higher value - e.g. 1000, 2000 etc.

That will raise the size of the file cache so that when it is played back there will be more room for latency in the RAM etc.

Cheers, Arite.

[gaurav208]

Hi Arite,

Thanks for the reply. I will try changing the cache and see if it helps.

BTW I diagnosed the mkv file with Matroska Diagnose utility and it says that the codec used is V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC.

But the strange thing is that the video works with VLC on my desktop PC but does not work on my laptop (Pentium 3). So may be its the problem with the laptop configuration. Is it possible to convert the video into some other format and view it.

Thanks,
Gaurav

[Arite]

It could just be that you laptop does not have enough RAM, Video RAM, CPU clock speed etc. in order to playback the file smoothly.

You shouldn't have a problem with MPEG4/AVC - although the video resolution may be too high (too much processing required for playback) for the laptop. What is the video resolution?

If it is a high resolution video, then you could try transcoding it to a lower video resolution. There are plenty of ways to do this (using VLC as well ). The way I would do it would probably be to extract the video track from the *.mkv file (using mkvextract.exe from mkvtoolnix), re-encoding the video to a different resolution/codec (using VirtualDubMod), and then adding the new video track to a new *.mkv file, using the audio etc. from the old *.mkv file (using mkvmerge GUI).

However, there are probably much easier and quicker methods than that.

Arite.

[grittree]

Which video output would be best with a marginal CPU? DirectX or OpenGL or Default?

[Arite]

The Default should be DirectX (for Windows), and is probably the best for a maginal CPU. However, you could try OpenGL - see if it makes any difference to perfomance.

Arite.

[Aiki]

I have similar problem
when I try to watch *.mkv system freezing. After restart OS want to try send report about erros and shut down VLC. When I re-instal VLC [delete cache] - working.

I don't know what happend. I use VLC long time under W2K. Now i change OS [WinXP Sp2]
Any help?

I like VLC very much, so I don't want to change for anthoner soft ..