stuttering playback vlc 2.0.3 macbook retina ML

[umzyi]

well i have installed vlc player on my macbook pro retina wiht mountain lion 10.8.2. It plays everything i am throwing at it. However, the playback is not as smooth as it used be on windows. I cant say that it stutters or lags, but in other words, its not a very smooth playback.

I have compared the playback to "mac blu-ray player". Its much more smoother than vlc.

I have played around with several settings, but nothing is helping. I have checked the cpu usage, its only 4%. I dont think its due to a slow pc or anything.

I am playing the same files on vlc for windows through bootcamp. The playback is very smooth. The files i am playing are mkv format encoded with h264 on megui.

Could someone give me any tips to overcome this issue with out affecting the quality? Basically I want to have a smoother playback.

Waiting for replies.

Thanks

[fkuehne]

It is weird that "mac blu-ray player" performs better for you, since it is a pirated version of VLC for Mac with a custom user interface.

Could you go to VLC's preferences, Interface section and disable "Show video within the main window"? Save the settings and restart VLC.

Does the performance increase?

[umzyi]

Yes, i was thinking the same about Mac blu ray player, but for somehow it is giving me a little better result than vlc. I am still using vlc because of it other cool features.

I have tried what you suggested above but it dosent change anything for me.

I have noticed that the nightly builds have hardware decoding options and they are much better in playback, but they keep on crashing.

Do we have an eta? and could you suggest another solution that would enhance the playback?

[atonaldenim]

Here's what made Blu-ray playback smooth on my 2012 MacBook Air with Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and VLC 2.0.3: go to Preferences > Show All > Input / Codecs > Demuxers > FFmpeg, scroll about 25% down and set Threads from 0 to 4.

[umzyi]

Thanks for the tip and sorry for late reply; I have been away.

I have tried that it has improved significantly but still not as smooth as you experience in windows.

Any other suggestions?

I have tried nightly 2.1 which hardware decoding enabled, make playback smooth.

When can we expect official release of the newer version?

Thanks

[remasa23]

I was having somewhat the same issue, I was streaming Avi files from a NAS server via Wi-Fi and the video would freeze intermittently, after days of research and trying to adjust the settings with no luck, it occur to me to turn off my Wi-Fi and connected hard wired, and Bam! that solved my problem. I hope this can help someone else.

[BasicXP]

I guess I have to bump this topic, since I have a video stutter problem with 2.1.0 on ML on a Retina MacBook. This occurs to me on a 1080p H.264 video file with a high bitrate of about 27 Mbps. The playback is not smooth, even though hardware acceleration is enabled. Other settings are in their default values. Tried disabling all deblocking filters, didn't help. The video is stored locally on the computer. CPU usage is 60-65% during playback. Also tried disabling automatic graphics switching in system preferences, didn't help either. Here's a short sampler of the video in question: sample.mkv [34.8 MB]. Thanks in advance for all the help!

[BasicXP]

I found something interesing in vlc-log.txt:

main error: corrupt module: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib

Turns out the hardware acceleration isn't working. Build 2.1.0-20130414-1245.

Today's build also broke multichannel audio for me. The player now detects 3F2M2R/LFE properly, but the downmixer isn't working. Tested on DD 5.1, TrueHD 7.1 and DTS 5.1, so that doesn't depend on the audio format. (worked in 2.1.0-20130410-0116)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Today's build also broke multichannel audio for me. The player now detects 3F2M2R/LFE properly, but the downmixer isn't working. Tested on DD 5.1, TrueHD 7.1 and DTS 5.1, so that doesn't depend on the audio format. (worked in 2.1.0-20130410-0116)

Probably my fault. Do you have an example file?

[BasicXP]

Probably my fault. Do you have an example file?

Just use the file "sample.mkv" I posted above, it has a TrueHD 7.1 sound sample. Or is it not enough? I can make a longer file.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

It should be enough.

[BasicXP]

Am I right that this commit didn't make it into the latest nightly 64-bit build (20130414-1245)? Or did it?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I think it made it.

[BasicXP]

I think it made it.

I'm asking because I had that error that the module is corrupt, thought maybe this commit will fix it. Apparently not. Here's the libvda module that VLC complains about: libvda_plugin.dylib. Anything I can do to help find and resolve the issue?

[BasicXP]

Both issues are fixed in 20130415-0114. Hardware acceleration is working, downmixing does as well. Yay Thank you very much! The CPU usage is still high, nothing like the 4% the topicstarter claimed, but still, the playback is smooth finally.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Are you sure the hardware acceleration i working?

[BasicXP]

Judging by these messages in the debug log:

vout_macosx debug: Quartz Extreme acceleration is active
avcodec debug: using direct rendering

and by the fact that the video that has been stuttering now plays back smoothly, I can say, that it works.


UPD: Looks like changing the setting to VDA breaks the acceleration. And reverting to "default" doesn't help, have to reset VLC's preferences. As it turns out, it doesn't use VDA by default.
OS X 10.8.3, nVidia GT650M, if this helps.

[BasicXP]

So libvda is still broken in the latest build, I think these rows from the debug log might help the developers:

main warning: cannot load module `/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib' (dlopen(/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib, 2): Symbol not found: _ff_vda_create_decoder
Referenced from: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib
Expected in: flat namespace
in /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib)
main error: corrupt module: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/libvda_plugin.dylib

The full debug log is here: VLC Debug Log (2.1.0-git Rincewind).rtf

Also setting acceleration method to "VDA" and then reverting it to "default" doesn't actually disable it, this should be fixed too.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

VDA is never enabled at all, seeing your logs.

[BasicXP]

Exactly. And if I don't even try enabling VDA in the settings, it uses some sort of acceleration called Quartz Extreme. The full log in this case looks like this: VLC Debug Log (2.1.0-git Rincewind) Quartz.rtf. It gives me relatively good performance, but the CPU is still 60% loaded and if I enable any extra effects for the video (like anaglyph 3D), the rendering slows down like if it's not accelerated at all.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

QE is about the video output, not the decoding.

[BasicXP]

Ah, okay, got it. It would be nice to have decoding accelerated as well If there are more questions, do not hesitate to contact me here, via Skype or XMPP. Thank you for all the work you do on VLC!

UPD: VDA is also attempted to be activated when any setting on "Input/codecs" tab is changed. After that you can't turn it off, only complete settings reset helps. This is quite annoying and won't let me set deinterlacing options, for example.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

It will come, yes.