Stuttering playback

[KeeganO]

Hello.

I've been struggling with stuttering playback for quite some time now. I typically play 1080p files anywhere from 2GB to 40GB, however the larger files aren't anymore problematic than the smaller ones, and even beefier 4K files aren't anymore prone to stuttering or frame skipping. I've tried the obvious solutions, such as raising the disc and file caches or switching from my CPU (which, according to my activity monitor, isn't being stressed by VLC at all), to my GPU. No cigar.

I'd like to find a solution, since it is fairly annoying, especially when using VLC on a larger display. I'm using the latest version of VLC.

My laptops specs:
- Mid 2014 15 inch Macbook Pro Retina.
- OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6
- Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
- RAM: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB

[ajmas]

What format are the videos in? Are they playing from an internal or external drive? Is this a recent issue?

Assuming VLC 2.2.4, if you indicate latest?

[KeeganO]

They're playing from an internal SSD; Mkv's and mp4's. It's not a recent issue.

And yup, I'm running 2.2.4.

[fixmycode]

I am experiencing problems with some MKV files. Some 1080p files encoded in HEVC will stutter of would simply go out of sync with the audio. After many tests, changing configs back and forth, I gave up on fixing it, but there's hope: MPlayer X, would play the files without problems out of the box, so there "should" be a way to make VLC work like this player, right?

I'm running 2.2.4
Mid-2012 MacBook Pro 2.3Ghz i7
4GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M 512Mb
My hard disk drive is not solid.

[shoe]

I'm bumping this topic with a similar issue.
Video plays fine under most situations, but sometimes (most noticeably during a panning shot) the frame rate will start to drop. If the shot lasts long enough the video completely stutters and has to catch back up to the audio. If it's a problem with the decoding, then its VLC specific because MplayerX on the same computer and MPC on windows both play the video fine.

After searching for troubleshooting tips, I have tried:
-Increasing the video file cache
-Disabling hardware acceleration
-Setting FFmpeg Skip loop filter for H.264 to all

None of these have helped.

I'm running 2.2.4
2016 MacBook Pro 2.2GHz i7

[ppayne]

Just wanted to chime in here. I had bad video playback on my Macbook Pro 2014 but increasing the cache seems to have addressed it. Try making it 4x bigger.

[Lornadoo]

I too am having this problem since 2.2.8, through 3.0.0 and now the latest 4.0.0 nightly. Any video file I play, any format, any size, SD, HD, Interlaced, Progressive, playback on the Macbook display or sent to the big screen from the Mac Mini in 720P or 1080i/P, it is all the same stuttering situation. It happens about once every 10 seconds, and it is like VLC is having some sort of minor seizure for a period of 1-3 seconds. The same media files play back smooth as butter with Quicktime Player.

It is a kind of stutter I really had to analyze for hours to figure out, because it is very subtle. However, in one of my broadcast projects, I feed the output of a Mac mini to an mpeg2 encoder, and any slight hiccup in the frame-rate is severely magnified and causes all sorts of distortion. I thought maybe I had a setting wrong on the external equipment/mpeg2 encoder, but sure enough, the problem is with the output of VLC.

I've tried just about every video codec setting in VLC and nothing makes a difference.

I would love to see this problem addressed. It's no wonder there have been complaints in other related topics about skipping in wide-pan scenes and the desire to implement frame interpolation. The problem actually has nothing to do with the pan shot or lack of frame interpolation. It has everything to do with the fact that VLC is causing a highly frequent random frame-rate fluctuation. This is a bug that needs to be addressed.

What information do I need to provide to get a ticket open on this without it being immediately closed due to insufficient supporting evidence?