I've been experimenting a bit with the puppies bath in 4k video off 4ksamples.com as well as a few others. I got a combination that worked with my test video. I note reasonably fast storage is essential for quality playback. Considering some trial and error is needed, do backup the current settings. These settings work on a 3770, 16gb of ram and a gforce 980TI which I know is 4k capable
I've changed quite a few advanced settings to get it to work. In theory I want DXVA to be enabled but that causes VLC to crash.
Under simple mode in preferences go to Tools -> Preferences and Input / Codecs and in the drop-down box for Skip H.264 in-loop deblocking filter change it to All. This is recommended by VLC
Switch to show all under preferences and try these changes
I turned off all filters under Video Filters. This was the last thing I did, and seemed to help the most so I'd start here
Under "Video Codecs" - > FFMPEG I set my threads to 3. You might want to experiment with higher or lower numbers.
Make sure everything under output modules/DirectX is unticked.
These changes seem to have worked.
For reference, once I stripped out the commented lines, my vlcrc looks like
[directdraw]
directx-hw-yuv=0
directx-3buffering=0
[direct3d]
direct3d-shader=Disabled
[swscale]
swscale-mode=9
[qt4]
qt-privacy-ask=0
[x264]
sout-x264-profile=main
sout-x264-preset=veryfast
sout-x264-tune=film
[qsv]
sout-qsv-software=1
sout-qsv-h264-profile=decide
sout-qsv-h264-level=decide
sout-qsv-mpeg2-profile=decide
sout-qsv-mpeg2-level=decide
[avcodec]
avcodec-skiploopfilter=4
avcodec-hw=any
avcodec-threads=3
[waveout]
waveout-volume=0.700000
[directsound]
directx-volume=0.700000
[filesystem]
filetypes=m3u,db,nfo,ini,jpg,jpeg,ljpg,gif,png,pgm,pgmyuv,pbm,pam,tga,bmp,pnm,xpm,xcf,pcx,tif,tiff,lbm,sfv,txt,sub,idx,srt,cue,ssa
[core]
aout=any
video-deco=0
vout=direct3d
video-filter=swscale
vod-server=any
I have a gist with my full vlcrc for 4k here
Does the Audio keep playing without a hitch, only the video freezes ? – dExIT – 2016-11-11T08:40:31.737
@dExIT Correct. – Bálint Babics – 2016-11-11T08:46:08.617
Have you tried to amend caching times and FFmpeg Loop Filter Skipping, and have you changed your video output settings, lets say to DirectX DirectDraw or OpenGL ? – dExIT – 2016-11-11T08:52:38.417
Yes I did all of them, without success. With OpenGL the screen was completely magenta. I have the latest nV driver. – Bálint Babics – 2016-11-11T08:54:06.013
Please remember that normally VLC could be by default setup Video is decoded through CPU - aka integrated graphics. Please see and try to setup GPU decoding. https://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_GPU_Decoding/ setup GPU and then output settings need to be Direct X
– dExIT – 2016-11-11T08:55:07.720And just to be on the 100% side, try to open a GPU monitor, and play the video and see if the usage of the GPU spikes. just to be sure :) – dExIT – 2016-11-11T08:56:05.390
If the Integrated Graphics is doing it, Sandy Bridge (i3/i5/i7 3*) can't really do 4K if I remember correctly. The GPU needs to be doing the decoding.
Also, is it 60fps or 30? Makes a big difference. – harley_woop – 2016-11-11T08:56:29.743
And remember Newest nVidia drivers are not always the best way to go. Even if they are stable. – dExIT – 2016-11-11T08:56:41.443
@harley_woop: the IGP is unrelevant here, becuase the CPU or the dGPU do the job not the IGP. And yeah, I know the GPU should do the decoding but when I set the option to use GPU to decode its not working. – Bálint Babics – 2016-11-11T09:46:01.587
@BálintBabics True, was confusing IGP and CPU. Still the GPU should be used if you can get it working. – harley_woop – 2016-11-11T10:15:53.950
I downloaded 4K videos from 4ksamples.com. VLC had no success playing videos encoded with the x265 codec, but other codecs worked fine. Which codec is used in your file? If unsure - use MediaInfo. It would also be useful to have a sample of the problematic 4K files. I had no trouble playing all 4K videos (including x265) when using Media Player Classic (MPC) that I got by installing K-Lite Codec Pack Mega.
– harrymc – 2016-11-11T13:19:09.580I more or less have the same hardware. What format/codec? – Journeyman Geek – 2016-11-13T08:16:17.193
I've been experimenting a bit - trying dxva crashes, the test video I'm using is rotated and ... it feels like VLC is trying to decode this in CPU on one thread. – Journeyman Geek – 2016-11-14T00:17:09.387