H264 video freeze on start in vlc 2.0.5 - Do i need to install a codec ?

[Atotaloss]

Hi,

I`ve been having issues playing h264 and 720p hd for some time on all vlc versions.

I installed the latest v.2.0.5 and the problem is still there.

Would there be a way to install the h264 codec ?

I have tried to tweek it but i am no expert and no success.

Can any one get the h264 to work smoothly , no lagging etc....

Thanks Guys for any advice on this.

[Baldrick]

Does it work better with other players? Like PotPlayer, SMPlayer, MPC-HC?

[Atotaloss]

I have SMplayer and yes , kinda, but the video plays in slo-mo - say 60% of what it should , but it plays, no lag or pixilation.

However, i love the playlist feature ,the way it plays your songs / videos in the order you put them.

SMplayer has the playlist feature and favorites but when I go to the playlist it doesn`t follow tracks - plays like in random. I don`t get that.

[Selur]

remuxing might help,...

[Atotaloss]

You`ve lost me on that one !

[Selur]

remuxing = the process to repackage the stream
it might help to fix problems with headers on a container level.

Depending on the container, different programs are normally used to do the remuxing, e.g. Avi-Mux GUI for .avi, MKVMerge for .mkv, MP4Box (through YAMB or MP4Box GUI) for .mp4 and ffmpeg as a general tool.

Sorry, can't be more specific since you didn't mention if you are trying to watch RAW H.264 video streams or if you try to watch H.264 video streams which are inside a specific container.

Cu Selur

[Baldrick]

I don't think remuxing will help if it works good in other players.

VLC is not just the best player for h264 hd material. Maybe you can adjust some setting....try search the vlc forum: http://forum.videolan.org/

[Selur]

I don't think remuxing will help if it works good in other players.

" but the video plays in slo-mo - say 60% of what it should" doesn't sound like it does

[Baldrick]

OOps....I read that it worked...ignore what I wrote.

[Baldrick]

Too slow computer?

[Atotaloss]

To clarify, and maybe i should of said this at the beginning , i am running a portable version of vlc on linux.

However, the main issue is the h264 not playing right.

I tried various settings from the net , from people saying that this was the way to go , but didn`t work for me.

To be honest if Smplayer could run through it`s playlist in order , i would stick with it.

I have a media center - AMD Turion64™ dual core / AMD Sempron CPU.

[Selur]

Your cpu probably is to slow to playback HD streams without GPU hardware support.
-> it might help it you enable the gpu accelaration (http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_GPU_Decoding) assuming your GPU and the used drivers supports it

[Atotaloss]

I tried to enable GPU acceleration but it`s greyed out - so I`m stuck !

[Hoser Rob]

You definitely don't need more codecs for either vlc or windows. That's why I used both in windows and still do in linux.

You may want to try smplayer with a local file stream cache set up. Set it to 8192K. Also go to player arguments in the advanced settings tab and enter:

-cache-min 50

Which will tell the player to not start the video until the cache is 50% full. It'll take a second longer to start that way but will work better.

VLC as of 2.0 has no local file cache settings support anymore. Stupid. It was my second choice before and it's further down the list now. I only use it if smplayer isn't happy with the codec of a video, which happens, and works both ways. It's not a matter of whether it's mkv (or whatever) or not here. There are lots of crappy codecs out there with limited compatibility. Which is why downloading another codec is not a good idea in windows anyway, silly in lunux.

It may be slow hardware, but I'm not so sure. I can play a very large mkv file ... over 1Mb/s bit rate ... on my i3 running xubuntu (the xfce shell version). On an external monitor plugged into the laptop in extended desktop mode. Flawlessly.

Note that's using Xfce as a shell. Unity or gnome shell doesn't work nearly as well. It uses 3X as much cpu and it's much slower.

A lot of people who try linux assume it's going to be faster than windows, and that's not necessarily true.

I'm also wondering what version of linux you're running. In ubuntu, if you have amd hardware and you use a newer version than the 12.04 lts, you do not have 3D hardware acceleration anymore. The drivers don't work. AMD basically closed their linux department recently.

[Atotaloss]

Thanks for those answers , in turn bringing up new questions.

"Also go to player arguments in the advanced settings tab and enter:

-cache-min 50 "

The bit on the cache is interesting but confusing and seems to solve the problem of smooth play from h264.

Does cache-min 50 go in video or options - excuse the ignorance here.

On the playlist , when i load some files , they never lay in order.

Example : I downloaded the greatest hits of the 80`s , so i listen to the first track for 10 s and then press the next arrow , it jumps to another track 4 down or something.

Thanks.

[Atotaloss]

I went ahead anyway and put the local cache at 8162k and the -cache-min 50 , in advanced > options and also in - Options for mplayer > options but no luck. Plays slow....

I just copied and pasted the -cache-min 50.