Can the i3/i5 MBA 2020 playback 4k 60fps smoothly using a dedicated video player (e.g. VLC)?

[ragp13]

I've seen the videos and discussions showing the stuttering happening when play 4K 60fps on YouTube via Chrome. However, I am much more interested in knowing if hooking up an external monitor/tv and playing a 4K 60fps video via VLC Media Player would result in smooth playback.

Is there anyone who could test this for me as it'll influence my choice for a MBA vs. another laptop.

Much appreciated!

 

[twintin]

Have only run a 2 min clip from Vimeo in Safari on my base model and at least that worked smoothly.

 

[ragp13]

Can Safari play Vimeo in 4K though. I know it can't do 4K YouTube in Safari, but am unaware if that differs for Vimeo.

What model MBA do you have?

Thanks for sharing.

 

[twintin]

Vimeo seems to use H.264/H.265 codecs (4k option is available) while Youtube use VP9 codec, which is not supported by Safari and hence 4k is not available as an option.

 

[throAU]

Depends on the codec.

If the videos are encoded in h.264 or h.265 there will be no problem. Any apple content is in this format.

if it is encoded in vp8 or vp9, then it will struggle/drop frames at 4k because Apple don't enable hardware support for that in macOS.


edit:
However, not sure if VLC will make use of the hardware. I'll check. It supports hardware encoding, but not sure if that extends to vp8/vp9 on macOS.


edit2:

looks like nope

VLC GPU Decoding - VideoLAN Wiki

wiki.videolan.org

 

[TOGURO06]

I watched my rip of the fantabulous emancipation of Harley Quinn in 4k using VLC and it played fine.

 

[ragp13]

And that was 60fps as well?

 

[TOGURO06]

No sorry