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MacBook Pro and fullscreen VLC brings lag?

NikFinn

NikFinn

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 22, 2009
646
0
MA
I just got my MBP and upgraded the ram to 4gb of crucial ddr3, along with a 500gb WD scorpion. The problem is when I try to watch a full screen episode of a tv show that I have saved on my computer, the video will stutter, the picture will freeze but the sound will go on. Sometimes the picture starts moving again, but sometimes I need to pause or go back by "scrubbing". Now, I do have a few programs running in the background, usually firefox, ichat, transmission and sometimes iTunes. But they aren't really actively being used except for transmission as it's downloading a file. I tried to open up my activity monitor but nothing seems wrong, as I had over a gig of ram left and cpu wasnt even close to being maxed out. I did try to run it again after just restarting my computer and then it ran fine, but I feel like it should be able to run a few programs without lag, as my old single core 1.76ghz pc had no problem doing this. Maybe this is too much to ask?
 
What codes does the video file use?

It could be a corrupt file.

Are you having any other hardware problems? If not, then the issue is likely with VLC and/or the particular videos that you are trying to play.
 
applebook said:
What codes does the video file use?

It could be a corrupt file.

Are you having any other hardware problems? If not, then the issue is likely with VLC and/or the particular videos that you are trying to play.
Click to expand...
I tried it with many episodes of a TV show from a torrent, and another entirely different TV show and they are all .avi format. I tried updating VLC to the newest version and that didn't help. And there hasn't been any other problems at all with my new machine.
 
You're not asking too much and you shouldn't be having any problems.

Double check that you have the latest version of VLC - 1.0.1
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html
(The update/upgrade doesn't automatically install)

Also, several different torrents might actually be of the same original, and if that original was corrupt so are the others.

Try playing a DVD and see if it produces the same effect.
 
how to solve vlc issues

hi i got my macbok about a month agpo and thaught it was the computer thats was messed up after finaly haveing had enuf, i watch ALOT of avi's, i solved the issue with my technical brilliance,!!!

downgrade VLC to 2 versions before the latest one, the last version has the same issue.

thleeal
 
Or just use Movist or NicePlayer when watching videos while doing something HDD intensive in the background.
 
Are you skiming though the video or just playing it straight through?

If you're playing it straight though then it's a problem with the video.
 
zw-gator said:
Are you skiming though the video or just playing it straight through?

If you're playing it straight though then it's a problem with the video.
Click to expand...

No it's a problem with VLC. There's some bug in it that causes it to stutter if there's something writing a lot to the HDD at the same time, like you'd have with Transmission downloading files. Movist and NicePlayer both work perfectly fine during that.
 
kasakka said:
No it's a problem with VLC. There's some bug in it that causes it to stutter if there's something writing a lot to the HDD at the same time, like you'd have with Transmission downloading files.
Click to expand...

I haven't had that problem since upgrading to 1.0.1.

It really was god awful with the 0.9.10 versions though.
Do movist and niceplayer work with as many codecs as VLC?
 
Eidorian said:
Well at least MPlayer OS X Extended has Apple Remote support now and a new icon. It's nice when watching animu and HandBraked content.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any luck getting MPlayer OSX Extended to work reliably for me. I just use the old MPlayer OSX off MPlayer's website.

Also, Plex is the best anime watching program. Trust me ;)
 
All of this has been happening with version 1.0.0 and the latest version 1.0.1. This was also happening while playing the movie straight through. I tried downloading the div x codec for quicktime and playing the movie full screen and it seemed fine but I only watched the tv show for about 5 minutes. Maybe I'll try mplayer, but I have always used VLC for pc without any problems.
 
NikFinn said:
All of this has been happening with version 1.0.0 and the latest version 1.0.1. This was also happening while playing the movie straight through. I tried downloading the div x codec for quicktime and playing the movie full screen and it seemed fine but I only watched the tv show for about 5 minutes. Maybe I'll try mplayer, but I have always used VLC for pc without any problems.
Click to expand...

Just get Perian codec package and Movist. Movist doesn't support subtitles that well (won't do all the styling and whatnot some have) but other than that it works great.
 
Having the same problems with my 2.53 Ghz MB Pro 13" with 10.5.8...VLC and avi or mkv files will occasionally stutter on playback...Sometimes even when not in full screen mode...VLC ends up crashing as I get the pinwheel of death from Apple.

I tried downgrading the VLC from 1.0.1 to 0.9.9 but that didn't make any difference
 
I just updated to the latest version of VLC and I noticed this in the read me file:

4. The video is choppy! It's like we're dropping frames.
That's the normal behavior when the CPU isn't fast enough to decode all the frames. Though there is some room for improvement, don't ever expect VLC to be able to decode MPEG-2 streams or high resolution DivX on a low-end G3 machine.

If you experience problems playing DivX/Xvid then you can try the following:
- Open the preferences.
- Click on "All" at the bottom of the window
- Now go to Input / Codecs -> Other codecs -> FFmpeg
- Enable 'hurry up' and click 'Save'
- Restart VLC.

If your H.264 encoded videos are played choppy, try this option:
- Preferences -> Input & Codecs -> Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding

If VLC media player is slow on your G5 or Intel system, try to quit or hide all running applications. See with top -u in a terminal window which applications take the CPU. Be aware of bouncing icons in the dock. Bounces seriously effect the performance of VLC. The same goes for any time interval process (Checking mail every 2 minutes).
Click to expand...
 
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