VLC chewing the battery on 2018 15 inch

[sno1man]

Curious to see if anyone else has noticed this.
Running VLC to watch a 90 minute video (mkv) fullscreen used up 4/5ths of the battery. I'm guessing/suspecting that VLC is using the AMD graphics card instead of the integrated which should be overkill for a video decode.

 

[dan9700]

use iina its better for mac

 

[wchigo]

Wait, a 90 min video used up 80% of your battery? That's pretty insane, despite how much of an energy hog VLC is.

I've been using mpv on my 2016 13" with much better results than VLC, so I'd be interested if it would work the same for the 15" with a dGPU, since that's what I'm planning to upgrade to soon.

 

[sno1man]

Wait, a 90 min video used up 80% of your battery? That's pretty insane, despite how much of an energy hog VLC is.

I've been using mpv on my 2016 13" with much better results than VLC, so I'd be interested if it would work the same for the 15" with a dGPU, since that's what I'm planning to upgrade to soon.

Yes 80%. Somethings off, I also have a 2016 13 inch non touch bar and the same video takes like 6-7%
I might try MPV. Gotta be a bug right?

 

[wchigo]

Yes 80%. Somethings off, I also have a 2016 13 inch non touch bar and the same video takes like 6-7%
I might try MPV. Gotta be a bug right?

I imagine something must've bugged out! I mean, if it only decreased your battery by 6-7% on your 13", there should be no way just having the dGPU active in the 15" would result in over a 13x increase in battery consumption. Twice the consumption would still be high, but not totally outside the realm of possibility. But 13x?! Holy crap...

I would try some other video players for sure to see if it's just VLC causing this, or maybe there's something buggy in your system.

 

[iMacDragon]

What does activity monitor show for cpu/energy use whilst playing it, what kind of video is it ( format, size )?

 

[macintoshmac]

Curious to see if anyone else has noticed this.
Running VLC to watch a 90 minute video (mkv) fullscreen used up 4/5ths of the battery. I'm guessing/suspecting that VLC is using the AMD graphics card instead of the integrated which should be overkill for a video decode.

Run your video in VLC again. While it is running:

> About This Mac

Take a look at Graphics. If there is only the integrated listed, VLC is using the integrated only. If you also see your AMD listed there, VLC is using the AMD.

Although, open Activity Monitor and check out what is eating up CPU, and under Energy, what is eating the battery resources. You could also use the left click on the battery icon in the menu bar to see prima facie what is using "significant energy resources" as well to get a rough idea.

- - - -

Lastly, throw VLC in the trash can and download IINA. For starters, it is colorspace aware, meaning it can use the DCI-P3 display of your Mac better, giving you better color than VLC. Then, it is Touch Bar aware, and that helps.

Tested it myself in 2016 and never looked back at VLC again, after having used it for literally as long as I remember.

 

[Eithanius]

Curious to see if anyone else has noticed this.
Running VLC to watch a 90 minute video (mkv) fullscreen used up 4/5ths of the battery. I'm guessing/suspecting that VLC is using the AMD graphics card instead of the integrated which should be overkill for a video decode.

Which version of VLC...? May I suggest avoiding v3 and download the latest v2 instead...

On a side note, VLC always trigger dGPU on my 2010 MBP, nothing out of the ordinary there...

 

[haruhiko]

Use IINA. Much lighter.

 

[sno1man]

So it gets weirder. This is with the most current version of VLC. Tried version 2 x , freezes on launch
1. It's only with AVI and MKV files that the excess battery drain happens.MP4 plays normally

2. When playing the mkv files it is using the AMD graphics and it looks like it also is pegging out the processor. (didn't notice how warm it was getting because it was sitting on a desk and I was a few feet away).

3. Weirder still, the battery drain only occurs when using the internal display. If connect to an external HDMI display the results are more like my 13 touch bar.

4. I use VLC for the wide range of supported files. I tried IINA last night and it behaved more as expected, but it also wouldn't play some of the files I have.

I think a trip to the Apple store is my next step. It is odd that this seems to be my only issue but I'm hesitant to wipe it and start over after spending all the time setting this up

 

[johannnn]

What is Apple Store supposed to do about VLC's ****** decoding?
I know VLC was the king 5 years ago, but last 5 years the development has definitely not progressed as far as other media players.

To quote from this MR thread, "If I play jellyfish 4K h264 140mbps 8bit.. VLC uses more than 300% whereas IINA about 25%.".

You should definitely uninstall VLC and instead use IINA, MPV, or Movist.
What videos don't work in either IINA or MPV? Must be some really weird homemade stuff, since scene releases usually follow to sensible standards.

Another option is to convert the video too H.264. This takes a few minutes depending on your machine, but afterwards you will be able to play the video with much less CPU consumption (thanks Apple for HEVC hardware acceleration). I use iFlicks (free beta) which can also easily add hard subtitles. A more common app is Handbrake. Then you will have your movie in a format that Mac likes so much that it can even be played in Quicktime.

 

[sno1man]

Thanks for all the input. As to the videos, they are from all over the place (job related and from things like security cams, drones etc)

Trying to avoid converting if I don't have to, but not tied to VLC, like I said it was just what I landed on for the work. As to

"What is Apple Store supposed to do about VLC's ****** decoding" The problem to me seemed weird enough it could be a hardware issue and or an OS load and since I just bought the machine, I wanted to address it while I can still return/exchange