When I’m watching 1080p (bluray) movies with VLC player they lag a lot. I noticed that only one of my CPU cores is being used, and that this specific core is running at 100%. Is there a way so that my PC uses all four cores, and not just one?
Try installing a codec pack like so: https://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm
And see if that makes a difference
if you plugged your pc to the tv (like me): does it have 24p playback? that’s important that (HD-) movies don’t lag and the codecs Cameron said, too 
No difference, I don’t think installing a codec has ever solved a problem. 
However, that codec packs comes with the Halii (or w/ever) media splitter which splits up audio and video into seperate processes, each process of which is multi-threaded.
Open Task Manager, go to Processes. Right Click on vlc.exe and select “Set Affinity…” Then make sure all CPUs are checked.
I’ll try that. This is also the last time I buy hard disks, next time I’m going with SSD’s. Seriously I have no time waiting for files to write at 20mb/s when SSD’s can do it at 250mb/s. :fffuuu:
Installing codecs have no effect on VLC because it dosent use codecs.
Try using a program called Media Player Classic. I use to play HD movie on my laptop. I get less chugging and jittering over vlc when playing HD files.
VLC media player handles very badly 1080p videos. Try Media Player Classic instead.
Could it be a GPU issue? Maybe your graphics card isn’t powerful enough to render all of the frames smoothly. Although using only 1 core is obviously an issue that needs to be solved if its being used at 100%.
EDIT: Coolm4n, I only use VLC for full HD movies and it works perfectly fine on my C2D laptop.
Incorrect, VLC has their own set of internal codecs that they use for video.
VLC is made to handle HD videos. I’ve never had any problems with it and HD movies.
It can’t be my GPU, it’s a GeForce GTX285.
The CPU stress seems ok now but it still lags a lot during battle scenes etc. This is true bluray quality with an insanely high bitrate, my guess is that it’s indeed the harddrive. :’( Maybe I’ll get a SSD with low capacity and see how that turns out.
Oh and btw I don’t think it has anything to do with VLC, I’ve always used it and it has always worked (lower bitrate 1080p movies play fine)
Install Codecs. And lots of 'em.
What’s your CPU? I can watch pretty much any HD movie on my PC and I’ve got a shitty E4500 with a 5400RPM Hard drive.
Intel Q9450 at 2.6 GHz - it’s a pretty low clock but the CPU is not at 100% so it can’t be the reason why it lags, the bitrate of true bluray quality is very high (45mb/s) so I still think it’s my harddisk - it’s just too slow to handle 45mb/s (that’s why I wanted to get a small capacity SSD considering they are twenty times as fast).
Also what movies are you referring to? Compressed 720p / 1080p movies or 50 Gb 1080p movies?
Thanks, I downloaded MPC and it works great, I can finally watch Avatar now. This is the first time VLC has failed on me since the beginning of time, or I simply installed the wrong codecs (probably). :fffuuu:
Then you’re both lucky, a lot of people are having troubles with 1080p (yes, only 1080p and not 720p) videos on VLC, including me. And I don’t think that it’s due to my specs (GTX 260, Q6600, 4GB DDR2 P8500). A friend of mine who has a i7 720 is even having this problem.
Yeah forgot to mention, I always use MPC for movies. FFDSHOW ftw!
no problem.
It’s what makes VLC great is its downfall in this situation. As I said before, VLC doesn’t use [COLOR=‘Silver’]system codecs. Everything is self contained and because of this VLC is able to play a wide varity of formats but not always as efficiently as possible. I personally use VLC for everything ony my computer but when playing hi-bitrate movie (Top Gear polar Ice special) I switch over to MPC
MPC FTW