I recently bought a Sony mirrorless camera that records Full HD (1080p) at 60p and 4K at 24p. The video quality is amazing if I could watch it!
I tried to play videos on my MacBook Pro and there was a lot of lag and anxiety. Then I tried to play the video on my Dell PC and it was even worse! I was so surprised that I could not play HD videos on any of my computers!
Most recently, I downloaded 4K video from my iPhone to my Windows 10 PC, and in literally 5 seconds, the video player booted up, not to mention smooth playback.
When it comes to smoothly playing high definition videos on your computer, you have to consider both software and hardware. For example, no matter how hard you try, you can never get a Ford Focus to 200 mph. It just doesn’t have the engine or power to do it.
It’s the same with computers. If you have a laptop or desktop computer with an integrated graphics card, chances are you’ll never be able to play 1080p or 4K HD videos without lags or stuttering.
Why? Because high definition video playback requires a lot of system resources. However, if you have a semi-decent graphics card with a reasonable amount of memory and at least a dual-core processor, there are ways to make your machine play HD videos smoothly.
In this article, I’ll go over all the different methods you can try to get your system to play HD videos smoothly. If you figured out anything else not mentioned here, feel free to leave a comment and let us know!
The location of the file
Before I dive into technical questions, the first thing you should check is the location of your video files. One of the reasons the video played slowly on my Windows computer was because I copied all the videos to my NAS and played files from there. For the fastest playback possible, you need to store files locally on your hard drive.
The only time it would be best not to use a hard drive is if you have one of these 5400 RPM drives. Then the hard drive can become a bottleneck. In such cases, the video may lag due to the slow hard drive.
I suggest setting the drive to 7200 rpm at least. However, nowadays it is better to use a solid state drive that is much faster than a traditional hard drive.
And if you just can’t put them on your computer, then they must be on an external drive that is connected to your computer using a fast connection like Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, Firewire 800, eSATA, etc. If you are connecting an external drive via USB 1.0 / 2.0, your videos will lag regardless of the speed of your graphics card!
System resources
The second simple thing is to make sure that your computer’s resources are no longer being used. Since your CPU will be mainly used to play the HD file, it will lag if the CPU keeps switching to another process on your system.
Close all programs and disable any unnecessary startup programs that might be running on the taskbar, etc. Sometimes a fresh restart can help too. After you close as many programs as possible, try playing the video.
Alternatively, you can try changing the priority of the video player to High so that it uses more CPU power.
I am not suggesting putting it in real time as it might cause more problems than it fixes. And just change the priority of your video player process i.e. VLC, MPC-HC, etc.
This is not necessary if your computer has a dedicated graphics card. However, if you are using a GPU that is integrated with your processor, this can be helpful.
Converting to another format
If you don’t mind, you can also convert your videos to a different format. For example, if all your videos are in AVCHD format, you can convert them to m2ts or another format like MP4, etc.
You can keep the same high resolution, but playing certain formats is just easier and less resource intensive. Playing AVCHD videos is very processor intensive and requires a lot of decoding.
So if you have time, you can try a program like HandBrake for Windows and Mac and convert your videos to M4V format and they will play fine and still be in HD.
Media players, codecs, and settings
The next thing to try is a different media player. My favorite is HD video playback – VLC Media Player. It has many codecs and can handle quite a few formats.
You can also try other players like KMPlayer, but I find VLC to be the best. Another lightweight player to try is MPC-HC, as it also supports GPU acceleration.
One of the options that you can adjust in VLC Media Player is the post-processing procedure. If you go to Preferences or Preferences in VLC and click on Input and Codecs, you will see an option to Skip Loop Filter for H.264 Decoding.
The default is None. You want to change this to Everything. Now try playing a 1080p video and see if there are any lags. I hope no! This solution worked for me on my MacBook Pro. If that doesn’t work, keep reading!
If you are using something like Media Player Classic, you can try a different codec pack. For example, try uninstalling the K-Lite Codec Pack if you have one and installing CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) instead.
Also with Media Player Classic you can change the renderer and see if that helps. Go to Options – Playback – Output and select another.
Video card drivers and software
The second thing to check is your graphics card drivers and software. If you have a fairly good system with a video card that supports HD video playback, but there is significant lag in video playback, the problem might be with your driver or incorrect settings.
Let’s say you have an ATI Radeon HD card and you have a lag issue. Make sure you download the ATI Catalyst software for your graphics card. This software controls every aspect of your graphics card’s HD, and until the software is installed, all graphics card functions may not be available. For Nvidia cards, you need to download NVIDIA GeForce Experience and update drivers.
I also suggest downloading and installing the complete software package for your graphics card, not just the driver. There is often additional software available that allows you to use the more advanced features of your graphics card, thereby allowing high definition video playback.
Hardware upgrades
If absolutely nothing works, it may simply not be powerful enough hardware. After all, playing 1080p or 4K video requires a decent amount of processor and a decent graphics card.
If you have a very old system, or a system that is even a few years old, it might be time to invest in a new machine or upgrade your graphics card / memory / hard drive. With the super desktop deals you can find these days, there really is no reason why you can’t play HD videos without any problems.
If you have any questions about this article, or if you are unable to achieve smooth video playback when you think you need it, please leave a comment here describing your system’s specifications, software, etc., and we’ll try to help. Enjoy!
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