Hi All,

      Wanted to ask what video players you guys use for playing back 5.1k video (50fps) recorded by Mavic 3 (i.e. HLG H.265). I have been using VLC player and having some stuttering when the video is playing back (PC / Windows 11/ Nvidia GPU/ i9 recent CPU). It is bearable, the stuttering is consistent every second or so and it is more of a micro stuttering rather than a long stutter (like if I were to play back ProRes recorded footage before editing it into H.265). What I can't seem to figure out is this micro stuttering sometimes does not happen, but I have been changing any settings in VLC, maybe it is when I rewind and play back as video gets cached in memory. Also I am playing it off of a mechnical hard disk with a read speed of 200 MB/s (hopefully this is enough as 4k 60fps video does not stutter at all if played from the same disk).  Wanted to ask if others noticing the same stuttering in 5.1k 50fps and if there are ways to fix this, i.e. changing settings in VLC or using another video player in Windows...

Thanks in advance, Mike.

P.S. Just wanted to mention this is not an issue with the drone at all, but with finding a way of playing 5.1k video back on PC smoothly.

I use both VLC and the standard Windows Media Player to play all of my Mavic 3 footage. I haven't had any issues with either app when playing both 4K/60 and 5K/50. However, I always copy the files to an M2 SSD drive, so I think that may be your bottle neck.
Try copying to and playing them from a USB 3.0 flash drive. They can usually hit read speeds of around 300 MB/sec.

I've had issues with this too, and was recommended by someone to try the mpv video player (https://mpv.io/). It's worked pretty well for high resolution video that windows struggles to play normally, but it still has issues sometimes. There doesn't seem to be any real answers to this as of yet.

Grimz Posted at 7-9 20:28
I use both VLC and the standard Windows Media Player to play all of my Mavic 3 footage. I haven't had any issues with either app when playing both 4K/60 and 5K/50. However, I always copy the files to an M2 SSD drive, so I think that may be your bottle neck.
Try copying to and playing them from a USB 3.0 flash drive. They can usually hit read speeds of around 300 MB/sec.

Thank you Grimz. I tried your suggestion and copied to M2 SSD. It seems it is better now, almost no stuttering. I tried Windows Media Player, but it seems it does not support HLG 10 bit HDR properly and shows blown highlights . I actually realized I have another video player Kodi and tried it and it seems there is no stuttering there at all when playing with Kodi. Thank you for the advise!

Best Regards, Mike.

TeddyBozeman Posted at 7-9 20:55
I've had issues with this too, and was recommended by someone to try the mpv video player (https://mpv.io/). It's worked pretty well for high resolution video that windows struggles to play normally, but it still has issues sometimes. There doesn't seem to be any real answers to this as of yet.

Thank you Teddy! I will try your suggestion with mpv player. Also it seems that Kodi (another player that I had, but hadn't been using) does play MP4s really well. Even if playing from a hard drive, it does not seem to stutter at all. Thank you for your suggestion!

Best Regards, Mike.

Mzp Posted at 7-10 03:19
Thank you Teddy! I will try your suggestion with mpv player. Also it seems that Kodi (another player that I had, but hadn't been using) does play MP4s really well. Even if playing from a hard drive, it does not seem to stutter at all. Thank you for your suggestion!

Best Regards, Mike.

I also use Kodi for viewing 5.1K files.  I really like it because it is a free and open source media player that never gives any issues.

DowntownRDB Posted at 7-10 04:54
I also use Kodi for viewing 5.1K files.  I really like it because it is a free and open source media player that never gives any issues.

Thank you for the info DowntownRDB. I am switching to Kodi now as well. It plays 5.1k files with no stutter at all for me!
Thanks again, Mike.

Mzp Posted at 7-11 06:16
Thank you for the info DowntownRDB. I am switching to Kodi now as well. It plays 5.1k files with no stutter at all for me!
Thanks again, Mike.

You're very welcome Mike.  

Have a great week.

DowntownRDB Posted at 7-11 08:56
You're very welcome Mike.  

Have a great week.

You too DowntownRDB

Mzp Posted at 7-12 08:35
You too DowntownRDB

Thanks Mike.  I really appreciate the well wishes.  

Also can try POT PLAYER, at installing check to download all codecs and also to hardware detect your acceleration.
All advanced players use GPU to decode video, if is set to CPU for compatibility, you will get that stuttering...
The ones that detect properly the GPU will play flawlessly.

Geo_Drone Posted at 7-13 23:15
Also can try POT PLAYER, at installing check to download all codecs and also to hardware detect your acceleration.
All advanced players use GPU to decode video, if is set to CPU for compatibility, you will get that stuttering...
The ones that detect properly the GPU will play flawlessly.

Thank you Geo. I have never heard of POT PLAYER. My primary player is VLC and it uses DX11 acceleration (explicitly checked that checkbox). I believe that should use GPU. Kodi plays 5.1k well w/o any stutter, I believe it uses GPU acceleration, but I don't like the interface that much as I am really used to VLC and also like how VLC displays subtitles. Thank you for the tip, I will try that Pot Player.

I have the exact same issue... runs smoothely on my 8 year old i7 with Win10, but on my new i9 with Nvidia 3050 RTX and win11 it is choppy and worthless to watch.

Kodi causes pixelation and also is no good.

FlexMan Posted at 8-11 12:21
I have the exact same issue... runs smoothely on my 8 year old i7 with Win10, but on my new i9 with Nvidia 3050 RTX and win11 it is choppy and worthless to watch.

Kodi causes pixelation and also is no good.

Hi FlexMan,

  I tried Pot Player suggested by Geo, it does not seem to stutter like VLC , but it does not seem to display HDR correctly. HLG does not reflect the brightness that was captured by the camera. I have a device that measures brightness of a spot on my screen and POT player does no more than 150 nits, but it doesn't stutter like VLC though. I expect the brightness to be around 700 nits in those bright spots I compared against VLC where i do see 700 nits. Not sure if this is related to my monitor not being support by POT player or something else. So I still end up using VLC. Hope you find a solution for it too.

Thanks, Mike.

P.S. Also tried MPV.IO, but it stutters heavily as well, much worse than VLC. Sticking with VLC for now and converting files to 4k 50fps in Davinci Resolve to enjoy playing them...