VLC cannot play 4K video file

Hi, I am using Lubuntu 20.04 with nVidia GT 710 card (nvidia 470.86 driver).

I can play a 4K demo file on Youtube using my Brave browser without any noticeable issues. However, if I download the same file and try to play it with Vlc then I just one still image with sound.

I have disabled hardware acceleration on Vlc as suggested by some posts elsewhere and used various video output formats without success.

Appreciate any thoughts on this issue.

Thanks.

What file format is it? What video codec does it use? Will it play in any player, e.g. mpv ?

Also worth checking: https://discourse.lubuntu.me/

@user191239281, thanks very much for your suggestions. I did a lot more testing and have come to the conclusion that I may be trying to flog a dying horse here!

I tried the same video on a i7 CPU box and it ran flawlessly. The CPU of the box having the issue is a Pentium Duo which is pretty old and I guess I should be happy that I can run a normal HD video let alone a 4k UHD video!

I ran the video on VLC and checked the performance of of the GPU using nVidia Setting Manager tool and it tells me that the GPU utilisation is around 20% but when I checked the system performance it shows CPU utilisation of around 180% just for the VLC process! So this clearly means that CPU is able to handle this file effectively. If I run a normal HD file (whether mp4 or mkv) CPU utilisation hovers around 100% for the VLC process which means it is just able to cope with it.

I have another related issue. When I check the status of the nVidia card when running VLC, the tool nvidia-smi claims that there are no processes utilising the GPU whereas the nvidia-settings-manager shows GPU utilisation changing correspondingly.

Have you got any idea why nvidia-smi claims that no processes are running?

Many thanks

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Not all GPUs support that feature.

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@Mart, Thanks for confirming this.

I also did further testing by turning off VSync. The basis for this was, I noted that if I turn off VSync, glxgears shows a far higher fps rate. So with VSync turned off, now I can get vlc running at a far more civilised way - at 20-30% CPU utilisation and without stop start display. However, I do get occasional vertical ripple effect. Also, I still cannot get a 4K UHD 60 fps video to play - not that I have a need to play videos of such quality but just trying to see how are I can push my CPU/GPU combo.