Video playback stutter in multiple distros, but not all

That looks like you don't need a special driver for VAAPI stuff anymore. Even hardware video encoding works in FFmpeg.

I've been using Linux on this computer for a while, and I've noticed that some of the stutters correspond to disk activity when playing video from a hard drive instead of an SSD. It's obvious because that 8TB HDD in the inxi output above has strangely loud seek noise (not a failing drive). It's even worse when editing video using Kdenlive (Flatpak version) because there's a pause when playing the preview every time it needs to load another video clip. That doesn't happen in Windows.

So can you clearify how you have linux installed and where the videos are that you are watching, and that Western Digital platter drive is very slow 5600rpm and 256Meg Cache. I would highly recommend that you replace it with SSD or a faster hard drive with more cache. I would also steer clear of Western Digital just as a person preferrence due to past issues ive had with them.

Dan, you can't just blithely suggest to folks that they spend lots of their money to replace stuff just because YOU think they should..! Come ON.... 

As for Western Digital, well; for me, perhaps I've been lucky. I've had several of their drives over the years, and have generally had a very positive experience with them...

(*shrug...*)

Mike. 

Video editing takes higher end hardware that needs faster reads and writes and a 5600rpm drive doesn't meet that as stated by the op

Yah, well; maybe on Windows.....and perhaps under most mainstream Linux distros. I get away with it, though, using Puppy, simply because all the software is so lightweight to start with!

Mike. 

Its not so much the lightweight nature of the software it's the Input and Output operations of video editing that make it require higher end hardware. 7200rpm or faster drives will yield faster read/writes over the slower drives aimed at conserving energy.

Also 256meg cache is rather low on an 8TB drive.

True, true. 3 or 4 GB of cache - or more! - WOULD be better, there's no denying that. I'm still surprised just how well a 3.7 GHz dual-core Pentium Gold (albeit with H/T) does in fact cope with rendering. Nobody was more surprised at that than me..!

I do actually 'work' with the video rendering on my primary drive, a 1 TB Crucial MX500. It's only when finished that I then save it my secondary data drive, a much slower 3 TB Seagate 'Barracuda' HDD. I don't think I'd try rendering directly to that one.

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 10 November 2024 - 03:57 PM.

I have Linux installed on a 256GB SSD (/dev/nvme1n1). Windows is installed on the 1TB SSD shown in the first post (/dev/nvme0n1), and data is split between the Windows SSD and the 8TB HDD. It is a slow drive, but it replaced an even slower 4TB Seagate (I mostly buy Seagate drives) that I filled up. I feel like video editing goes smoother on Windows, but I'll have to switch back to Windows to compare.

Edited by lti, 05 November 2024 - 11:12 PM.

I switched back to Windows, and it really does perform better. When I drag the cursor in the timeline, the preview updates much more quickly in Windows. Also, the preview plays perfectly smoothly in Windows. In Linux, every time a new clip starts, there is a pause followed by a second of disk thrashing. These are both using the same version of Kdenlive, the same project file, and every video clip is on the same hard drive.

I have noticed a similar video performance. I noted that you pointed out that youtube played perfectly which I noticed on all the distro's I tried.

My suspicion is that the video apps themselves are not optimizing or the Distro is not allowing them to optimize to the video performed.

An example I have is VLC. I have a local .mov file which it cannot play. I played the sam .MOV video with my browser's and another video app and it played correctly. VLC forum does not have an answer yet but I found it strange that the system log kicked out a kernel code

Debian kernel: Code: 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 48 8b 47 20 ff 60 30 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 48 8b 47 20 ff 60 38 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 <48> 8b 47 20 ff 60 40 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 ff 67 48 66 2e 0f.

Why does Youtube play flawlessly is it browser properly translating video information?