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I am trying to understand how the default Windows 10 player (called "Films and TV") is able to play FHD (1920 x 1080 x 60fps) videos (shot with GoPro 4) and utilize only around 10% of the CPU, while other players namely VLC and GOM will utilize around 60-70% CPU.

I tried looking at GPU utilization, but even there while using the default Windows 10 player utilization is around 15% vs around 30% when using VLC and GOM.

Right now this looks like magic to me as FHD playback is taxing on the hardware and I can't figure out what is going on. I am thinking the difference will be in the decoder used, but can't find more information.

The CPU / GPU used are Core i5 5200U / Intel HD Graphics 5500

VLC Player CPU utilization: VLC Player CPU utilization

Films and TV CPU utilization Films and TV CPU utilization

This is the info for a sample video file.

General Format : MPEG-4 Format profile : Base Media / Version 1 Codec ID : mp41 File size : 2.61 GiB Duration : 12mn 23s Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 30.1 Mbps Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : [email protected] Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=30 Codec ID : avc1 Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding Duration : 12mn 23s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 30.0 Mbps Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 59.940 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.241 Stream size : 2.60 GiB (99%) Title : GoPro AVC Color primaries : BT.709 Transfer characteristics : BT.709 Matrix coefficients : BT.709 Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Format profile : LC Codec ID : 40 Duration : 12mn 23s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 128 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 11.4 MiB (0%) Title : GoPro AAC

VLC reports the following video output in: Tools -> Messages -> Module Tree -> playlist -> video output

window "qt4" (0x5a738fc) vout display "direct3d" (0x5a57a34) subpicture (0xf456b4) spu text "freetype" (0x5a24264) scale "yuvp" (0x5a70c1c) scale "swscale" (0x55a1eac)
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  • Probably different renderer and/or filters used with VLC/GOM. In VLC, what does Tools -> Messages -> Module Tree -> playlist -> video output say? Commented Mar 2, 2016 at 7:29
  • @Mulvya Added the requested info in the body of the post/question. Commented Mar 2, 2016 at 18:30
  • Do both players played 1080p? In other words, is your display 1080p and you played the movie full-screen on both tests? If you just play in a small window it is possible that F&TV runs a partial rendering. Commented Mar 7, 2016 at 14:49
  • @avnr My display is 1600 x 900 and player are running maximized, though not in full screen. Commented Mar 9, 2016 at 15:24

1 Answer 1

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Quite possible that the Windows player can make use of some HW acceleration the others can not / are not using.

Check this how to enable HW video decoding on VLC:

If you are using VLC 2.2.2 check this https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=130590

UPDATE from the author of the question: Adding screenshot from VLC v. 2.2.1 to compliment this answer.

VLC 2.2.1 with Hardware Acceleration enabled. enter image description here

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  • Unlikely. Even if so, H/W accel uses GPU and FTV shows half the GPU use as well. Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 6:22
  • If your gpu does HW video decoding, I don't think it would even register as high GPU usage since it is Hardware Decoding. Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:12
  • superuser.com/q/128478/228841 Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:14
  • The hardware decoder is part of the GPU die, so I'm not sure how that affects my point. Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:21
  • Your point is that HW decoder utilization should register on the GPU graph. Which It not necessarily does if there is a DSP actually doing the processing and not a piece of software that "runs" it's code on the GPU. Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:23

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