VLC player too slow on Ubuntu 18.04.1

I have a new laptop running Ubuntu 18.04.1 and VLC media player 3.0.4. But VLC performs worse than an old version on my over 10 years old Win XP machine. The video clips have 720x576 H264 with AAC audio. VLC always cuts off some frames at the beginning and at the end, just like the "cheap" players. I already disabled MP4 deblocking and enabled real-time mode, but no noticeable effect. I am rather new to Linux and don't know whether/where there are settings (VLC or Ubuntu) that would enhance video playback and am grateful for hints.

Solution 1:

I worked around a performance problem with MP3 playback in VLC (a lag after jumping back a few seconds) by installing MPV:

sudo apt install mpv

See https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/02/swap-vlc-mpv-ubuntu

Also VLC player seems to have a better performance when not installed via the Software Center but via apt.

sudo apt install vlc

Solution 2:

Well, I can share my experience with a disclaimer that I am not an expert. The opening time for VLC had gotten higher, every time I pressed (skip 5 sec) I would have had to wait for 3-4 seconds for the video to play at the required frame rate. I thought the cache and other files VLC stores were slowing it down, so I searched for VLC files all over my Linux LXDE and deleted them all. These included config files too. I did this because uninstalling and reinstalling VLC had no effect and I had not cleared cache, so I deleted those files (VLC config and other vlc files) and it's as good as the first time. Warning: Have a good look at your config and keep it simple, this method will for sure delete your configuration and you would have to redo it.