This screenshot is from the VLC preferences menu. I initially had some stuttering issues while playing videos at 2x. Then I changed the File Caching to 10000ms, and the issue is likely gone. How does this caching work? And what is the difference between File caching, Disk caching and Network caching as listed in the menu?
1 Answer
The option is "File caching (ms)" and it is the length of time in milliseconds that it will buffer. a millisecond is 1/1000th of a second so 10,000ms is approximately 10 seconds.
So with the option set to 10,000 your computer will read approximately 10 seconds of data and keep the buffer as full as possible. Depending on the codec and bitrate used it will increase the amount of memory used to hold that amount of video.
If increasing that number solved your problem then chances are the key issue is that your disk is being used by other applications or the operating system. The disk reads from other applications are causing contention and delaying the path of data to VLC. Increasing the buffer size allows VLC to request more and more data before the buffer is empty, and with a larger buffer the delays and contention get hidden because VLC has more data to work through.
The other options are for different sources of data:
- File = hard disk
- Live capture = capture cards and cameras
- Disc = Disc media such as CD, DVD, Blu-ray, etc
- Network = network streams and internet
The problem with larger buffers is that a buffer can cause delay and lag from when you start to play. If you have a camera stream with a 10s (10000ms) buffer then everything from that camera will be delayed by 10 seconds. For just playing video files that may well not be a problem, but for network and camera capture streams you may want to reduce the buffer size so you see what is happening "now" rather than 10 seconds ago.
