How to Fix VLC H.265/HEVC Playback Issues?

Although the VLC project has merged support for x265 to provide support for HEVC/H.265 in the popular open-source cross-platform media player. However, there are still a lot of people failing to load H.265/HEVC files to VLC or suffer other playback issues such as VLC corruption issues when viewing H.265/HEVC files on VLC.

1. VLC fail to play H.265/HEVC tranport stream
I have got a sample stream "Big Buck Bunny", the format is: MPEG2 TS, HEVC+AAC
VLC 2.1.3 did not show any pictures on my Windows 7 laptop. I have also generated some H.265 transport stream using live555 and confirmed that the stream_type = 0x24(H.265) in PMT, but still no lucky when play with VLC.

2. H.265 playback problems with VLC.
I am experiencing corruption when trying use VLC to watch a h.265 file. I tried a different trial player and the video played back fine. Any help?

Play H.265 on VLC

For those people who are facing the same issue mentioned above, you have come to the right place. The following article will illustrate those issues for you and also offer a simple solution to fix all VLC H.265/HEVC importing and playback issues.

Why can't play H.265/HEVC files on VLC?

Not all version of VLC can deal with H.265/HEVC files, only the latest VLC 2.2.0 version has upgraded with support H.265/HEVC files. Therefore, make sure to upgrade your VLC to that version or above. Meanwhile, you can try a nighty build: http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/?C=M;O=D

Why VLC corrupts when playback H.265/HEVC

Although VLC has claimed its native support for VLC files, however, it is well know that the 4K H.265/HEVC playback is very processor extensive, even if your computer has meet the minimum standard to playback 4K video, you may still suffer video playback choppy or corruption issues. Although you can enable GPU accelerated decoding in VLC, however, this feature only works with 4K H.264 streams but not for 4K H.265/HEVC streams.

Compress 4K H.265/HEVC to HD H.265/HEVC for VLC Playback

To fix VLC H.265/HEVC playback issue, the most simpler solution is compressing 4K H.265/HEVC to HD H.265/HEVC or HD H.264 format which will ensure you a smooth video playback process. To get the job easily completed, here, you can download Pavtube Video Converter (best video converter review), which has full support for 4K H.265/HEVC importing. You can easily transcode 4K H.265/HEVC to any of VLC more compatible file formats. If you want to preserve the original H.265/HEVC file format, just choose to output 4K H.265/HEVC to HD H.265 file format which will ensure you a smooth video playback experience.

Apart from converting and compressing 4K H.265/HEVC video for you, you can also use the program to trim or cut off unwanted parts or segments from the H.265/HEVC video, crop out the blackbars or unwanted area from the video, spit large H.265/HEVC video into small clips by file size, count or lenght.

Besides H.265/HEVC files, you can also use this program to fix other file format such as AVI, WMV, MP4, MKV, FLV, VOB, etc with VLC playback issues.

How to Convert and Compress 4K H.265/HEVC for VLC Smooth Playback?

Step 1: Load H.265/HEVC files into the program.

After the successful installation, click "File" > "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from Folder" to load unsupported mp4 files into the program.

Step 2: Output one of VLC best playable file format.

Click "Format", from its drop-down option, to fix VLC 4K H.265/HEVC video playback choppy or corruption issues, you can choose to output "H.265 HD Video(*mp4)" or "H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)" under "HD Video" main category.

Step 3: Adjust output playback settings for VLC.

Click "Settings" on the main interface to open "Profile Settings" window to tweak the output video codec, bit rate, frame rate, resolution or audio codec, bit rate, sample rate or channels, etc according to your own needs.

Step 4: Edit H.265/HEVC video.

Check an item to active the "Video Editor" function, then click the pencil like icon on the top tool bar to open the "Video Editor" window, you can trim video length, crop video black bars, add watermark, apply sepcial rendering effect, remove/replace audio in video, etc.