Having trouble getting UHD movies to play - Can my Laptop handle it?

CampNowhere · 16 Apr 2019

I have been having trouble getting UDH movies to play on my laptop.

I have a MSI GS70 Stealth Pro with the following specs:

Integrated Graphics Card:Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake-H GT2) - Integrated Graphics Controller [S0/R0] [MSI]
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700HQ Intel HM170 (Skylake PCH-H)
Dedicated Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M [MSI]
Memory: 16GB DDR4 SDRAM

Does my Laptop seem to have the specs to play UDH movies? I have tried VLC, MPC-HC x64, and CyberLink PowerDVD 18 with no luck. CyberLink PowerDVD 18 freezes and crashed after about 30 seconds, vlc and mpc-hc skip & stutter a lot.

Samuria · 16 Apr 2019

UDH is strange format 3840 x 2160 were 4k is 4096 x 2160 what file type is it ie mp4, prores do you know the FPS rate

CampNowhere · 16 Apr 2019

Well for example the current video I am trying is an MKV file with 3840x2176 resolution and a FPS of 23.976024.

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Could it be an issue with my computer using the integrated graphics instead of the dedicated nvidia graphics card? Or is my pc just not powerful enough?

Samuria · 16 Apr 2019

You should have plenty of power I would think its the mkv format to test convert one to mp4 see if it runs ok then plenty of free converters The best free video converter 2019 | TechRadar

bobkn · 16 Apr 2019

I can play UHD .mkv files on my desktop system using the standard "movies and TV" Windows application.

My graphics card is of the same generation as that in your laptop, if the model number (970m) is the right indicator.

My desktop's screen is native 3840 X 2160, though. Seems like it should still play OK on your laptop's 1920 X 1080.

Compumind · 16 Apr 2019

@CampNowhere -

Please download and run this small program. Then post the thermal results.
Just want to rule that out. Then we can check the GPU.

Thanks.

Helmut · 17 Apr 2019

You would have to use a DisplayPort external monitor on that iGPU/GPU to get that resolution at 60 Hz.
The HDMI spec is only v1.4
The specs given are rather vague and ambiguous, but try the DisplayPort connection, with a decent quality cable, which will give you a better chance.

nIGHTmAYOR · 17 Apr 2019

What you are facing is normal , the format you are referring to is usually marked as Oculus/Vive compression and it usually is accompanied by a very sluggish bite rate and codec too (H265 comes to mind) .

They play only fine on optimized Oculus players (not sure about Vive) and Octa core phones but when it comes to dual/quad core PCs (even if hyper-threaded) in their un-optimized state which would usually utilize only one core to decode at such bite rate / codec and most come to their knees .

And no , relaying it to GPU acceleration makes it worse , mind you your card generation was pre that era of resource hungry videos .

What you can do however is look up players that can utilize several CPU cores , those might help a little (include in your search VR as usually these are dedicated for VR gadgets but still have 2D options too) , why I say a little is still because these formats are optimized for Octa cores , any less and you lose something along the path (and no hyper-threading doesn't really make a processor Octa) .

Compumind · 17 Apr 2019

I wonder if the OP can play standard 4K without issues.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M should be able to handle it.

GeForce GTX 970M | Specifications | GeForce

bro67 · 17 Apr 2019

It all depends on the source and outside Internet speed. What website or app are you using to stream/download UHD/4k videos from? If it is a site that hosts pirated material, not much that we can help you. If a legitimate source like Vudu or Netflix, your Download speeds ar what matters.