@Yen - Using ep1 of Chernobyl (1080p, h.264) as measurement. Across 20 minutes, VLC measures 0 Lost Frames. This is weird because I can see the stuttering myself; it's basically as though the video stops playing for a second or a fraction of a second and then resumes in accordance with how much time has passed since the pause, which causes the "stuttering" effect I'm describing. For this test I've tried playing off USB and SSD, both exhibit the same thing. I'm honestly stumped at this point. It's a visually observable problem but apparently not digitally observable. Strange as playing from the TV's own usb port / smart capability, another pc & my android box, is all absolutely fine... So it's definitely something to do with the PC. The content and input bitrates fluctuate between 2000 & 8000 kbps but their doesn't seem to be any correlation between the stutter and bitrate at time of stutter.
Have you tried a different monitor/external display to rule out any "frame tweaking" done by current monitor(in combination with your win 10 ltsc)?Saying this because you say this issue is there even with zero frame drop.
The fluctuation is probably due to VBR (variable bit rate) of the video. To gain file space the VBR option used only higher bitrates there where the video content required it when being encoded. I am stumped, too. Strange. I assume the issue is related to your current LTSC installation then. The VLC player decodes it properly to have an output 1:1 but the OS struggles to playback it smoothly. It must be something that's subtle. A clean re-installation of the OS can help, anyway what's installed exactly also depends on the particular hardware configuration of the PC in question (default drivers and the like). It can also be that the current LTSC provides 'the issue' itself, but only at special HW configs. (People cannot confirm, it's no general LTSC issue). To figure that you would have to try a new installation of the OS....test it first with default drivers the OS setup installs on its own before you go to install the latest. (Chipset and GPU).
Hi Yen, Yeah I tested it after a fresh install of the OS and it's still happening; both with the OS' initially installed drivers and with the Nvidia downloaded drivers. What I've now done is install the same LTSC version from the same usb to my secondary pc (i5-4440, GTX 750, 8gb Ram) and the problem doesn't exist on this one with the same file. I'm now convinced it may be a problem with one of the components or something. I'm totally stumped tbh, I think it may be an issue with a component but I don't know which one, although that would really confuse me because games run as they should, as does everything else. I'll test it with Linux to find out if it is a driver related issue as it will be using totally different drivers / versions of drivers. I guess this may be something we never have an answer to but I'll post an update if I find a fix. Thanks again guys!
You did not specify if you've used the same display / cable with the secondary pc. It might very well be an issue with the display or with the audio over hdmi / dp, otherwise stutters should have been visible on a fps graph (like mpc-hc Ctrl+J) if it was the gpu
Good. Now you can swap video cards, then other things that you can like memory ONE-AT-A-TIME to narrow down the problem. If you swap out all you can, and still get the same stuttering problem, I would consider it a motherboard issue.
It's not faulty HW related, but occurs at his HW config using current LTSC with the exception of Premiere. Subtle issues are a PITA because they are hard to spot. Sometimes just another chipset driver changes things, hasn't to be the latest. It seems only LTSC provides the issue for his PC config in question somehow and Premiere uses another way of processing the video. But your approach can be successful anyway. When swapping some HW the HW config changes and the subtle issue could vanish. When using a 1:1 replacement it can persist anyway.
Alright so I've checked using different HDMI cables, ports and monitors: stuttering still there. Then I used an ubuntu live-usb and interestingly: the stuttering is still there on Linux. I had assumed this was an OS issue as the problem only presented itself after the LTSC install and never on any other OS that has run on the PC; it was simply due to the timing that I didn't even consider it not being an OS issue. So I guess it actually is a component. Sorry for taking everyone on a wild goose chase with this, it really did only start the day I began using LTSC so I would never have thought it could be something else. That being said, it does happen for files played both on hard disk and on usb so my first thought now is that it may be a ram issue. I have decent quality G-Skill 1333mhz ram which I've been running at 1600mhz for 2 years, I'm starting to wonder if maybe that has something to do with it. I still find it interesting that gaming works fine, video on premiere pro is fine and video streaming through browsers also works absolutely as expected. I'm going to try running the RAM at stock speed now and see if that helps. Will post update. Side note: Thank you all so much, this is by fair the most helpful forum I've ever been on and I really am grateful. Update: Decreasing Ram to stock speed didn't fix it. Will test a few other things and post an update when I find a solution.
Keep us updated. This is very interesting. I'd try to run anything at default (if not already tried). To be sure it is: At BIOS settings load optimized defaults. Memory Frequency should be <auto> (no defined speed). Have you recently changed some settings at the BIOS and introduced the issue by that maybe? Or a recent BIOS update? If not it's probably a component that has changed some physics due to age. You can confirm it has worked on Manjaro Linux / W10 pro consumer before?
Or tweaks, removals etc? cos ive tweaked the living crap out of ltsc and even with good quality hd 1080 mp4 video im not getting stutter on i3 igpu.
Try changing the power plan setting - Multimedia - When playing video - Optimise video quality. If your gpu has a setting in there change that too. im running Ultimate Performance power plan and the files from a 7200rpm hdd that is already nearly full.