It might also depend on the OS version and hardware. 4K movies in my current cpu (core ultra 2 265K onboard video) on v4.2.4 are relatively smooth. But v4.3 is choppy. v4.3 also has problems rendering when zooming in non-video content like an appvm window. My prior cpu (i9-12900K), 4K video was choppy on v4.24.
Yes, mpv/smplayer should be made the default media player in Qubes OS’s default templates, because Gnome/xfce players are slow and bad. I was surprised how out-of-box video-players are bad in Qubes OS, especially considering it uses only CPU to play video.
I even posted something on github or user group to offer such change. Unfortunately it did not happen, maybe because it’s Qt software and Qubes OS currently stick mostly with GTK stuff.
Why? What was changed in R4.3? If it is the case and such major regression exists, it should be reported on github issues and marked as major or even blocker.
Maybe because templates are as much as possible upstream. As small changes as possible.
Ok, I missed this one, and I just tried playing it in smplayer.
If I full screen it on my FHD monitor, I get 300 Frame dropped on output over the 52s, so 5 fps are dropped.
If I repeat the test on the 4k monitor I get 1750 frames dropped, so 33fps (original video seams to give 59.4 fps ).
If I watch the same video in 2K and set my 4k monitor resolution to 2k, I have no frame drop on this video with smplayer, but still a lot with firefox.
Maybe I misunderstood something, but freetube statistics shows a total of 4922 frames for the 52 seconds clip. 60FPS on 52’ would be actually 3120, but I guess there are some frames for signaliting or whatever.
But how can mpv drop 15k frames ? Are we maybe looking at different things ?
I’ve watched it more closely and it’s around ~2048 on 2k vo=sdl (default), ~734 on 2k with vo=x11 .
Statement from before was not “precise” 
Qubes isn’t really designed for multimedia right now. I think we should consider ourselves lucky to have this much already. It’ll resolve itself anyway when 4.3 is stable.
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I am talking about already existing solutions. People suffer with garbage Gnome/xfce players, while any user can at any moment install mpv/smplayer and have 1080p with almost no issues RIGHT NOW. Even more - for the last many years. Users just do not know.
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How resolved in R4.3? I think allowing video hardware acceleration in qubes is not planned for R4.3, is it?
Are you sure VLC has all the necessary codecs? I’ve noticed that when I don’t install them via plugins, video playback is terrible.