VLC Pixelated Video When Skipping

Update 19th October 2016

I noticed that my Nvidia module was recompiled during an update today, so I rebooted and tested this again. It looks like the issue has now been fixed. For reference, I am running the driver version 367.57 on an Nvidia GTX 970.

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Original Answer

TL;DR

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-* -y
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y

The critical point here is that installing the drivers PPA results in the libcuda1-361 libxnvctrl0 packages being upgraded which resolves the issue. I also found that I had issues with lots of the nvidia drivers so the safest thing to do is go back to the opensource driver. I have had some success with the nvidia-340 driver though.

Full Description

Ok somehow I managed to resolve the situation by accident

Firstly I installed the drivers ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Then I purged the existing nvida drivers

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*

Then I installed the 364 drivers.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-364 -y

After rebooting, I was unable to log into Ubuntu desktop but could log into Xubuntu desktop from previous testing. This would work long enough for me to see that the video playback worked perfectly, but within a few minutes my computer would lock up and would require hard rebooting. After doing this a few times I purged the nvidia drivers again:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*

I no longer have the nvidia binary drivers installed and am on the Nouveau driver but the video playback is working and my computer doesn't lock up!

I had the same annoying issue on KDE Neon (ubuntu 16.04) with nvidia graphics (GTX 1050). I am using the nvidia drivers 375.82. To resolve this issue I had to change two vlc settings:

1. Video Settings --> Output --> X11 video output (XCB)
2. Codecs --> Hardware accelerated decoding --> VA-API video decoder via DRM

The second setting is needed to skip through some proprietary files likewmv. As far as I have tested, vlc is now working as before without the nvidia graphics card.

I was able to get mine working with nvidia-367 and nvidia-370 drivers by selecting the VLC Settings > Video > Output as "X11 video output (XCB)" instead of "VDPAU output" which had the lag when skipping. All the (XCB) options worked for me with nvidia-367 including "X11 video output (XCB)" -(didn't work on nvidia-370) and "OpenGL GLX video output (XCB)" -(OpenGL GLX worked after reboot after upgrading to nvidia-370).

Basically all the XCB options worked well (skipping, speeds), Color ASCII art worked as normal, the OpenGL (non GLX/XCB) ones aligned to the bottom left but skipped well. ASCII art (black and white) worked OK but couldn't be resized. The others didn't display stuff to screen.

Will think about updating to nvidia-370 as it just came out recently.