Troubleshooting Playback Issues

Hey everyone, I've been having a persistent issue with video playback lately. When I try to play high-bitrate 4K HEVC files (especially with HDR), I experience intermittent stuttering, even though my CPU and GPU usage are well below 100%. My internet connection is stable, and the files are stored locally on a NAS.

I've already tried:

• Updating Kodi to the latest stable version (v20.3 "Nexus").
• Ensuring my graphics drivers are up to date.
• Disabling hardware acceleration and re-enabling it.
• Testing different video players within Kodi.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I can check? My system specs are:

CPU: Intel i7-12700K
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070
RAM: 32GB DDR4
OS: Windows 11
Kodi Build: v20.3

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Jason, I had a similar issue a while back. For me, it turned out to be a specific setting within Kodi's advanced player settings related to audio passthrough or synchronization. Have you experimented with disabling audio passthrough temporarily to see if that makes a difference?

Also, make sure your NAS is not bottlenecking. Sometimes the network throughput from the NAS can be a limiting factor even with a good connection.

I'm experiencing a different playback problem. Since upgrading to the latest Kodi version, my audio is consistently out of sync with the video, about half a second behind. This happens with all file types and codecs.

I've tried adjusting the audio delay settings, but it only fixes it for the current session. It resets on restart.

Has anyone else encountered this, and is there a permanent fix?

Sarah, check your Kodi configuration file (advancedsettings.xml) for any custom audio sync settings that might be overriding the GUI. Sometimes, old entries can cause conflicts after an update.

You might also want to try clearing the Kodi cache. There are add-ons available that can help with this, or you can do it manually by deleting specific folders.