I have original Raspberry Pi 3 B. I have installed Ubuntu mate on 16Gb mSD card. Updated everything. And It can’t handle simple 480p video with VLC, when same RP 3B handle’s 17GB FullHD film with Kodi system.
(Video files stored on 64Gb USB Flash)
What can I possibly do to improve performance of video playback?
P.S. And it runs strange resolution when it’s connected to 1080p TV and i cant change resolution at all.
VLC was also a problem for me 
. SM player has a bit more performance. Otherwise you can definetly try chromium; no performance problems there.
SM player can’t open my test films…
And in chromium i can’t use youtube too…
Really? You can get your RPi 3b to playback 1080p HD content via Kodi reliably?
I have a RPi 3b running Kodi under OpenELEC and it’s hopeless with HD content. It’s possibly related to the codec used, but the RPi 3b really struggles to decode my HD streams to the point that I’ve switched back to an x64 HTPC based around Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and Kodi.
youtube is not working awesome, but chromium can play videos stored on the sd card (or usb stick) very smoothly.