I apologise if this is in the wrong section, couldn’t think of where to put it.
I’ve been a long time user of VLC and have never had any issues with it, however recently I started noticing stuttering and tearing when playing larger movie files, so I tried out a few other players when I stumbled upon MPC-HC. Now, I’m not sure if it will solve the stuttering issue but the picture quality, from default, is much better to my eyes. Colour saturation and what I perceive to be colour accuracy is much clearer.
Now it may be possible to achieve these same results in VLC by tweaking the settings, but out of the box it is a noticeable improvement, specifically in low light (see Bone Tomahawk)
The screenshots are off files of my hard drive, with the roughly matched frame, with MPC-HC on the left and VLC on the right, with examples from different movies.
Make your own mind up on what you like, it may be worth a try to all the VLC users out there.
Mad Max - Fury Road
Avengers - Age of Ultron
Bone Tomahawk