are you using windows vista?
vlc doesnt work properly unless you change the "video output module" to
something like opengl.
or maybe vlc cant cope with some cpu's, youcould try media player classic, it
comes with the "combined community codec pack", and plays the x264 files for me
you need a good computer to play these files in vlc
how ever even then its best to play them in media player classic with the
coreavc filter (search a site like torrentspy/demonoid for it) and ac3filter
but if you are just using a stereo speaker set up then use this version of tcpmp
h**p://www.mytempdir.com/1245340
it only needs to be extracted and no filter setup like mpc with coreavc. i think
it has coreavc filter build in but it only does stereo audio.