Can most Netbooks handle HD video?

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Brucey69

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I'm in the market for a netbook for college. I'll mostly be using it for studying and for browsing the web. But I would also like to view some HD video, mostly through youtube and such. And I've read reviews saying that HD video doesn't work well on most netbooks.

Anyone know of certain models that are capable of this?
 
The answer is: not without a lot of work.

First of all, you certainly can't even see the full resolution that even 720p has to offer with any of the 1024x600-screen netbooks.

Second of all, iirc, Flash 10's H.264 decoder is slow. (and Flash 9, even slower.) You'd need to view the video outside of the Youtube player to get it to play back smoothly, and even that's a stretch. I think it is possible to get Atom to decode 720p a little faster than realtime, most of the time, if you use ffdshow or CoreAVC.
 
720p H264 works perfectly on my 1.6Ghz Atom netbook. You need CoreAVC as it is the fastest and most efficient decoder.

HD Flash? forget about it. Until Adobe comes out with a version of flash with real hardware acceleration we are SOL, and even then, you will need an ION powered netbook (or any with an equivalent GPU) to do it.
 
^like above said

720p + Core = OK
1080p of any kind = NO-K
HD Flash, Hulu = NO-K

Why is HD Youporn needed anyways? You'll be paying for the HD boobs.
 
lowteckh said:
^like above said

720p + Core = OK
1080p of any kind = NO-K
HD Flash, Hulu = NO-K

Why is HD Youporn needed anyways? You'll be paying for the HD boobs.
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Haha, nah, I'm a pretty big movie buff, and enjoy watching Youtube HD, NBC HD, and netflix.
Plus some tv-shows that are usally 720p. HD Youporn is overrated hahaha.
 
Not exactly, at first I as going to sell my desktop and get a high end laptop. But decided to upgrade my desktop and get a cheap little netbook on the side. But I'm starting to figure that I'm prolly expecting to much of them.
 
I wouldn't sell your desktop for a high end laptop. That's just my experience though.
Bought my MBP because I wanted one machine that could do it all. It's a great machine and all, but 50% deprecation over 2 years and it's still slower than a $500 desktop... learned my lesson. :eek:

If only they had the 13" MBP at that time.... Bout to sell it for a netbook... if only the ion's were out.
 
I'm in the same boat. When I found out that HD videos didnt work on most netbooks, I was left to wait. I know netbooks arent/werent made to be usedheavily for multimedia purposes like HD Youtube, Hulu, etc, but it would be nice to have that availability.

Sorry for jacking your thread, but I dont know if I should wait for the ion netbooks (Lenovo S12 or Samsung N510), or go ahead and purchase this laptop from BB; http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9370441&type=product&id=1218093004316

Thoughts?
 
Ya, I suppose I don't necessarily need ion. Somebody mentioned that the Atom could handle 720p h264. I rip my dvd's to h264 and don't really need HD youtube. It would be nice to have hardware decoding though considering the hardware's already there.

School starts in a week and I was wanting to go ahead and get rid of my MBP while I can still get something for it. I may just go ahead and get a 1000HE or something from zzf with the 20% cashback. With the discount hopefully I could come out not loosing a whole lot if I were to sell it when the Ion's come out, whenever that may be.
 
Let me say this clearly. Don't by a current gen netbook expecting ANY kind of decent play back over 720P and then that's only ok. If you're going to watching video a lot, don't use a netbook unless you're really strapped for cash and can't afford a real ultra portable.
 
Just wait for the new Ion netbooks, they should be able to play hd video, but then again why do you need HD video if the screen is below an HD resolution, unless it is a high res netbook.
 
heatlesssun said:
Let me say this clearly. Don't by a current gen netbook expecting ANY kind of decent play back over 720P and then that's only ok. If you're going to watching video a lot, don't use a netbook unless you're really strapped for cash and can't afford a real ultra portable.
Click to expand...

To be fair, with my 720p H264 BD rips I always experience great playback on my AAO with CoreAVC.
 
prodigee said:
Just wait for the new Ion netbooks, they should be able to play hd video, but then again why do you need HD video if the screen is below an HD resolution, unless it is a high res netbook.
Click to expand...

The ones I mentioned have a high res. The Samsung N510 is 11.6'' with a res of 1366 x 768 while the Lenovo S12 has a res of 1280 x 800 on a 12'' screen (something along those lines). I'm on the fence though, between these newer models or a laptop. Is the nVidia Ion better than whats found on laptops that are sub $600? Like an ATI Radeon 3200HD or the Intel ones. I dont really know much about laptops, pcs, processors and all that. :p

One
 
What the Nvidia ION is, is an Intel Atom Processor coupled with an Nvidia 9400M GPU. Its not a physical thing, but a name for the coupling of those two products.

And ION powered netbook, for normal duties (anything outside HD video playback) isn't going to be any faster than a non-ION netbook.
 
criccio said:
What the Nvidia ION is, is an Intel Atom Processor coupled with an Nvidia 9400M GPU. Its not a physical thing, but a name for the coupling of those two products.

And ION powered netbook, for normal duties (anything outside HD video playback) isn't going to be any faster than a non-ION netbook.
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me; thanks for clearing that up. I saw a vid on the Lenovo and COD4 was playing. It ran pretty smoothly. Granted I dont really game on PC, but its just a heads up for those that do. Supposedly these newer netbooks can play current games well.
 
Well, the screens are usually 1024x600 so the value of true HD video on such a small/low-res screen is questionable... The 12" models could do ture 780p I guess but still, at that size of a screen you probably wouldn't notice the difference w/DVD quality 480p video unless you're sitting on top of it and really looking for the discrepancies.

That being said, there are legitimate uses for a netbook being able to play HD stuff... Hook it up via VGA or HDMI to a larger screen and you've got a very portable pseudo-HTPC, I've used mine on a few occasions to watch Hulu stuff on my 32" HDTV and it looked fine... I wasn't opting for any of the HD streams though, those Flash streams tend to take a heavy toll on the Atom and they're not playable at all.

On the other hand, 720p rips off BD discs or downloads will play just fine with the proper software/config... As mentioned above. But that's the limit, you're definitely not gonna get smooth 1080p playback, so if you're looking at playing the same BD files/rips that you maybe keep in your HTPC you'd be out of luck.

If you're not looking to output video from the netbook to something else I really don't know why you'd be all that bothered about it's ability to handle HD video tbh. I'm pretty darn happy w/my netbook, but I'm probably not upgrading it 'till I can get a 10-12" model with improved battery life and a better GPU for less than I got mine for in Nov ($400). 12" models seem to be a rare breed thanks to MS and Intel too, though I think 10" might be my sweet spot for portability anyway.

I'd have to get a new travel bag for my personal effects if my netbook took up any more space on the side pocket, heh...

I've gotten a ton of use out of this lil' netbook tho, and mine's an earlier 8.9" model w/a paltry 4-5 hours battery life out of it's 6-cell (that's probably average by the standards of the newer models that can get 7-8 hours). Done a lot of things on it that I never figured I would (re-encoded video overnight in a pinch, watched Hulu on the HDTV as I mentioned, light gaming... finally getting to use my phone as a BT modem has been awesome too).

P.S. An Ion config'd netbook might be able to handle HD rips/downloads better, but it's not gonna handle online HD streams any smoother because they're not accelerated at all by the GPU AFAIK (or barely so, if they are). So the advantages of Ion are really pretty one dimensional. The types of games that you tend to enjoy most on such a tiny system tend to be old school or simpler slower paced games anyway, imo. Unless you're gonna break out the mouse to play semi-modern FPS in the middle of the library/airport/etc. :p
 
ION is is no way superior to a non-Atom laptop with an equivalent chipset/GPU other than (theoretically) price and size. The trick is the GPU bit - many cheap laptops use intel GMA which is not comparable. If you see something laptop based with a 9400 or better, go for it.
 
The new Pineview platform Atom netbooks coming out next quarter will have full hardware video decoding (under Windows at least).
 
There are now decoder cards out for netbooks that can handle up to 1080p (Dell and HP offer models with them, IIRC, and bit of hacking they can be added to other netbooks). Adobe has announced that they intend to add support for these cards, eventually, to handle HD playback in Flash.
 
As others have said,

- Flash-based SD works fairly well in a windows. Of course you'll have some limitations, for example you'll want to turn off Aero if you're in Vista or W7, try to go easy on any audio enhancements, etc. Switch to Hulu 480p or any flash video full screen and expect problems depending on the content.

- Playback of DVD (mpeg2) works fine.

- 720p h264 is spotty. If you have CoreAVC or kmplayer, you'll survive--barely--but certain files will still trip you up. It can be done, but you have to be careful. Ditto for VC1.

- 1080p, forget it.

Also,

- Some netbooks have higher resolution screens. Keep in mind that the on-board video struggles as it is pumping out pixels for 1024x600. In this case, higher resolution = noticeably slower.

- N280 vs N270 doesn't really make much of a difference

- Another poster mentioned some decoder cards. Err.... no. Look them up, then go to the vendor websites and look for drivers / supported playback software / supported codecs. It's just a tease at this point.

In short, I would say that you should not rely on an Atom netbook for 720p or higher content... but you can make do with 720p under certain circumstances.

Ion should change things.
 
I don't have a problem with Hulu playing at full screen, even when the netbook is using my HDTV as the primary/only display (720p display, 1336x768 which is as high as any 12" netbook will go)... I do have to close stuff up and/or not have a lot of FF tabs and crap open in the background, but so long as there isn't much running it plays back smoothly, the SD 360p stuff that is. If I go 480p you start running into stutter issues immediately as you said.

Adobe's been promising hardware acceleration for a while too AFAIK and it hasn't materialized, I wouldn't expect it anytime soon... Chances are they're even under pressure from MS/Intel in some way to not make it a priority. Ion's only gonna help mildly with stuff that you rip/encode yourself, but most online streams probably won't be GPU-accelerated for the time being.
 
ION won't change anything. The Acer Timeline series can already output HD videos.

and I'd have have a CULV processor than an atom. Where HD decoding is equal.
 
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