Netbook Windows 7 Video Performance

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montezuma

Weaksauce
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Oct 3, 2006
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I ran Win7 on my netbook for a few months when I first got it, but decided to go to XP because of the video playback performance. Recently I tried to wipe it to fresh XP, but had some issues I didn't feel like tackling, so I went back to Win7 (having forgotten about the video issues). While I adore Win7, I can't abide the atrocious performance I'm getting with videos presently. DVD res and below is watchable, but every several seconds there is a "hitch" where is locks up for a very short moment before continuing, while 720p is impossible. On XP, my netbook could handle the occasional 720p video (though not all). So, I'm wondering if there are ways that have been found since the last time I tried to solve this issue that you guys know of. Changing the theme to classic even doesn't help.

Specific model is EEE PC 1005HA, and I use a recent version of the K-Lite Codec Pack. Win7 is updated. Any other info can definitely be provided upon request.
 
montezuma said:
blah blah blah K-Lite Codec Pack
Click to expand...

Stopped reading right there, amazing I made it that far since I already knew what the problem was going to be before I got to that point.

First off:

Windows 7 itself comes with a multi-format decoding capability that nothing else out there can really touch except for maybe having ffdshow installed - however, because of Windows 7's native ability to play back about 98% of the content you'll find on the Internet (and I'll get specific here in a second), you need to do 1 of 2 things (and I strongly recommend the second):

1) Get rid of the K-Lite Codec Pack - it is for all intents and purposes (with respect to Windows 7) useless and will plain as day fuck things up for you and anyone that chooses to install that atrocious piece of crap. There, that's a better use of the word 'atrocious' for ya... :) There is zero reason to use that "codec pack" - absolutely zero. If you need specific codec support, most likely it'll be Real content and that's explained below. But get rid of it, and once it's uninstalled, run a Registry cleaner (CCleaner is recommended), and also go into Program Files and find any remnants of anything with "K-Lite" in the directory name. You might have luck with this but, honestly that "codec pack" just wrecks things too much in my opinion, hence the second recommendation...

2) Wipe that Netbook clean and put Windows 7 on there all by itself, and install 1 additional piece of software (actually 2 I suppose): Media Player Classic Home Cinema aka MPC-HC, and the second would be Haali's Media Splitter so you can handle part of that 1.9% that would end up in almost 100% compatibility with most anything.

With Windows 7 (just the OS itself) + MPC-HC + Haali's Media Splitter you will end up being able to play pretty much 99.9% of the video files and formats that exist today on the Internet or wherever - that includes AVI, MKV, MP4, M4V, etc (the containers), Xvid, Divx, h.264, MPEG1/2/4 (the codecs/formats), etc.

The only thing you're not going to be able to play with that Windows 7 + MPC-HC + Haali's Media Splitter will be Real Media content, of any kind. Only people that still use that hideous crap (it's not worthy of 'atrocious') are anime fans and if necessary, you can install RealAlternative just to get the codecs and not the shitty RealPlayer itself.

Long story real short: Get Windows 7 installed clean - highly recommended because you can never ever be 100% sure that K-Lite Codec Pack will properly uninstall and not leave traces or screw things up any worse than it already has. Get MPC-HC (there's the official build which is quite old, and more consistently developed builds which offer new features and better performance that appear almost daily) and use that as you media player of choice. The GMA950 in that EEE of yours is fully 720p capable - the issue is the Atom processor but, it too is capable depending on the content you're trying to play.

1080p? Basically out of the question at reliable and consistent framerates, period.

There are a number of guides on getting great skip and lag-free playback of pretty much all 720p content but I'll let you find those yourself. I've had the original Eee Netbook (not even close to the performance of that 1005HA) and could play 720p files without skipping a beat.

If worse comes to worse there is one last hope: get CoreAVC, the most efficient software decoder there is for most of the codecs that 720p files will use (meaning h.264/VC1/WMV-1/MPEG4/etc).

It's about $10, and it is soooooooooo worth every cent on such a machine as yours if you cannot get the playback going any other way.

WMP12 in Windows 7 is fine if that's your choice, but MPC-HC offers so much more potential, tweaks, and performance benefits that it almost demands being used. VLC? Crap... it just can't do it on Netbooks for a wide variety of reasons.

KMPlayer is a potential alternative as well, so is SMPlayer (front-end for MPlayer which is required obviously) and yes, it has a Windows build also.

This should get you better 720p playback easily. If that Netbook can't even play basic DVD content (MPEG2 stuff), then something is totally borked. MPEG2 can be done on freakin' Pentium II 500 machines and that Atom is certainly more powerful than something that old... :)

But stop using any and all "codec packs" - Windows 7 does all that itself now... ok, ALMOST all of it. Needs a little bit of assistance from MPC-HC and Haali's as required.

Yes this was a long post but I wanted to cover the bases as much as I could. :D
 
I've used Win7 + K-lite codec pack since release day with zero problems.
 
yeah... bahamut before you go around calling other peoples software atrocious why don't either give us a brief explanation of whats wrong with that software or go write a solution yourself, because as it is you just look like an MPC shill.

but yeah, I've been using MPC for a while. Windows 7 understands a variety of formats (outside of just videos, this is the first version of windows where I can actually double click an ISO without any 3rd party software and have something useful come up!) mkv and ogg being the two that windows 7 still wont decode, and MPC will.

never used K-Lite.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
yeah... bahamut before you go around calling other peoples software atrocious why don't either give us a brief explanation of whats wrong with that software or go write a solution yourself, because as it is you just look like an MPC shill.

but yeah, I've been using MPC for a while. Windows 7 understands a variety of formats (outside of just videos, this is the first version of windows where I can actually double click an ISO without any 3rd party software and have something useful come up!) mkv and ogg being the two that windows 7 still wont decode, and MPC will.

never used K-Lite.
Click to expand...

There's a ton of info here at this forum giving comparisons of players and whatnot, and personal opinions from other people just those of my own which I offered here, nothing new going on.

If you install the Ogg codecs (for Vorbis decoding capability) and Haali's Media Splitter (which is not a codec), you can use WMP to play MKV and Ogg Vorbis content including video inside Ogg containers - all using WMP or even Windows Media Center. In fact, you can play MKV content with Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center just by adding Haali's Media Splitter - it's not a codec but allows WMP/MC7 to read MKV containers without breaking a sweat.

That's the point with Windows 7: there is almost zero need to install anything else to be able to cover almost every single potential format for audio and video out there.

More people have broken more shit on Windows 7 and created more trouble for themselves with codec packs than most any other single method (with respect to video playback). Codec packs overwrite a lot of system configuration "stuff" in Windows 7, take over aspects of video playback that Windows 7 is actually better at (and less troublesome), as well as keeping the systems clean of gunk if you don't install such things, as the case(s) may be.

Go over to the Home Theater PCs & Equipment subforum here at the [H]ardForum and make a post talking about codec packs, especially the K-Lite one, and watch what happens... it's not a pretty thing to witness. ;)

If using the best media player for Windows - that's MPC-HC, of course, in my opinion - makes me a shill, so be it but I'm far from being alone.
 
Bahamut said:
Stopped reading right there, amazing I made it that far since I already knew what the problem was going to be before I got to that point.
Click to expand...

My hats off to you sir... Finally another person out there that "gets it". This post has been bookmarked so I can direct others to it. God knows we will get plenty more of these threads.... :D

ONLY thing I have ever installed on my Win 7 installations has been MPC-HC from here and Haalis. Windows Media Center plays back everything when I sit on my bed, and MPC-HC plays everything when I'm at my desk.
 
Huh. I had never heard that Win7 included that kind of codec support. I just went on with my standard list of installs without a second thought. I'll give it a try!
 
That's perhaps one of the most KICK ASS (great movie, btw) aspects of Windows 7, and it's still not really that well known. People just load it up and go right back to their old habits of "ok, this codec pack, this old software, this that this that those" and never even think it's an issue.

Things are different now, even more different than Vista tried to get people moving towards.

Windows 7 is truly the OS Microsoft has been hoping to create for so long and finally did it - again, my opinion but I'm most definitely not alone with that one, not by a very long shot.

It takes care of itself, handles nearly anything you can throw at it, and smiles and just keeps right on going like the freakin' Energizer Bunny itself. ;)

Clean install (if you're up for it), then pick a media player and play your files, really. Give that a shot, nothing else. No codec packs at all, avoid them like the plague and see how things work out for you. I'll bet they'll be better, I just can't say by how much - that's something you'll have to judge for yourself.

MPC-HC is widely regarded as the best media player (the focus being on video content/files) on the Windows platform and has been for some time. I just found out not 2-3 hours ago that the latest release candidate (read: late stage beta) of VLC is out and finally - after years of not having it - now has proper GPU support meaning it will offload the video processing on your video card's GPU to help out, especially with high powered video cards.

Unfortunately, that GMA950 in your EEE Netbook doesn't count for much - that's not a fault of VLC or MPC-HC or any player, it's just an older GPU that was never really designed for the onslaught of HD content the world now has to deal with on computers.

Regardless, I still suggest using MPC-HC. It's a single .exe - one single executable - and offers more in that one .exe file than most media players offer and they can be 5, 10, sometimes 20x larger in terms of resource usage and sheer disk space, etc.

Best source for updated current MPC-HC builds as I mentioned above is here (and yes, criccio offered the same link):

http://xvidvideo.ru

Yes, I realize it's a Russian domain but, thousands of people almost daily get their MPC-HC builds from there (most of the people working on the project are over there anyway) and the files are clean and they just work. You'll need to get the DirectX 9 installer as well (MPC-HC uses some runtime aspects of DirectX 9). They'll have a link on the download page to get the DirectX web installer direct from Microsoft (the link will take you there).

Windows 7 rocks, there's just no way around it.

Disclaimer: I am not a shill for anything or anyone, but I will most definitely make it known when something works well, and MPC-HC + Windows 7 (and Haali's if required for WMP/MC7 usage) works really damned well.
 
Bahamut said:
Stopped reading right there, amazing I made it that far since I already knew what the problem was going to be before I got to that point.

First off:

Windows 7 itself comes with a multi-format decoding capability that nothing else out there can really touch except for maybe having ffdshow installed - however, because of Windows 7's native ability to play back about 98% of the content you'll find on the Internet (and I'll get specific here in a second), you need to do 1 of 2 things (and I strongly recommend the second):

1) Get rid of the K-Lite Codec Pack - it is for all intents and purposes (with respect to Windows 7) useless and will plain as day fuck things up for you and anyone that chooses to install that atrocious piece of crap. There, that's a better use of the word 'atrocious' for ya... :) There is zero reason to use that "codec pack" - absolutely zero. If you need specific codec support, most likely it'll be Real content and that's explained below. But get rid of it, and once it's uninstalled, run a Registry cleaner (CCleaner is recommended), and also go into Program Files and find any remnants of anything with "K-Lite" in the directory name. You might have luck with this but, honestly that "codec pack" just wrecks things too much in my opinion, hence the second recommendation...

2) Wipe that Netbook clean and put Windows 7 on there all by itself, and install 1 additional piece of software (actually 2 I suppose): Media Player Classic Home Cinema aka MPC-HC, and the second would be Haali's Media Splitter so you can handle part of that 1.9% that would end up in almost 100% compatibility with most anything.

With Windows 7 (just the OS itself) + MPC-HC + Haali's Media Splitter you will end up being able to play pretty much 99.9% of the video files and formats that exist today on the Internet or wherever - that includes AVI, MKV, MP4, M4V, etc (the containers), Xvid, Divx, h.264, MPEG1/2/4 (the codecs/formats), etc.

The only thing you're not going to be able to play with that Windows 7 + MPC-HC + Haali's Media Splitter will be Real Media content, of any kind. Only people that still use that hideous crap (it's not worthy of 'atrocious') are anime fans and if necessary, you can install RealAlternative just to get the codecs and not the shitty RealPlayer itself.

Long story real short: Get Windows 7 installed clean - highly recommended because you can never ever be 100% sure that K-Lite Codec Pack will properly uninstall and not leave traces or screw things up any worse than it already has. Get MPC-HC (there's the official build which is quite old, and more consistently developed builds which offer new features and better performance that appear almost daily) and use that as you media player of choice. The GMA950 in that EEE of yours is fully 720p capable - the issue is the Atom processor but, it too is capable depending on the content you're trying to play.

1080p? Basically out of the question at reliable and consistent framerates, period.

There are a number of guides on getting great skip and lag-free playback of pretty much all 720p content but I'll let you find those yourself. I've had the original Eee Netbook (not even close to the performance of that 1005HA) and could play 720p files without skipping a beat.

If worse comes to worse there is one last hope: get CoreAVC, the most efficient software decoder there is for most of the codecs that 720p files will use (meaning h.264/VC1/WMV-1/MPEG4/etc).

It's about $10, and it is soooooooooo worth every cent on such a machine as yours if you cannot get the playback going any other way.

WMP12 in Windows 7 is fine if that's your choice, but MPC-HC offers so much more potential, tweaks, and performance benefits that it almost demands being used. VLC? Crap... it just can't do it on Netbooks for a wide variety of reasons.

KMPlayer is a potential alternative as well, so is SMPlayer (front-end for MPlayer which is required obviously) and yes, it has a Windows build also.

This should get you better 720p playback easily. If that Netbook can't even play basic DVD content (MPEG2 stuff), then something is totally borked. MPEG2 can be done on freakin' Pentium II 500 machines and that Atom is certainly more powerful than something that old... :)

But stop using any and all "codec packs" - Windows 7 does all that itself now... ok, ALMOST all of it. Needs a little bit of assistance from MPC-HC and Haali's as required.

Yes this was a long post but I wanted to cover the bases as much as I could. :D
Click to expand...
Great advice.
 
Last edited:
I removed K-lite, and 480p is now playing smoothly! Now if only I could figure out 720p. :p
 
CoreAVC is the only way. My craptastic Acer Aspire One plays 720p H264 video in MKV containers with MPC-HC + CoreAVC.

Keep in mind though. Just installing CoreAVC (or any standalone filter for that matter) doesn't mean you media player will just start automatically using it. You need to configure MPC-HC to use CoreAVC as your preferred H264 filter.
 
Aha! It works. It isn't perfect, but it's plenty watchable. Thanks for your very complete help, everyone!
 
If you have a spare mini PCIe slot in that netbook, you could install an HD decoder card. That would allow you to play 1080p content smoothly.
 
Bahamut said:
There's a ton of info here at this forum giving comparisons of players and whatnot, and personal opinions from other people just those of my own which I offered here, nothing new going on.

If you install the Ogg codecs (for Vorbis decoding capability) and Haali's Media Splitter (which is not a codec), you can use WMP to play MKV and Ogg Vorbis content including video inside Ogg containers - all using WMP or even Windows Media Center. In fact, you can play MKV content with Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center just by adding Haali's Media Splitter - it's not a codec but allows WMP/MC7 to read MKV containers without breaking a sweat.

That's the point with Windows 7: there is almost zero need to install anything else to be able to cover almost every single potential format for audio and video out there.

More people have broken more shit on Windows 7 and created more trouble for themselves with codec packs than most any other single method (with respect to video playback). Codec packs overwrite a lot of system configuration "stuff" in Windows 7, take over aspects of video playback that Windows 7 is actually better at (and less troublesome), as well as keeping the systems clean of gunk if you don't install such things, as the case(s) may be.

Go over to the Home Theater PCs & Equipment subforum here at the [H]ardForum and make a post talking about codec packs, especially the K-Lite one, and watch what happens... it's not a pretty thing to witness. ;)

If using the best media player for Windows - that's MPC-HC, of course, in my opinion - makes me a shill, so be it but I'm far from being alone.
Click to expand...

I have installed Divx Plus Software to be able to play mkv files within WMP; Divx claims their pack also supports DXVA acceleration

Do you suggest removing the Divx pack for Haali Media Splitter? Does Haali Media Splitter still offer support for DXVA when playing H.264/VC1 codecs within the mkv container?
 
montezuma said:
Huh. I had never heard that Win7 included that kind of codec support. I just went on with my standard list of installs without a second thought. I'll give it a try!
Click to expand...

With Windows 7 you really have to break away from those old habits developed from previous versions of Windows. I mean XP didn't even support DVD playback out of the box! I myself was impressed with Windows 7 being able to play the AVCHD video from my digital camcorder, without needing anything extra. Not only that, but it uses the GPU, so my single core Athlon 3200+ machine can play the 1080i video without a single hiccup. Under XP it will pause for a second every 3 seconds or so and the system requirements say you need a dual core CPU. Not with 7!
 
Jerome36 said:
With Windows 7 you really have to break away from those old habits developed from previous versions of Windows. I mean XP didn't even support DVD playback out of the box! I myself was impressed with Windows 7 being able to play the AVCHD video from my digital camcorder, without needing anything extra. Not only that, but it uses the GPU, so my single core Athlon 3200+ machine can play the 1080i video without a single hiccup. Under XP it will pause for a second every 3 seconds or so and the system requirements say you need a dual core CPU. Not with 7!
Click to expand...

XP won't play DVD's out of the box? Why do they bother including windows media player at all?
 
They had deals with a lot of companies like Intervideo and Cyberlink to use their third-party MPEG2 decoders since it dealt with decryption and licensing issues for DVD playback. Easier to just license the decoders from companies that had already paid the necessary fees, but even so it required another purchase from the end users to get the decoders which ran about $10.

When XP came out, "HTPC" wasn't even something that most consumers would have dreamed about - but some of us old bastards have been using TV tuners since the early 90s as well as using our computers as our "home entertainment" centers...
 
Bahamut said:
When XP came out, "HTPC" wasn't even something that most consumers would have dreamed about..
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure even in modern days, most consumers don't dream about HTPC computers. That's just creepy.
 
Maybe not in that sense, but they - meaning most average Joe computer owners - are aware that today it's rather easy to use their PCs (and that includes Macs too) as a device which can become the center of their "home entertainment" even if they're not aware of the HTPC acronym at all.
 
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