Laptop to run movies (VOB files) off of external harddrive

[KayAt]

My husband is wanting to watch DVDs from an external hard drive (by ripping the VOB files)

The first try seemed to work well. The second DVD wouldn't play back at the
full speed (stopping, jerky).

He uses a program called "Media Center" to play the movie VOB files.

Is this a problem with the CPU Speed? The USB transfer? Does he need firewire to handle
the speed?

Could you recommend a type of laptop? Centrino? Dual Core, AMD?

Thanks for any help.

[free is better]

you need a faster transfer such as firewire or usb 2.0.

[oldandinthe way]

I can do it on an external USB drive without problem. Centrino Duo T3400.

Unless your system is an antique, or there is a problem with your external drive, I'd question the rip.

Or your system needs defragmentation, more memory or other software maintainence.

[TooLFooL]

could be cpu speed, lack of memory, or too many processes running.

[KayAt]

Thank you everyone! Lots of good ideas as to the problem.

We are thinking of upgrading the computer for this and
its good to know that it is possible to run the VOB files.

With the cheaper cost of externals, I don't want to take the time to compress
these to something like DIVX.

Your answers are greatly appreciated!

[rallynavvie]

VOBs can still act funny with Media Center since it still uses WMP at its core. Better off ripping to ISO and mounting them using an app like MyMovies for Media Center. It uses DaemonTools to mount the ISO and then Media Center basically uses it as any DVD.

I have a storage array that holds ISOs of most of my DVD collection at my cabin so that I don't have to remember to bring them all with me all the time. I use the above method for all of those but the transfer is over gigabit network, roughly the bandwidth of FireWire. I do still get hiccups on high bitrate rips which are usually attributed to network traffic. If you're using USB it could be any other USB devices causing some extra traffic on the bus. FireWire streamlines that a little better so you can have several FireWire drives and little interference from them. It also doesn't tie up valuable system resources. Certainly the better option IMO.

[edDV]

VOB files will play fine with PowerDVD as the player (or VLC). MCE may or may not support playback from VOB but it seems to go against normal Microsoft policy.

But why play VOBs? Don't you want to launch a true DVD player with VIDEO_TS.IFO? That gets you the menus and navigation. This will work fine from a USB2 drive. A laptop may struggle to decode the MPeg2. That would cause jerky playback.