Low cpu usage decoder+render for netbook...

[elmuz]

Hello everyone, I have a netbook (MSI Wind-U100, Intel Atom cpu) with a 10'' display, running Windows 7 32bit.
When I connect the netbook to an external TV (32'' HDready) it can't play mkv hd files... they slow and not fluid...
What do you thunk is the best combination for low-end hardware....?
I usually go with FFFShow+Haali+MPC-HC (evr..)
Any suggestion?

[Baldrick]

You could try splash. But I don't think it will work that well with hd 1080p files.

[guns1inger]

What are the specs of the video ? Chances are the Atom cannot play HD mkv files smoothly. The other thing is to make sure that only one display is being used at a time. If you are connecting to a TV, make sure only the video is being used, and not the netbook screen as well. The atom is about a weak a CPU as you can get outside of a cell phone CPU, so don't expect it to do much. You may find that the only solution is to re-encode the videos down to a much lower resolution and bitrate so the slow CPU can keep up.

[elmuz]

Thank you.... But do you think the harder job is decoding or rendering? ...I mean: would it be easier to play 720p upscaled to 1080p or a 1080p donwnscaled for a 720p tv?

[guns1inger]

Decoding H264 video takes a reasonable amount of grunt. Your TV will do whatever scaling is necessary using it's own hardware, so you should even try to do that with the netbook.

You haven't yet said if the netbook can actually play these videos normally to it's own screen, and if you are outputting all the video to the TV, or outputting to both screens at the same time.

Decoding is done by the CPU, rendering is done by the graphics chipset, which in this case is low-end intel on-board. While it is capable of displaying 720p to the laptop screen, you get no hardware assist from the chipset, leaving the CPU to do all the heavy work. This chipset often struggles to display video on the built-in screen and through the output port at the same time, even if the video isn't HD.

[elmuz]

Tonight I'll check about playing video only on the 10'' display...
Yesterday I was connecting with VGA cable to the TV, turning off netbook display, setting other resolution to HDready, double cick on the file and that's it ---> jerky (actually even slowing, with audio going normally)...