720p Video Playback No Go, Any Suggestions?

So I bought the Acer Aspire One with 1gb Memory, 160gb Hard Drive and Windows XP. I tried some various 720 HD formats including Mpeg4 and MKV files. Both seem to lag, maybe getting 15 frames per second and the audio is not alligned with the video. I have tried Windows Media Player, Quicktime and Media Player Classic and all do the same thing. Now I know originally that the Atom was suppose to be able to plat 720p. Am I to assume that it really does not? Or is extremely limited? Know of any tweaks or any possible way to get the audio to stay in sync with the video (even if forced)? Any recommended video players? I have the latest graphics driver installed as well.

 

It is very hit or miss on 720p content.
Some of the Revision3 720p stuff plays, but that is very low bit rate.
Beyond that I would look for lower bit rate files and lower complexity codex (mpeg2 instead of h.264)
Otherwise Your stuck with HDlite. I won't worry about it too much since the screen isn't 720p anyway.
(1024x720) vs (1024x600)

That said, unscaled DVDs look great.

 

Try it while plugged into the power socket (I haven't tried 720p myself...)

If that works better than it might be your power settings. Windows defaults to running the CPU slower when on battery power, depending on your power scheme. Go into Control Panel/Power Options, and see what yours is set to.

p.

 

You should use HD 720p wmv instead of MKV, it runs perfectly on AOA. I cannot play MKV 720p smoothly on my AOA with any type of configurations and players.

 

I use KMplayer for both wmv and mkv (both Mpeg2 and H.264 coded) content and they played flawlessly. In fact, I was able to play a 720p video through a projector (1280x768, extend desktop) while the A150's own screen plays a rmvb file. When I set the settings to High Performance, I was able to do that while running on battery, I guess Vista rocks.

 

I'm still on XP myself. Setting to high performance runs the CPU at top speed, but of course drains the battery quicker. hmm, tradeoffs...

As a quick check, under My Computer/properties reports the current speed of the CPU. When power mode is set to 'max battery', the cpu runs @ 800mhz, which can be low enough for video decoding to get choppy, depending on the video.

 

This video seems to run fine, but with all of these open it lag every ten seconds a little bit
Media Player Classic + FFDSHOW = Win

I will try CoreAvc, i've heard that it uses like 10~20 less cpu with equal quality.

 

Zoom player gives me the best results on 720p MKV files of the players I have tried (Vista - WMP, VLC, MPC and Zoom), but it still isn't good. Other formats (such as a 720p avi I made) play perfectly though, so MKV must be encoded very differently I guess - the hardware will handle the 1280x720 resolution at a good frame rate, it must just be the MKV format for some reason.

 

I have watched Macross Frontier (h.264, 720p, 24fps) on it using Media Player Classic + ffdshow, and I get smooth playback all the way - provided I don't use subtitles. The Advanced SubStation Alpha subs freeze the video every 10-15 seconds, but without losing sync with the audio. I have also watched Firefly 720p, and it played smoothly, even from an external HDD over USB. So far, the 720p playback is more than satisfactory.

 

720p MKVs run fine with coreavc and media player classic here. coreavc is less resource intensive than ffdshow, so if you can get it use it.

 

Yeah, some videos plays fine, put depend on the bitrate and codec.
Anime come usually, 22 minutes on 200 MB, wich is not so much quality due to using simple colors and the Xvid codec.
Great Quality videos or blueray rips come like in 200 MB but only for 4 mins of video on mpeg-4 of what I think some high complexity, of course the AA1 can handle that.

Im thinking, on using the desktop pc to convert all of the media at 1024x600 or 1280x720 with a useful settings to play smotly all of that.
I think, as now, video bitrate 3000~4000 kbps, Xvid with AVI container [mkv is only a container] works fine but need to do some tests [im using media coder to do that]

This can end well but not for all media.

Edit:

This video 1280x1024 plays fine even with a 22" at 1680x1050 monitor.

 

I think vlc player should be a save bet for performance gains. havent tried on the aao yet, but on my old laptop it gave me smooth playback of hd content that stuttered on any other player.

 

Like someone else has already said i think that the best option is
coreavc codec and zoom player, i like to watch anime and when
i was installing my new aspire one with winxp i first tried
ffdshow and when i was using subtitles the image was ok
but the audio was out of sync especially when there was a lot of
action then when i installed coreavc 1.8 and configured it to be the
player of all h264 video the problem was corrected now i can watch
macross frontier h264 mkv at 1280x720 or 720p without any problem
For the moment i think that the coreavc codec is the best codec for this
kind of videos and because it's more efficient i think that it's best for
the battery life
cya

 

I can tell you one thing, this thing isn't designed for hd content, so the no.1 way to solve this problem is to watch this on another lappy or desktop.
Or get external graphic cards, they cost big $$$.

 

What are you using to output to the projector from the Aser One?

 

I bought an AA1 just to watch 720p content on it. I had some problems setting it up, but once I installed coreavc (trial for now) and made sure it was correctly configured, I can watch just about any 720p content: Frontier, Gundam and Atlantis, all play fine on Windows XP.
The trick is making sure that your player (be it Zoom, WMPC or WMP) is actually using the coreavc codec. This is done by correctly configuring ffdshow.

I have a strong urge to install Ubuntu on it, but I have the feeling that I will loose all the coreavc gains

Best regards!

 

CoreAVC can be used on linux: http://code.google.com/p/coreavc-for-linux/

Check the Core forums as well. Good luck!

 

O Snap, alredy got the CoreAVC Codec working...
I install the ffdshow and MPC was using that for default...

This video was not showhing right, it play sometime but then skip a lot of seconds, play some more and skip other bunch of seconds... then i configure MPC to use CoreAVC [Go to Options, External Filters, Add Filter, select CoreAVC and set it to Prefer]

This is the video, i think now all 720p will play good.
ftp://micksam7.com/demos/nvscene08/andr ... rgazer.mp4

 

The problem with your video is it is pretty high bitrate, the average is well over 5000 kbps and it's also 30 fps instead of 24. On my machine, i can play it fine if i switch from my preferred EVR renderer to overlay renderer, using CoreAVC of course. With those settings there's just a couple of places that pause for just a split second.

That's a pretty tough test for the AAO.

 

Yes, Vista rocks, but I don't think it was Vista. I installed KMPlayer, and it ran videos that would normally run all choppy in VLC Media Player like a hot knife through butter (cliche *cringe*). It adds so much FPS to my videos, it makes me wonder how they do it. Better codecs possibly? Its just damn good.

KMPlayer rocks! and thanks for introducing it to me

If you don't feel like using CoreAVC (which, I think cost money?), KMPlayer is freeware. And donate for good stuff.