Full screen video playback on 751h

It seems that a lot of users are having problems getting full-screen video to play well on the Acer Aspire One 11.6" netbook. The slow processor and weak graphics chip let it down, especially as the 1366 x 768 resolution means it has nearly twice as many pixels to deal with than the standard 1024 x 600 models...

When I got my laptop, I was similarly disappointed to see that I had to watch videos in a half-size window or suffer unwatchable choppy playback. I am running a clean install of Windows XP SP3, and had tried Media Player Classic and WMP9.

So, I tried searching around to piece together some instructions for improving full screen performance... I couldn't find a comprehensive guide that was written in clear English and worked, so it has been a bit of a struggle. Ideally I would like to write up my experience for the how-to guides board here, but I don't really have the time and certainly don't understand enough about video codecs..

After a few quite bodged attempts, I can now watch full screen video from my hard disk (mp4/avi .x264 and wmv up to 720p), and can watch streaming video in full screen (e.g. youtube up to 480p). I don't know if this is particularly good, but it's certainly better than my laptop could achieve before.

Here's what I did:

• Install the latest video drivers for your Intel GMA 500 chip from Intel: http://tinyurl.com/2v4pw7y[/*:m:1nxuhfld]
• Install Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC)
  I used the K-Lite Codec pack (standard) from http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_l ... c_pack.htm[/*:m:1nxuhfld]
• Set up the video renderer in MPC-HC: In View > Options > Playback > Output select “VMR-9 (renderless)” for the DirectShow video.[/*:m:1nxuhfld]
• Install the Intel Media Codecs (as best as is possible)
  This is the stage that doesn't complete properly, but I believe is the one that brings about the biggest gains in decoding speed... The codecs are designed for Vista, and don't install in XP properly. Enough of the components appear to install (in my testing) for them to work though, as I have experienced no problems since installing them.
  
  I uploaded my copy of the drivers to Mediafire here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yxc0iq7rgmkcvy6
  
  Otherwise, you can either download them from the Sony Vaio website, but the installer will only work if you have a Vaio running Vista. Source: http://pcloadletter.co.uk/2010/07/15/gma-500-dxva-vc1/
  
  Or you can download them, along with a load of other tools for improving HD video performance, from a post on the eeePC forum (see the bottom post). A word of advice though, the Cyberlink H264 decoder that is included in this package appears to be infected with a virus/trojan - 28 scanners on virustotal.com report malware.[/*:m:1nxuhfld]

I don't know which of these stages makes the improvement, or if there is a better way of doing this. Perhaps one of the experts here could help out?

 

Well, im sure this is not exactly what you are wanting to here. but xp is no longer supported by Intel when it concerns the GMA 500. Windows 7 is there main focus now. but the GMA 500 is much more powerful then you might think, the drivers just haven't been up to par but are getting much better, and i myself, with alot of optimization, can play many games previously untouchable by the GMA 500, so if you have the money give windows 7 a try.