Watch videos on my Ubuntu Aspire 1

Ok, I've not used my netbook much for a while because I broke the screen, but now I'm using it as a file server. I put Ubuntu 8.10 on it, and the 120gig hard drive is fine for allowing video/music to be shared among the 2 or 3 PCs in my house. I've got it connected to my TV in the front room, which I control from another PC, and I'd like to watch videos on the TV but it's not fast enough. The video can't keep up and drops frames fairly consistently.

Is there some way of either speeding this up, using another program/distro etc etc? Surely this PC is powerful enough to watch videos on? The files are local. Does the fact I've got the netbook attached to a 26inch screen make any difference?

 

OK the acer is connected to the PC driving the tv by what?
i guess you'll need a wire.
You don't say what screen ratio you are ramping up to but 9" to 26" that's nearly three squared as many pixels.

 

Assuming you're using the Aspire as a server over wifi and the computer connected to the TV is also connected via wifi, that just ain't gonna work very well. Your wifi bandwidth is shared between two computers, both using lots of it with those large video files.

If I wanted to do this in my house, I'd move the cable modem and wifi router out of the upstairs office to the downstairs family room where the TV is. Then I'd connect the broken Aspire to the router via ethernet. That would speed everything up because the Aspire-to-router connection would be twice as fast at the very least, and it wouldn't use any of your wifi bandwidthwhen you wanted to view anything from it to any of your other computers.