Thinkpads Forum

I am new to this community but have enjoyed the info to date. I have tp600e pII 400 425 meg memory 11g hd dvd r/rw. I bought a used margi card on ebay but got no drivers or other support info.
my dvd seems to play ok with the added memory but will the dvd to go card improve dvd playback? also which type of new hd would improve performance better, 5400 rpm of 7200, I know the 7200 are more expensive. May even consider a pIII 500 or 650.
Any help would be appreciated

Welcome to the Forum!!

First things first to improve playback...are you using 16 or 32bit resolution? I would make sure that you are only using 16bit.

The hard drive won't make much difference on DVD playback, but the choice is yours on the hard drive. The 600E can handle the fastest and largest PATA 9.5 or 12.5mm 2.5" hard drive available. I think the largest made right now is 160GB.

I haven't used the Margi card, but from what I have read, it will help.

rcoiii wrote:
May even consider a pIII 500 or 650.
Any help would be appreciated

The PIII 500 and the 650 will run at the same speed in your machine because you do not have speedstep support in your motherboard. But there are some modifications that can be done to get a speedstep cpu run at full speed in a non speedstep machine. ( Use the search option to get the info )

Suggestion go with the 500mhz it's cheaper and you WILL notice a great improvement. And of course a faster hardrive too!

rcoiii wrote:I bought a used margi card on ebay but got no drivers or other support info. my dvd seems to play ok with the added memory but will the dvd to go card improve dvd playback? also which type of new hd would improve performance better, 5400 rpm of 7200, I know the 7200 are more expensive. May even consider a pIII 500 or 650.

Margi downloads, documentation, and FAQs can be found at http://www.margi.com/support/dtg_download.htm. Margi is not necessary for a p2 400 -- just run 16-bit.

lenmullen wrote: Margi is not necessary for a p2 400 -- just run 16-bit.

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but I found it while searching for info on choppy DVD play.

Just an FYI, I have a TP600 with PII 400mhz processor and my DVD play is still choppy even with 16 bit color. I tried all the tricks I could find in these forums and its still choppy. So I just bought a Margi card on E-bay last week. I have yet to receive it, so until I do, I would like to keep trying to get it going. If anyone knows of a sure fire way a PII 400 will play DVD's, please let me know. I did get a good price on the Margi card, so I don't have any reservations about using it if I have to though.

I would try to minimize the number of programs that you are using, or having running in the background, such as messenger, wireless, quicktime....

I am working with a 600E with a PII400 right now, it is playing DVDs at 16bit resolution with 0 hiccups.

FWIW, I've noticed that Windows 2000 seems to be hopeless for DVDs or other large multimedia tasks on the ThinkPad 600E while Windows 98SE and Windows XP perform great. If you have a 600, 600E or 600X with 128mb or more RAM, I'd recommend XP or 98SE.

Also make sure you have the latest display drivers (check IBM's support site) and that the color depth in Windows is set to 16-bit.

Wingnut wrote: Just an FYI, I have a TP600 with PII 400mhz processor and my DVD play is still choppy even with 16 bit color.

What is the model of your DVD drive and what are you using as a DVD player?

I have used a Margi card in a TP600 and a 570. Both were 366's and the Margi card helped tremendously. As I recall it was a bit tricky getting it to work, probably because it was a Dell OEM card. Once you got the right drivers installed and the color depth set to 16 bit it worked great. The drivers will install the DVD player program too.
I could watch a movie and still have other programs running all on a 366 with 64 megs ram. The Margi card does all of the DVD decoding and displays trhough an overlay.

I have already tried all the suggestions I found while searching through the forums. I am running XP pro. All unecessary background programs not running, color set to 16 bit, using windows media player classic, and the DVD is an OEM IBM 6x DVD drive for the 600 series laptops, fru 27L3873. Oh, and it was on A/C power as someone mentioned that theirs was only choppy on battery power.

I have a long trip coming up this weekend and would like the kids to be able to watch DVD's. I just hope the Margi card gets here before the weekend or there might be some in the car.

Thanks for all the sugestions so far though

Wingnut, you didn't mention how much RAM you have.

Bring up your task manager (hit ctrl-alt-delete). On the performance tab, check Commit Charge Total. If it's close to or larger than Physical Memory Total, you're swapping and that will have a performance hit on everything. Add RAM to help with that.

My specs are in my sig. My memory is fine in task manager. Its running at about 30%. The commit charge is 89 out of a total of 294. Its the CPU that is running at 100%. I am running XP in classic mode and I have done a bunch of things to speed up XP. There are no programs running in the background and 20 processes. Not sure if I can disable any of those??? Also, in case it makes a difference, the sound is running fine and is very smooth. Its just the video that is choppy.

Man, I just don't know what to say... a PII at 300MHz should *just* be able to play a DVD in software. There was a 600E with a 300MHz PII sold with a DVD drive and DVD Express for playback.

400MHz should not be a problem, but since your CPU is pegged, it obviously is.

Please keep us posted.

I hate to suggest this, but have you tried 800x600 resolution?

Wingnut wrote:My specs are in my sig. My memory is fine in task manager. Its running at about 30%. The commit charge is 89 out of a total of 294. Its the CPU that is running at 100%. I am running XP in classic mode and I have done a bunch of things to speed up XP. There are no programs running in the background and 20 processes. Not sure if I can disable any of those??? Also, in case it makes a difference, the sound is running fine and is very smooth. Its just the video that is choppy.

Is DMA enabled on your DVD drive? I noticed more choppiness on mine when I had turned it off.

While a 300mhz should play DVD's fine in Win98 or 2000 I would think a 400 running XP would be pushing it. XP uses more CPU than Win98 or 2000. I think XP is your problem.

Rob Mayercik wrote: Is DMA enabled on your DVD drive? I noticed more choppiness on mine when I had turned it off.

Yes, it was enabled, as per one of the many tips I read while searching the forums. But thanks for the suggestion.

I actually tried reducing the screen size as per whizkids suggestion and it really helped (thanks). The video is almost smooth. It is not choppy anymore, but every 3 secods or so, it slows down for a half second then catches up. I was watching a cartoon and I could see the rain drops slow down & speed up as they were falling. And of coarse, the screen size is now smaller too

Its not perfect, but it is an option if the Margi card doesn't arrive in time. Thanks for the tip

As a side note, the CPU is running at 4% when there is nothing going on and 100% when watching a DVD. But when I reduced the resloution, it was jumping between 96% and 100 %. That is probably when it has its 3 second hickups. So I am very close to getting it to work. I just need to figure out if I can stop any of the 20 processes that are running in the background. I can't imagine they are all required at once? I will have to google them all and see which ones I can disable.

Thanks everyone for your tips and advice.

Wingnut wrote:I just need to figure out if I can stop any of the 20 processes that are running in the background.

You might try starting with removing any Ethernet/Wifi card you may have in your PCMCIA slot, and also disabling/exiting any virus protection. Both these can be likely culprits for periodic access to your hard drive/CPU/memory resulting in hiccups in slower machines.

Phil.

what software are you using to play the DVD?

No AV program running. No PCMCIA card installed. I am using windows media player classic to play DVD's from a suggestion I read in another thread.

I think I will just have to live with it and hope the Margi card does the trick.

carbon_unit wrote:XP uses more CPU than Win98 or 2000. I think XP is your problem.

I think carbon_unit is right, then.

pkiff wrote:

carbon_unit wrote:XP uses more CPU than Win98 or 2000. I think XP is your problem.

I think carbon_unit is right, then.

Yep!

It's time for a 600E base and PIII upgrade. with at least 512MB of ram.

Wingnut wrote: I am using windows media player classic to play DVD's from a suggestion I read in another thread.

Try Mediametrics DVD Express. That's what came with the Thinkpads with DVD players, so it may be kinder to your cpu...

http://www.thinkpads.com/ftp_resource.htm

lenmullen wrote:

Wingnut wrote: I am using windows media player classic to play DVD's from a suggestion I read in another thread.

Try Mediametrics DVD Express. That's what came with the Thinkpads with DVD players, so it may be kinder to your cpu...

http://www.thinkpads.com/ftp_resource.htm

Been there, done that (sorry if that sounds nasty, I do appreciate the tips )

I can't get it to play. It gives me an error "Key exchange for DVD copy protection failed. Press OK to close the player"

But the Mediametrics DVD express program I downloaded from Compaq, so I will uininstall it and try the one in your link. Thanks again for all the tips.

Well, I got the card in the mail today, yeah. But when I tried to download the drivers, the link doesn't work

Here is the dowload page:

http://www.margi.com/support/dtg_download.htm

And if I click on the correct driver, it won't go to it. I don't suppose anyone has the wdm driver for the Margi card they could send me please???

I will end a messge to them to fix the link and keep trying I guess.

Wingnut wrote:Been there, done that (sorry if that sounds nasty, I do appreciate the tips )

I can't get it to play. It gives me an error "Key exchange for DVD copy protection failed. Press OK to close the player"

You need to update the Mediamatics install from the Lenovo support website.

That will cure the "Key Exchange" error message you're seeing.

Mediamatics or PowerDVD worked best on my old 600 machines.

James

Wingnut wrote:Well, I got the card in the mail today, yeah. But when I tried to download the drivers, the link doesn't work

Works for me.

James

You have to get the drivers/mediamatics that matches the manufacturer of your card.
If you have the regular Margi card you must use the Margi drivers, If you have a Compaq card you must use the Compaq drivers, If you have a Dell card you must use the Dell drivers, etc.
Which card do you have?

JHEM wrote:

Wingnut wrote:Well, I got the card in the mail today, yeah. But when I tried to download the drivers, the link doesn't work

Works for me.

James

Wierd. I just tried it again and I am still getting the "Page cannot be displayed" error mesage when I try to download the WDM driver?


As for your question Carbon, I bought a Margi dvd to go card with a Dell logo on it. So does that mean I need to download a driver from Dell.com and not Margi.com? I searched Dell earlier today looking for the driver and couldn't find it there? I'll look again when I have more time to search though.

Once again, thank you everyone for all your assistance

Make sure you have the Margi card in the ZV slot.