Suggestion for All how to watch dvd/mpeg4 on old machines

[junglemike]

Hello everyone. I LOVE to play with old thinkpads around.
I've bought number of dead old thinkpads, repaired them and playing with various versions of linux and windows.

YOu would be surpries of what old P-II machines can do IF (and it's a big IF) you know what software to use.
And this means you need to try and find a very optimized sofware for what you are looking for.

For example. We all read pdf files - Acrobat reader is is very hard on cpu and eats tons of ram. Alternative - Foxit pdf reader, which works on 266-300mhz machines faster than acrobat works on P4-dual core.

I currently have
TP-770X (PII-300mhz/8mb videoram)
TP-600 (PII-266mhz/2mb videoram)
TP-760(PI-mmx-166mhz/1mb videoram)

770 and 600 play EASILY even the largerst video files easily. that means Mpeg, Divx, Xvid and other Mpeg-4 files with dvd-resolutions (720x576).
All you have to do - is to find a good optimized player (not windows media player of course).
One very good free multiplatform player is Mplayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/projects.html
It decodes divx/xvid very efficiently. Mostly 50% cpu usage on P-II-300mhz with average movie.

Another futher optimized player is Tcpmp - it uses smallest possible amount of ram and cpu and supports lots of formats:
http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/

I was even able to play a 480x336 xvid video on PI-166mhz with tcpmp.

those 2 players don't use windows directshow and include all codecs and filters by themselves.
There is a well-known FFDSHOW which is also very good and enables any windows player (directshow based - like WMP,bsplayer) to play most known formats in very cpu-efficient way.

[vmesquita]

Hi junglemike,

This so true. My Thinkpad 600E can do nearly everything, except perhaps modern 3D games. (but some old abandonware runs just fine).
MPlayer is also my choice, however it does use Directshow in Windows version. So be sure to get this driver:
http://members.driverguide.com/driver/d ... rid=113152
Made a huge difference on my 600E.
I haven't tried Tcpmp but I am curious to check. I have played with FFDShow, but the CPU usage was much higher than with MPlayer. It may be a build issue however, FFDShow has tons of builds floating around.

[pkiff]

One very good free multiplatform player is Mplayer
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/projects.html
It decodes divx/xvid very efficiently. Mostly 50% cpu usage on P-II-300mhz with average movie.

Another futher optimized player is Tcpmp - it uses smallest possible amount of ram and cpu and supports lots of formats:
http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/

Thanks for the helpful pointers junglemike. I've gotten used to using Media Player Classic for my older machines, including my 770E, and that has worked very well for me. I'd be interested in knowing if you've seen comparisons between these players and Media Player Classic.

MPlayer is also my choice, however it does use Directshow in Windows version. So be sure to get this driver:
http://members.driverguide.com/driver/d ... rid=113152
Made a huge difference on my 600E.

Vmesquita, I notice that you also recommended this driver over on the Accelerating Video on the 600X thread, but I'm still not quite sure what to make of this other driver. I guess I am sceptical that this other driver really will make much difference to the one issued by IBM specifically for the IBM hardware. And I guess I find driverguide an annoying site, so am loathe to point people there.

You say that this other driver made a huge difference for you when playing compressed video. Are you comparing it with the version 5.39.00 Video Driver (NM2200) for Windows 2000 - ThinkPad 380Z, 570/E, 600E/X from IBM? And if so, are there any lost functionalities or incompatibilities that you know of -- for e.g. with docking stations or TV-out signals? The comments on DriverGuide are a bit all over the map and it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I'm still trying to pin down where this other driver came from originally -- i.e. who wrote it and for which machines. And I'm still trying to understand if the core files were written in 2002 as suggested by the file dates, or were they actually written back in 2000 (the same time as the IBM drivers) as suggested by the 1994-2000 copyright date on the core system files -- and then simply repackaged in 2002.

If these other drivers really are an improvement over the latest drivers ever released by IBM, then I'd be interested in knowing where they came from so that I can figure out how to host them somewhere other than DriverGuide.com -- since I'm 100% positive that DriverGuide.com does not own the copyright, and probably does not even have written distribution rights.

Any additional information you have about these drivers would be helpful.

Phil.

[SUSIEJO]

Thanks for the info. I have currently been getting some old thinkpads and playing around with them so this will be helpful.

[vmesquita]

Hi pkiff,

I was comparing this driver with the one that comes nativelly in Windows XP install, I never tried this driver you posted. I don't know if TV-Out and docking station work correctly because my 600E doesn't feature TV-Out and I don't have a docking station to test.
I'll later run some tests with this official driver you pointed out to compare.
I have no idea where those drivers may have come from, I just read somewhere in this forum that there were some drivers release for Sony Vaio with the same chipset, so I googled, found this drivers and gave it a try...

[]'s
VMesquita

[BillG]

I've used Media Player Classic (MPC) with Quicktime Alternative on my 850MHz 600X. Worked great for Quicktime (.mov) files.

Then I installed MPC with Real Alternative and all hell broke loose. Now, .mov files won't all play in MPC - but oddly enough they will play in Windows Media Player!

RealPlayer is crapware.

[kocoman]

Are you the junklemike that made the Palm Tungsten battery 4000mah mods?

[Wingnut]

.....For example. We all read pdf files - Acrobat reader is is very hard on cpu and eats tons of ram. Alternative - Foxit pdf reader, which works on 266-300mhz machines faster than acrobat works on P4-dual core......

Thanks for this tip. I was getting choppy playback on my 600X. I tried a lot of tricks I have read here in the forums. Some helped, some didn't. But this one makes the DVD watchable now. Its still not super smooth, but the chopyness is almost gone after removing Acrobat reader.

Any other tips like that one? I have the color setting to 16 bit, removed my AV software and I am running both VLC & media player classic.

Thanks.

[Dark Savant0]

Anyone have any youtube tips? My mom uses a 600E and it's kinda sad for her to try and watch the news on MSNBC...

[virge]

Wingnut: Regarding removing Acrobat Reader, did you try just disabling the speedlauch startup to see if that's the problem rather than the entire program? Just removing speedlaunch seemed to help on my 600E, but I didn't try removing Acrobat Reader entirely.