how to watch HD movies on X31

[atnt]

Hello everybody

I have a 4 year old ThinkPad X31 2673-W2M that I love. It's running smoothly for my needs, considering its age, my only problem is that I can't watch HD movies, I can open them but they never run smoothly.

Can I upgrade my laptop enough to be able to watch HD movies on it, or is it just too old for that ? If I can upgrade it, what should I change / add ?

SYSTEM INFO: Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (lucid)
CPU GenuineIntel, Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.6 GHz
1 Gb RAM HDD ATA SAMSUNG HM121HC 120 Gb
VGA controller ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6 LY

Thank you
aTnT

[jronald]

Full screen in HD, don't think so. Max the RAM and shut down everything you do not require to watch movies. If its one of the high CPU X31's maybe. I would also try a very light weight player, maybe Wimpy FLV?

Ron

[rambof07]

really it create problem not to work . .take technical advice may resolve this!

[RealBlackStuff]

really it create problem not to work . .take technical advice may resolve this!

English, please.

[smugiri]

You can try the Broadcom Hardware Decoder PCIe Mini Card decoder but I am not sure it will work with an X31.

The X31 has a whitelist so you will have to hack the BIOS to be able to even try this (see this thread). They are cheap enough to buy one as an experiment on eBay - they can be had for under $20.

[RealBlackStuff]

The X31/X32 just needs the NO-1802 hack to allow any wifi-card.

[Neil]

What kind of HD movies? BluRay rips or what?

[twistero]

The Broadcom Crystal HD will be a no-go because the X3x only have mini PCI sockets, not mini PCIe.

[ZaZ]

While you may have had the X31 for four years, it's seven years old. My old R60 with the T7400 ran 1080 Blu-ray rips at 30-40% of CPU usage. With a single core on the X31 I'm guessing CPU utilization will be much higher on the X31. Then there's the Linux issue. I don't know much about it, but I had I had a HTPC running Ubuntu with an AMD quad core CPU that I could never get to play Blu-ray rips properly. It ran decently, but there some hesitation and tearing. I don't know if I didn't install a codec or something, but I don't it was the hardware. Perhaps you're smarter than I, but I had to switch back to Windows 7.

[smugiri]

The Broadcom Crystal HD will be a no-go because the X3x only have mini PCI sockets, not mini PCIe.

Did not know that!

Thank you for the info!

Amazing what you learn on this forum.

[jronald]

As a side note, HD on that small of screen....kind of redundant.

YMMV
Ron

[ThinkRob]

Can I upgrade my laptop enough to be able to watch HD movies on it, or is it just too old for that ?

The latter.

Though obviously playback performance will vary wildly depending on the codec, codec parameters, bitrate, IO device, etc. the general answer is that the X31 is too old to handle most common "HD" content nowadays.

Sorry!