External Media Player for PC, TV and Monitor?

[Dragoneer]

Can someone suggest an external player that can play as many file types as possible to that will also enable me to watch it on my laptop, TV and desktop monitor while connected? I don't own a desktop, but I’m thinking about purchasing a monitor.

As a side note, I can watch Cable/Dish broadcasts via Media Center and was considering two screens, my laptop screen for computing, and using the monitor for TV and also with the player I'm inquiring about if there is such a thing.

The reason is that I purchased a laptop 5 years ago for 2 grand (U.S.) when HD was not that prevalent so I never played a HD file until recently.

If I go to YouTube and play 480 or lower, everything is fine. Once I try 720 or higher, my CPU immediately shoots to 100% and the video stops and starts and sometimes the audio will run ahead of the video.

At first I thought it was a Internet speed issue, but I have 6.0 DSL and after asking around found out that was not the problem.

This also happens with HD files, but with slightly less drastic results. I have MPC Home Cinema, VLC and some others.

I contacted Nvidia, gave them my video card info and they said that my video card isn't the problem and no driver update would fix the problem.

I then contacted the manufacturer and luckily even though I'm out of warranty, the tech spoke with me and said that the culprit is my fan.

He said it can't spin fast enough to compensate for the increased load on the processor to cool it down and the fan speed can't be changed/overridden by software, or swapped out for something else like a desktop, so I'm stuck with what I have.

[Dragoneer]

Neuron2, you removed the link so I don't know what reason 6 is.

My issue doesn't seem to fit into any particular section that I looked at that's why I posted it here.

I did search around and couldn't find anything to address my question.

Since it appears that I'm am in the wrong area, can you please post the link to the where I can get the answer, or if there isn't currently an answer, move this to the correct area.

Thanks.

P.S. If you don't know exactly where the answer is, I would greatly appreciate it if you can at least tell me what section to look in.

[Guest]

I edited your post to remove references to downloading files, which violates forum rule 6.

The rules are linked at the top of every page! You also agreed to follow them when you signed up.

Please do not discuss rules further in this thread as it is off topic. If you need to discuss it further use PM.

[Dragoneer]

I have a legally backed-up file that I used to test my system. Here's what I've done.

When I attempt to play the file It starts and stops permanently after a couple of seconds in WMP 10 and I cannot upgrade to 11 because when I tried to upgrade in the past, it crashed WMP and Media Center.

I am able to play it with no glitches for the first 5 minutes in MPC Home Cinema and The KMPlayer when I first turn on the computer. (It's unwatchable in VLC because it stops and skips so much). After that, audio starts to skip and eventually the video will too. It seems like it coincides with my laptop getting hotter.

This time I didn't let it get to the point where the audio began to skip and used Disable All in Startup, restarted it, then went to YouTube and played a 1080 HD video. It skipped a little but not nearly as bad as when everything is enabled and after prolonged use. I then played the same video in 720 and it played flawlessly. Normally this wouldn't play without skipping a lot.

Could this problem be a combination of codecs and hardware?

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Processor x86 Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~1795 Mhz

Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.48 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 4.86 GB

My Video Card is a Nvidia GeForce Go 6600

Here's the info for the file I mentioned earlier:


Format : Windows Media
File size : 1.34 GiB
Duration : 23mn 42s
Overal bit rate mode : CBR
Overal bit rate : 8120 Kbps
Maximum overal bit rate : 8159 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-10-19 22:31:35.740

Video
Format : VC-1
Format profile : MP@HL
Codec ID : WMV3
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Video 9
Codec ID/Hint : WMV3
Description of the codec : Windows Media Video 9 - Professional
Duration : 23mn 41s
Bit rate mode : CBR
Bit rate : 8000 Kbps
Width : 1920 pixels
Height : 1080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.129
Language : Hungarian
AspectRatioX : 1
AspectRatioY : 1

Audio
Format : WMA2
Format profile : L1
Codec ID : 161
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio 2
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio 9.2 - 96 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR
Duration : 23mn 42s
Bit rate mode : CBR
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Language : en-us

[setarip_old]

@Dragoneer

Hi! Processor x86 Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~1795 Mhz

Your hardware is inadequate for the task you've described...