Watching Movies On Laptop Computers >??

[jamieuk]

Hi, In a few weeks time i have a realy long flight to new york with the familey ( 12 hours) My main aim is to be able to watch a load of divx and xvid movies i have, while i am flying to releave the bordem!!.

As i only want a laptop to watch divx movies, is it as simple as buying a realy cheap second hand 1 and installing the codec on the laptop.

DO I NEED TO BUY A REALY EXSPENSIVE ONE!! just to be able to watch movies >>>>> any inofrmation you can give me is realy apreciated!!!!! I am totaly confused with all this laptop - notebooks things.

[rudeboymcc]

how much are you willing to spend?

you don't need the latest laptop just to watch movies.

i play movies fine on a 600mhz celeron but that's a pc.

i'd say if you have about£800 then buy a 1.8mhz p4-m. if you want to spend more, look for a 17 inch.

[unmei]

600mhz is maybe the lowest you would want to go. This box is 600 mhz as well and i play standard avis with it. But as soon as you have a little higher resolution, soft subtitles or more demanding audio (he-aac) it is simply too slow. Also more demanding codec settings are too much for this class of cpus. But you know best what your files are...if they don't use any specials it's fine, else go for at least 1ghz.

[Sirber]

I would say go for at least 1GHz. Some decoding on my 2000+ (1.7Ghz) goes up to 50%.

[samchn07]

You don't need to buy an expensive one. You can simply buy a cheap netbook.

[burfadel]

It depends on the resolution of the video's, the codecs used, the encoding setting used, the decoder, any post-decoding processing, the updatedness of the drivers etc.

Basic video playback doesn't take much, its when you add in the possibility of 1080P, post-processing etc that takes up all the CPU.

[hello_hello]

Anything from the Pentium 4 era onwards should have enough grunt to decode standard definition DivX/Xvid AVIs without any hassle. Probably even Pentium 3.
Just install a media player such as Media Player Classic Home Cinema and you won't have to worry about additional codecs. I wouldn't buy anything with an operating system earlier than XP.

[setarip_old]

I believe this may be a record for the Doom 9 Forum - A thread that has been dormant for 7 1/2 years was retrieved from the dustbin by a new member ;>}

[golagoda]

I thought something fishy was going on when I read ''i'd say if you have about£800 then buy a 1.8mhz p4-m" :p

[AnonCrow]

On a long flight, even if you sleep half the time, you'd better make sure that either external power is available, or test how long your batter(y|ies) actually last while playing video.
Otoh, long flights have better in-flight entertainment (including economy class) nowadays than they did in 2004; including movies , tv-series, and realtime gps tracking of the plane (route, altitude, speed) which is the most fun :) The provided headphones usually suck, so carry your own earphones.

Instead of a netbook/notebook, a phone with a ~4" screen or a tablet with a 5-9" screen may be easier. Or a similarly sized UMPC (does anyone still make those ?)

[CWR03]

AnonCrow, I'm sure after seven years the original poster has completed his trip.

[kypec]

I'm sure after seven years the original poster has completed his trip.
And so did his notebook... :p

[smok3]

maybe it was earth -> mars -> earth? What laptop should i get for that? how much batteries?

[AnonCrow]

Batteries ? if the backside of the display was covered is solar panels, that should've been enough to recharge the battery overnight - considering the best space-grade CPUs one could've hoped for back then would've been been roughly equal in performance to ~200 MHz PPCs, for the bargain price of $200k

How terrible would QCIF resolution video @10fps look when encoded with x264 --placebo with a maxrate of 12kbit and a bufsize of 64 MiB ? Ok, probably not half bad, but filling the buffer would take forever.

[CWR03]

Batteries ? if the backside of the display was covered is solar panels, that should've been enough to recharge the battery overnight
Think about what you just said there...

[AnonCrow]

Which part ? Sure, the panel would be less effective when traveling further from the Sun, but also more effective due to no Earth atmosphere.
The panel could be directed directly towards the Sun the whole time , at least in the economy-class, where the whole flight is one long EVA being tethered to the spaceship. What's a little radiation ?
The ultra-cheap-economy class is being fired from a gauss cannon on the right projected route.

Kind of trying to stay on topic: nowadays video-sunglasses don't really look much different from normal sunglasses at all, only the extra space taken by any built-in flash memory , earphones and various video inputs.
Although at best their resolution is around DVD resolution, usually only somewhere between VCD and SVCD res.

[smok3]

no glasses, they make me nervous, stay on topic please, i need laptop.