Tech Talk

[Curt]

Originally Posted by JerkOff

Help please.

Any idea why a brand new Acer Aspire 5517 Notebook running Windows 7(64bit,) AMD Athelon @ 1.60 GHz, 3 GB Ram would have difficulty playing the HD FTV vids?

I've tried Gom and VLC, and have all the codecs, etc. VLC just crashes, and GOM plays in slow, choppy motion, freezing frequently, with the audio a few seconds behind. I did notice that the CPU usage is pegged at 100%. When I play the lower def .WMV, CPU is at about 70%.

This is quite annoying. My 5 yr old machine has no problem playing the high-def vids. Is this new machine a piece of crap and I'm just not aware?

Thanks for any help.

From the specs I've found, I'd say your notebook doesn't have the horsepower to play the HD videos. The video FAQ states that these videos require a powerful processor. Also, have you tried using Windows Media Player, which is recommended in the FAQ?

Microsoft says a 1 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM are required to run 64-bit Windows 7, but they've always been notoriously optimistic with their hardware requirements.

The specs I found at Acer's web site state that your machine has an Athlon TF-20 processor; according to this web site, this is a low-end CPU. Another issue is that the maximum resolution for the display is 1366x768; the HD videos are 1440x1080, so your display can't render them in their native format.

Is the machine a piece of crap? Only you can determine that. It depends on a number of factors, including your budget, the price you paid, and what your intended use is.

[MarkF-UK]

You don't say what video card is installed but on a Notebook it is likely to be a card integrated onto the motherboard with shared RAM. In fact looking up your model, if it is the one with the ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1200 graphics card, then that is an onboard card, and that's not likely to play high performance HD video very well.

Sorry. These notebooks are more designed for those 'on the go' to do work or to fill in time, but not for heavy work.

Mark