Windows Media Player is playing slow.

Gornot said:

cmd187 said:

Try VLC. WMP is rather useless.

If you want to rant randomly instead of help, don't post at all!

RATEDRKO said:

EDIT: After testing it a bit more the problem has returned. The video files are in an external harddrive. If I pause a video for a few minutes then the harddrive will disconnect itself. This wasn't happening before I change Window Media Player's sitings.

It would definitely help if we knew your system specs, but it sounds to me like you need to change your power settings, because "USB selective suspend" is probably turned on. If you own a laptop, this might not be the best setting to change but it still might be the solution to your problem.

1. Start menu -> type into search "power" and choose Power Options under Control Panel results
2. Find your power plan and click "Change plan settings", then "change advanced power settings"
3. Scroll down until you find "USB settings", there change "USB selective suspend" to disabled
4. Apply -> OK -> close both windows

WMP IS useless. It doesn't even support matroska without codecs. To the OP, did VLC work?

cmd187 said:

WMP IS useless. It doesn't even support matroska without codecs. To the OP, did VLC work?

Nonsense...

+1 to what Wishmaster said.

It doesn't matter if it's mkv, mp4, m4v, mov, hdmov... those are just containers for the actual codec, which is h264, which IS natively supported in WMP... Though I agree, for what it's worth, WMP is as good as it gets.

Anyway, I hope we haven't scared the OP off by asking for system specs, lol

Wishmaster said:

cmd187 said:

WMP IS useless. It doesn't even support matroska without codecs.

While this may be true, we must consider:

WMP does a very good job for what it is. And does support quite a few formats by default. Not everyone has, or even knows what a MKV is.
A large majority of Win7 users use WMV, MP4, or AVI for digital videos, all of which WMP does a fine job with.

Many user just want to use the software Windows has with it (WMP, Internet Explorer) and have no desire to use a 3rd party product.

But, in this case, what the OP is wanting out of WMP should be no issue for it.
Theres a obvious problem somewhere, and it may not be WMP at all. So we should strive to locate and resolve the issue.


For the record I am a User/Fan of Internet Explorer but rarely use WMP myself. I use Showtime and Zune instead.
We all have our preferences, and no one is wrong in thier choice.

Most now know what matroska is with 720p HD videos and there is no excuse for having a built in player with lacking features.

cmd187 said:

WMP IS useless. It doesn't even support matroska without codecs. To the OP, did VLC work?

i have many various formats of video files including many in matroska (few audio subtitle tracks etc.) and VLC generally is the most useless player
the only good thing about it that its all in one and can play very damaged (not complete) files.
but that is the only good things i can say about vlc
band things
random crashes, very bad seek (forward etc), very bad subtitles rendering.
not the best filters you can get better with player + filter. but in vlc its integrated.
i recommend MPC or WMP + choose codecs/filters etc that works best for you.
but really its user preference.. i dont like people who instead of helping say that program they use is better and everyone should change. it would be very nice to stop this offtopic please.
on topic
problem seems to be pc can not handle video, but until pc spec are known i can not confirm this.
or maybe broken codecs.

vaidas3 said:

cmd187 said:

WMP IS useless. It doesn't even support matroska without codecs. To the OP, did VLC work?

i have many various formats of video files including many in matroska (few audio subtitle tracks etc.) and VLC generally is the most useless player
the only good thing about it that its all in one and can play very damaged (not complete) files.
but that is the only good things i can say about vlc
band things
random crashes, very bad seek (forward etc), very bad subtitles rendering.
not the best filters you can get better with player + filter. but in vlc its integrated.
i recommend MPC or WMP + choose codecs/filters etc that works best for you.
but really its user preference.. i dont like people who instead of helping say that program they use is better and everyone should change. it would be very nice to stop this offtopic please.
on topic
problem seems to be pc can not handle video, but until pc spec are known i can not confirm this.
or maybe broken codecs.

I'd try v 1.1.9, not version 0.86. These problems were fixed a few years ago.

Here is a photo copy of the specs.

Wishmaster said:

Just out of curiosity,

If you pick a video your having trouble with and move it to your HD, off of the external, and try to play it, does the problem resolve itself?

I tried it. The video had the same problems.