Video Playback is Choppy

Victor6799 · 05 Jun 2011

We have a HP Pavilion dv7-3180us Entertainment Notebook running Windows 7 64bit mode. We have plenty of RAM and HD disk space. However when we try to play a Netflix Instantly Watch Streaming movie or if Streaming from Netflix using Windows Media Center or if we playback a DVD using HP Media Smart DVD the video playback is choppy and slows the computer dramatically ?

When playing a DVD using Windows Media Player we do not expeience the same issue the playback works fine or almost perfect and running other applications seem to work fine as well. Other applications like surfing the internet using Firefox or Google Chrome seems to work fine.

We have also tried watching movie trailers on Hulu.com and the video is still choppy though it uses Flash Player.

It seems to be related to just HP Media Smart DVD and Silverlight w/FF or Google Chrome but not Windows Media Player.

Looking for any suggestions or ideas ?

Thanks in advance

Victor

logicearth · 05 Jun 2011

Internet connection probably as those Netflix and Hulu stream from the internet.

Victor6799 · 05 Jun 2011

logicearth said:

Internet connection probably as those Netflix and Hulu stream from the internet.

Thanks for the reply. In my original post I described that DVD Playback using the DVD Player is choppy using the HP Media Smart DVD software. However playing back the DVD using Windows Media Player works pretty well much better then the HP Media Smart DVD. Everything else seems to have choppy video and audio both.

Just to add some more that we have tried using a wired connection from the router to the Notebook and tried the Netflix streaming with FF and Chrome with the same results that is choppy video and audio results.

Hope that helps a little more.

Victor

MrNeeds · 05 Jun 2011

Have you updated your graphics drivers from here HP Pavilion dv7-3100 Entertainment Notebook PC series - Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center you'll need to find out which graphics card you have though, you can find this out by typing in the start menu "dxdiag" without the quotation marks, it will tell you what your make and model is.

Victor6799 · 06 Jun 2011

MrNeeds said:

Have you updated your graphics drivers from here HP Pavilion dv7-3100 Entertainment Notebook PC series*-* Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center you'll need to find out which graphics card you have though, you can find this out by typing in the start menu "dxdiag" without the quotation marks, it will tell you what your make and model is.

Thanks for the reply. I do have one question though..If my video and audio are both choppy then can it still be the video alone ? I thought that the video drivers are only for displaying video and are unrelated to the audio choppiness ?

Appreciate the reply

Victor

vpwin7 · 06 Jun 2011

In some cases it could be your codecs, although I don't believe codecs would cause all of the problematic scenarios you are describing.

If I may suggest trying a different player for your DVDs: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/
Media Player Classic is a trusted, open source, media player. It's listed on the top applications to get on this website. I personally find that MPC runs more smoothly than any other player I've EVER used. It may not solve your Hulu problem but it's worth a shot..

Also many video drivers carry audio drivers with them, so the issue could be related.

Wishmaster · 06 Jun 2011

It could simply be a internet issue.

But, make sure your flash player and Silverlight plugins are up to date.

You may try disabling HW acceleration in Flash player too, as a test to see if that helps smooth it out a bit.

As far as Netflix goes, have you tried the WMC plug in? Does it do there as well?
Also, have you tested it using Internet Explorer?

If WMP itself is having no issue playing vidoes or DVDs, then you do not need codecs or a 3rd party player. (So long as you are happy with it)
Neither will have any affect online streaming.

Sounds as if the Smart Software is having issues. There may be a update for it if its a known issue, so it may be worth checking into.

MrNeeds · 06 Jun 2011

Victor6799 said:

MrNeeds said:

Have you updated your graphics drivers from here HP Pavilion dv7-3100 Entertainment Notebook PC series*-* Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center you'll need to find out which graphics card you have though, you can find this out by typing in the start menu "dxdiag" without the quotation marks, it will tell you what your make and model is.

Thanks for the reply. I do have one question though..If my video and audio are both choppy then can it still be the video alone ? I thought that the video drivers are only for displaying video and are unrelated to the audio choppiness ?

Appreciate the reply

Victor

You're correct, but if the video is stuttering then the audio would need to sync back up with the video stream, but it may just be that the onboard chipset may need updating in regards for the DVD problem, the chipset controls the data stream between all devices connected to your mainboard so if the drivers aren't up-to date, they won't be optimised for the latest software

Victor6799 · 06 Jun 2011

vpwin7 said:

In some cases it could be your codecs, although I don't believe codecs would cause all of the problematic scenarios you are describing.

If I may suggest trying a different player for your DVDs: Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player
Media Player Classic is a trusted, open source, media player. It's listed on the top applications to get on this website. I personally find that MPC runs more smoothly than any other player I've EVER used. It may not solve your Hulu problem but it's worth a shot..

Also many video drivers carry audio drivers with them, so the issue could be related.

Thanks for the reply. I did not know that the video card drivers install their own audio drivers. I do want to mention that Media Player does seem to work fine when playing a DVD on the same Windows 7 HP Notebook computer. It seems to be related to streaming only from the Netflix website and even Hulu or Youtube.com website.

I did run a download speed test from Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and I'm getting a 23.49Mbs download speed on a wireless connection from the same Notebook. I also wanted to mention that using an ethernet connection to the Cisco router has the same choppy results.

I also should mention that every time I try Netflix on Firefox or Google Chrome and Windows Media Center the CPU starts to increase dramatically from 5-10% to about 40-50% or a bit higher. This is when Windows 7 becomes rather slow. There are times when the streaming works flawlessly but its usually for a short time that the playback is smooth but eventually if I wait the results become choppy.

Does Windows Media Center and FF and Google Chrome (Silverlight) when streaming save the streaming packets write to the hard disk before displaying directly to the player ?

Thanks again for the reply.

Victor

Victor6799 · 06 Jun 2011

Wishmaster said:

It could simply be a internet issue.

But, make sure your flash player and Silverlight plugins are up to date.

You may try disabling HW acceleration in Flash player too, as a test to see if that helps smooth it out a bit.

As far as Netflix goes, have you tried the WMC plug in? Does it do there as well?
Also, have you tested it using Internet Explorer?

If WMP itself is having no issue playing vidoes or DVDs, then you do not need codecs or a 3rd party player. (So long as you are happy with it)
Neither will have any affect online streaming.

Sounds as if the Smart Software is having issues. There may be a update for it if its a known issue, so it may be worth checking into.

Thanks for the reply. WMC does not play streaming videos from Netflix very well at all. I experience the same choppy video and audio results. The plug in for WMC has been reinstalled. Now when I go into WMC trying to navigate the menu is painfully slow. It has now started to freeze up and I've had to use Task Manager to terminate the application. The first time I tried WMC is worked as far as the menu navigation goes but when streaming a video from Netflix it started to get choppy.

Thanks alot for the help.

Victor