Vista - Need Help With Strange HD Video Issue!

Hey guys,

I currently have a Toshiba Satellite A200 Laptop (Core2Duo 1.73Ghz, 1Gb RAM, GeForce Go 7300, Vista Home Premium).

When I attempt to play 1080p video (MKV/h.264) using Media Player Classic it will play fine for a while at around 45-65% CPU utilisation, however after a varying amount of time (2-20mins) the CPU utilisation will suddenly skyrocket to 100% and remain at this level, and the video will start lagging and be unwatchable.
When I restart the video on MPC and skip to the most recently watched part, the same issue of lag will again occur after a few minutes.

Video lag had been an issue previously using VLC player but after I found MPC and installed CoreAVC I had been able to watch 1080p videos without any problems.
I currently have CoreAVC 1.7 installed. I have also tried installing the K-lite Codec Mega Pack, as well as uninstalling various programs such as PowerDVD and Nero360 to see if this made any difference, but have not been able to come up with any solution.

I have updated by graphics drivers to the latest version from the product page for my laptop on the Toshiba website, yet there is no discernible difference. I have also tried using a variety of media players, including Zoom player, KMPlayer and GOM player.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated. A poster on another forum suggested the issue may be related to buffer underrun or hard drive cache settings and referred me to these forums, however I am unsure of how to proceed in resolving this issue.

Cheers, and a happy new year to all!

your system doesnt meet the minimum specifications to watch high definition content unfortunately,go here Apple - QuickTime - HD Gallery - System Recommendations i know this is specifications for quicktime, but QT is very well optimised for HD playback and should be used as a guideline only.
for wmp i would say maybe 2.4GHz processor (dual core), 2GB ram and graphics card is fine for your system.

Thanks for the reply MrNeeds.

The thing is that I had HD MKV files playing perfectly well on my computer using MPC and CoreAVC for an extended period of time, so it would appear that my hardware is able to handle the task?

However, a few months ago I started experiencing this delayed lag issue and haven't been able to find any solution since!

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

computers will gradually run slower over time, it may just be that this is the case, there are a number of ways you can help speed up your system by doing a few simple things on your computer.

For example, disabling all non essential programs on start up, type in the run dialog "msconfig", this will bring up the system configuration utility and go to startup tab and disable anything you do not use, this is a big performance boost

hard drive fixes and repairs within windows, type command in the search box on the start menu, right click the command prompt and run as administrator, type in the box "chkdsk C: /f /r" this will check your primary hard drive for errors and attempt to fix and recover the bad sectors, you will need to restart to go ahead with this as you cannot fix while you are using the hard drive

defragmentation, this is self explanatory, type "defrag" in the search box and click defragment now. give them all a go and see what becomes. Good Luck and happy new year.

Thanks for the suggestions MrNeeds.

I completed all three steps you suggested, however it does not appear to have resolved the issue.

Any other advice would really be appreciated, as I am fast running out of ideas!

Also, does any one have any idea if this could be related to a buffer under-run or hard drive caching issue?

Just want to mention one more thing:

After downloading and installing CPU-Z, I've noticed that my CPU statistics most of the time are at: "Core Speed: 798.0 Mhz" and "Multiplier: x 6.0".

However it will occasionally very briefly alternate to "Core Speed: 1729.0 Mhz" and "Multiplier: x 13.0".

Is this normal? My CPU specification is "Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 @1.73Ghz".

yes that is normal, its a real time cpu usage meter within cpu-z, mainly used for benchmarking and usage statistics. however, this doesnt really give much insight for your problem, personally, theres only two things that could be causing the skipping, as you have already mentioned, a faulty hard drive with the cache, or the core system files are degrading, which is normal as well. i can only recommend backing up all your files and folders and do a complete system restore with the recovery CD you got with the laptop, if the issue is still a factor then take your laptop back to the supplier and get them to change your hard drive and see if that helps. im sorry i couldnt give you an easier answer.