choppy blu-ray play back

davethe11

davethe11

davethe11

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uk
hi folks

I recently installed a blu-ray drive (just a reader) for someone and playback is very choppy. My guess is that the pc is under spec to play them but I was hoping for some advice/feedback, first off does this spec look under-par for blu-ray (if not, maybe there is a software issue):

xp 32bit SP3
3700+ single core
1 GB 3200 DDR
nvidia 6200SE Turbo Cache
machine is clean of viruses/nasties
using bundled powerdvd 8 with updates applied
all at stock

I'm a volunteer for a computer help organisation, and I don't want the client to spend money if the problem is a software problem of course, but if it is just an under-spec PC then suggestions for an upgrade would be very welcome (I'm hoping a gfx card upgrade may do the trick). The machine is not used for gaming, other than blu-ray playback it's snappy and does everything it needs to. I'm just not familiar with blu-ray playback requirements, thanks for any help.
 
Does the CPU load reach 100% ? I am probably wrong but I think the CPU does the decoding, do if it reached 100% then that would result in choppy playback.
 
I would suggest absolutely that a graphics card update will fix the issue. You won't need anything fancy or expensive either, just one that will take the decoding onboard.

Does the machine have a PCI-E graphics slot?
 
ATI HD4350 512MB should do the trick. About £27 new. No sales talk outside the MM.

EDIT: Oops, sorry. See above OP, that plays back Blu-Ray fine on my machine, though I have a faster CPU. It does offload the work to the card though, as long as you check the option in PowerDVD for ATI Avivo I think.
 
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thanks for replies chaps, cpu load is 100% solid during play-back, when I looked in the case I'm sure it was agp, but to be honest I didn't look closely as I was troubleshooting a different component, it's looking like a gfx upgrade would do the trick, would you be kind enough to recommend a pcie and an agp card so I can pick a suitable card for this machine when I go and check it? thanks again for your help :)
 
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