Reducing Video/Audio performance (1 Viewer)

[Anna21]

My laptop (client) tends to stutter every few minutes when watching streaming movie files or TV. Both audio and video are effected. I'm sure it is because the laptop is rubbish (Celeron 1.4Ghz with 500MB RAM) because it happens when watching from the local hard drive also.

I'm not sure what approach to take. Do I need to reduce the streaming bitrate somehow? Or is there a video player that can reduce quality? Or shall I throw the laptop out the window and save up for a new one?

 

[Augiedoggy]

my setup does the same thing and its a new build....tvserver3 on a single seat setup....its more like intermittent hiccups in the stream that I get...sometimes its more often than others but I've yet to find a pattern.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

My laptop (client) tends to stutter every few minutes when watching streaming movie files or TV. Both audio and video are effected. I'm sure it is because the laptop is rubbish (Celeron 1.4Ghz with 500MB RAM) because it happens when watching from the local hard drive also

Chances are it's the onboard graphics that cannot cope well, see if there are updated drivers for this laptop, may help.

 

[mobarton]

Just a couple of thoughts for after you update drivers.
If you have a dvd drive, does it play a DVD ok? If yes, I would expect it can play the .ts stream hardware wise. Might be codec, try changing the codec for audio and video for TV, if it came packaged with dvd player software, tyy that codec.
Are you wireless? I find I have to pause live tv for a few seconds to reduce glitches in playback (creates a buffer), and I have a 6600go card in my laptop, I blame streaming through wireless, but I haven't had time to isolate it further (my Beyond TV client works seamlessly, but Ithink it has a smaller stream).
Laptop sound cards suck (usually). If you use the MPA & MPV decoders that come with MP, check the config for the audio codec, and set the bitrate down to 16.

 

[Anna21]

Thanks for the advice. I think DVD playback is fine (I can't check now, I'm at work doing a 24 hour shift ). However it definately stutters in the same way when playing DivX movies from the laptop's hard drive. I did try updating the drivers but it didn't help. Creating the buffer didn't work either.

I am streaming over wireless, but the same thing happened when I tried it wired. I'll try as reducing sound quality tomorrow.

Does anyone know of any decoders that are light on CPU or let you reduce image quality?