Hello everyone. I have a Thinkpad x21 and I would like to be able to watch dvd quality movies on it. The spec is 700 mhz, 384 MB RAM (maxed), I don't know anything about the graphic/video spec. The laptop have an optional dvd drives, so I just thought that it could handle dvd movies. I have done some research online and it seem that the spec is enough to play dvd videos. Vcd and dvd is extremely choppy, online, any video over 240p, it doesn't run smoothly. I could be wrong but I don't think this laptop could be this slow. Is this an easy fix or do I have to face the reality that this laptop is just too slow to play high quality videos? Any help would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello, and welcome to the forum!

Are you trying to actually playback a DVD disc, or 480p material from the web? There is quite a difference in the two.

I used to play DVD discs on a 600X with 500MHz CPU, and 578MB RAM. Depending on the player and the codecs, it could be anywhere from almost smooth, to too choppy to deal with. So, I guess, the specs of your X21 are OK for DVD playback under certain circumstances.

What OS are you using? And which software players have you tried?

Thanks for the welcome. It's Window Xp, playing video with media player classic: home cinema, a good player for slow/old system I have heard. These videos are DVD ripped or downloaded, they are dvd quality videos. The dvd drive is an option, but I don't have DVD drive and have never play DVD disc. Could be problem be fixed if I buy a DVD drive and only play DVD through that? VCD disc play very pixelated and choopy, dvd quality movies is extremely choppy; unwatchable. When watching videos online, anything over 240p, it doesn't run smoothly. Thanks

No, I don't think a DVD drive would help here. I used to have better success with W98SE on these older ThinkPads than with XP, and IIRC, older versions of VLC player worked better for me than Mdia Player Classic (but not the newer VLC players). And the graphics driver is extremely important. Are you using the Windows XP standard graphics adapter driver? Or which graphics driver do you have installed? Is it this one?

Thanks for the input Neil. I was hoping I didn't have to do anything drastic just to watch DVD videos. I hate to lose the usability of Win Xp just so I can play DVD movies; which is not a top priority on this laptop. That is the video driver that I have right now. Win 98 is out of the question since it's not compatible with my wireless card. I was thinking Win 2000 but I just learned that this is TinyXp OS, not Win Xp as I stated earlier, an even lighter OS than even Win 2000? I think I have to lose the notion that this laptop could handle high quality videos. I think I will have to get use to watching poor/choppy quality videos.

Realistically, learn to watch DVDs etc. on a proper television, not on a tiny 12" screen from an almost antique laptop.

My first ThinkPad was an X21 running Windows 2000, and I also had DVD issues with the UltraBase. This old post helped back in the day:

viewtopic.php?t=13498&highlight=vlc

Hello

I have succefully played divx and dvd on computers that normaly wouldn't play it smooth, if a true dos-mode is available like Win98 and WinME I would try this software

http://multimediaware.com/qv/index.html

Otherwise, maybe it works better in Linux? Linux require less performance of the computer even in idle mode.

Back in 2002 on a budget I purchased a used 770 with P233MMX

It could not play any DVD satisfactorily.

I ended up paying £10/$20 at the time for a DVD Accelerator card that was a 770 option and the whole thing ran so smooth it was beautiful.

I don't think the P233MMX had the power, but I always thought a PII could have done the job... so surely a PIII )))

Try using linux with VLC, it should run smooth.

You can do it non-destructively with a boot CD - I do not think that you can use USB to boot unless you find a USB key that is less than 512MB and most new linuxes will not fit on that. Newer larger keys will not boot the OS (something about USB 2.0 vs. USb 1.1)

I know that for a long time, I used an X24 to do just this and it worked great. Not sure the X21 will work though since it has only half the processor speed and half the max RAM.