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re: videos lagging due to very low space...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 6:55 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(570 messages posted)
Your friend's problem arises from the fact that video files are not stored as uncompressed
video footage, but are in fact compressed, using a variety of technical tricks, in
order to save disk space, or in order to make it possible to stream them over a broadband
link in real-time (by making the file small enough - per second - to transmit a reduced
data rate across the link).
The file must be decompressed in order to play it. Video codecs (the files which
interpret the video file and decompress it in order to display it on the screen)
put a big load on the PC's processor (the CPU chip). Certain types of the latest
video codecs, such a XviD and DivX codecs, take an awful lot of processing, much
more than older types.
And video files on YouTube are often huge, since any size of file up to 100 MB can
be uploaded there.
The result of a huge video file that uses a decompression codec which requires a
lot of processing will inevitably put a strain on an older CPU and RAM. We here naturally
have older CPUs and smaller amounts of RAM than are found on WinXP machines, for
example.
Often, increasing the amount of RAM to, say, 256 MB (which is well within the capacity
of a WinME motherboard) will help enormously. It takes the storeage of the file off
the hard disk, and puts it entirely into RAM memory, at least if the file is streamed
rather than downloaded.
Any system which attempts to play a file that is larger than the amount of RAM memory
in the computer will naturally struggle. The load on the CPU will just make the problem
worse. Fitting more RAM memory is an effective solution in many cases.
As I say, this problem was not experienced years ago, when the codecs for decompressing
video files were not nearly so processor-intensive, and the video files themselves
were very much smaller.
A further step is to acquire (download) a user-friendly video player program, such
as the free Media Player Classic: Media
Player Classic
Do not use Micro$oft programs to play video files. In my opinion, Micro$oft's later
versions of Windows Media Player are bloatware: the processor has enough to do to
play a big video file, it doesn't need the additional handicap of the massive overhead
imposed by running Windows Media Player as well.
Ed
On Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 7:56 pm, Ron wrote:
>hi! i have a friend who i chat with on yahoo messenger and shes having problems
viewing
>videos online or even saved to her hard drive due to very low h.d space.
> she's got a pretty old computer that was custom built and isnt one specific brand
>at all, far from it.
>i've helped her locate her video adapter graphic controller drivers and reinstall
>them due to her pictures being messed up, looking (grainy, and black and white)
she
>now has all her color back at 16 bits so i know she doesnt need to update that.
>here is the sad part :(
> she only has a maximum capacity of 1.96 gb on her h.d and only 192 mb left to use.
>i know, thats really low. her ram is 92 mb but im thinking thats not that bad, i
>used to run a computer when my good ones hard drive went out that only had 64 mb
>ram and i could watch videos fine.
>so im thinking that her skipping video is due to the low space alone, am i right?
> i know that the operating sytem alone takes up alot of her space that is gone but
>would it be that much? almost the full 2 gb's?
>she doesnt have many things on her computer like extra programs and personal files
>so im thinking all the space is for system files for the o.s.
> does anyone know any way to get her videos to work without constant skipping or
>is it just impossible? i told her she needs to buy a better computer already and
>she knows its true. :p thanks for any help in advance
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 |  | re: videos lagging due to very low space... (Ed: Tue, Oct 30, 2007, 6:55 am) |
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