Choppy playback with PDVD9 and TMT3

Originally Posted by shashankmittal

I have a HP HDX 16T notebook with the following config:

nVidia 9600M GT with 256MB on board memory
Intel dual core 2.53GHz processor
4GB RAM
500GB 5400 rpm hard drive
1920x1080 LCD display
LG Blu Ray burner

I have connected the notebook to a Denon 2809CI receiver with a HDMI cable. The receiver is connected to Epson 6500UB projector with a HDMI cable.
DVD playback is flawless. Blu Ray playback is most of the times choppy and it stutters so much that its impossible to watch. Every time this happens, the receiver shows that there is no HDMI signal.

I tried isolating the receiver by disconnecting it from the laptop and still I see that the problem exists if I play Blu Ray movies on my laptop's screen. I have tried PowerDVD 9 and Total Media Theatre 3 on both Windows 7 x64 and Windows Vista x64. Both the players have the same problem.

However, the playback is smooth if I DO NOT pass thru the sound via HDMI. I mean if I change the Audio setting in the player and play the Blu Ray disc at Stereo 2.0, it plays perfectly. I am unable to figure out what is causing this issue. In my opinion the hardware is fast enough and can efficiently handle Blu Ray playback.

Has anyone faced similar issues with their computers?

Originally Posted by stanglx

It sounds like definitely a throughput issue. The reason why you exhibit this issue audio via HDM is because through HDMI its passing LPCM which requires a significant amount of bandwidth/IO. If your NOT using HDMI then your decoding to AC3 or DTS which far less intensive..

The reason why the signal is dropping is because for HDMI to work you must have a continuous stream of data. If that data is severed the connection is dropped and must be re-established. If your encountering I/O issues this could cause blocking thus those cycles will disrupt the flow of traffic. Its not your cable (or at least I doubt it) and your hardware is powerful enough as I am using a 9400m video and have no issues with hardware acceleration on and off as long I follow below.

So getting to your issue here are some places to check -
Make sure anti virus/firewalls/spyware/etc. is turned off - your 5400 RPM drive with this on could cause major stuttering.
Make sure any indexing is turned off/paused due to same reason
Make sure your running the latest drivers for NVIDIA
How does playing just the m2ts file work? Is better, worse or the same? You will need to navigate to the file in the bluray structure.
Increase your pages file and make it static NOT system managed.
Make sure DEP is enabled only for essential services and windows programs not for all applications.
Make sure DXVA is enabled (Hardware Accel)


Try this... move the movie to an external hard drive (not flash) and play via external drive - USB is fine as I have played blurays through USB many times. I want to rule out your internal drive or something running on this.. I still believe its an I/O issue not a CPU/GPU issue.