Hi All,

I have FC2 with 2.6.6-1.435.2.3.stk16 kernel and the latest Nvidia drivers installed. Everything runs smooth, but I get really high cpu usage playing any videos (either through dvd or local files). I have a 1GHz P3 with 1024 ram.

I have an external dvd+rw connected through USB 1 and the sound and video are not synched while playing dvd's with mplayer. The video is scrambled as if it is being buffered and the cpu is pinned at 100%. Could this be USB 1 being too slow for dvd playback and causing the scrambling?

I am sorry if this is a little hard to understand, but it seems that the only problems I have are video related. Is my cpu too slow for this setup. Thanks.

About the usb 1 dvd player, yes it is too slow. The rate for DVD's are at or over 1500Kb/s, which is more than the 1500Kb/s max threshold of usb1(ECP printer speed essentially). USB2 can do this fine though, as it is 480Mbit/s or so. It's not a video issue I suspect- its a bandwidth issue.

You can get an external HD/CD/DVD case with usb 2.0 support for between 30 and 50 bucks. You can plop your device in there, and get excellent transfer rates. You will need a usb 2.0 pci card if you don't have usb 2.0 onboard already. The NEC chipset for this works well. I have one myself, with a 250 GB hard drive and Plextor 12X DVD+-RW. Good luck.

Thanks. I bought a Belkin USB 2.0 and it works great. The problem, however, still remains the high cpu usage. I can get Xine to play the dvd fine, but it uses so much processor power that I am basically stuck watching the dvd...literally. I cannot do anything else I guess it's time to upgrade.

I suggest you use Mplayer. You don't need to decode vob files to a great degree. It's just like an mpeg2 file, only larger. Install libdecss(www.rpmseek.com) and install Mplayer. Give that a shot, and see the difference. Your pc is fine, although I don't know about your video card. You didn't say.