I tried in VLC, Parole and Videos. All hurky-jerky video and no audio. So I installed Ubuntu restricted extras. Then in VLC it played the audio of the MOV properly but the video was frozen. Parole and Videos were both slight improvements but still not working properly. Any suggestions on getting this working properly? Thanks.

I assume is not old hardware?

Try Dragon Player...

Is that hd video?

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LTS is usually old (and\or restricted) software, IMHO.

Thanks Jamison. It's pretty old hardware. 11 years old. Dell Optiplex GX520. Think that's the problem?

This is the first I've heard of Dragon Player. I'll check it out.

Thanks ugjka. I don't know but I'm guessing it's not. Somebody just shot 20 seconds of a thunderstorm on their phone.

Intel GMA 950, too lazy to look it up, but I do not think it can do H.264 decoding, meaning it must be done in software, meaning Celeron D (or whatever it has) is going to choke. Solution, add a nVidia card, with at least feature set C, you probably can get such a card for free or for almost nothing.

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Could try converting the vid i.e: downsample? E.g: http://askubuntu.com/questions/5198/...time-mov-files
http://askubuntu.com/questions/16086...wer-resolution
http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/p...es/bones.shtml
&c...

"New" graphics card to max it out is probably cheap and RAM if it's not 4GB yet.

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Thanks Emerson. Not to be a pain but I couldn't find any free nVidia cards and the cheapest one Newegg has is $18. http://www.newegg.com/Desktop-Graphi...48?Order=PRICE. Can you point me in the right direction to look? And is installing the card pretty simple?

Thanks jamison. I've got the 4GB RAM. Any idea where I can get the new graphics card (one that I need and hopefully cheap)? And I looked at those links. I had Handbrake already and it turned the .mov into a .mkv and it improved it a lot but the video would still freeze frame and then play a few seconds, then free frame etc etc.

Here's a good start from searching: "dell optiplex gx520" top graphics card e.g: http://www.techsupportforum.com/foru...ts-550947.html
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru...ptiplex-gx520/
&c...
but looks like there's 2 model mother boards you could have... I'd want to find the top most possible graphics card!

On that note, this ThinkPad T420 with an i5 and 8GB-RAM (refurbished) cost me $250; so, I had money left for a high speed SSD.

Thanks jamison but kind of swamped by all the information. The guy in the techsupport link wants to play video games and the card they reccomended for him was $87 and I don't know if it would play the .mov file. And then he's thinking maybe he needs a new mother board.

Could find out what one of the two motherboards you have, then jot it all down with "Dell Optiplex gx520" and take that info to the "geeks squad" and/or more searching?

Then take their possible suggestions plus if you mean this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/1313156...&ul_noapp=true
(also requires a 400w power supply)

...basically cross reference them to find the cheapest?

I'm more of a hands on guy so sorry if not much help but would like to change my answer.
E.g:
http://www.computerliquidationcenter...uxMaAllk8P8HAQ
&c&c&c

I search for days before I buy anything, is so much better that way!

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I would look for a software solution before throwing money at the problem. Do you have this issue when playing other videos?

From what I can tell, none of the GX520's have a PCI-e x16 slot (the minitower version has an x1 slot). The problem with PCI and PCI-e x1 video cards is that they tend to be overpriced and/or based off of old GPU's. If you're lucky enough to have the PCI-e x1 slot, maybe you can find a cheap GT220 or RadeonHD 5450 or something like that. Other than that, I would not spend more than $20-$30 on a system that old.

.mkv is a container. Give more specific info on what you've tried converting to (and what the original file holds):

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