HD Video Card For Movies ?

[aviwil]

Is a HD Video Card necessary for watching HD DVD movies ( say 5GB size ) ?
I have a Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 on a laptop with a 1.80 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 2MB memory . I have been watching some movies of type as mentioned above - seems OK - but I'm not really too up on all this . Is it possible that with this setup , I'm not seeing the true quality of the HD movies , or something similar ?

 

[superunknown98]

you might be able watch hd movies. First you would need a resolution of at least 1280x720 for your monitor. Second the GMA3100 does support hardware decode of VC-1, but might not decode other formats. Maybe someone else could fill in the rest. take a look at the wiki article.

 

[videogames101]

Need to know monitor size, but GPU has very little to do with the quality you'll see, and much more to do with the speed at which you see it, especially with HD movies.

 

[Qbah]

A 5GB movie sounds like 720p. You don't need a GPU that adds HD acceleration for those, your CPU will be fine (1,8GHz is plenty). Now, 1080p, that's another thing...

 

[spdfreak]

Most dvd's are about 5GB for a movie. 720P HDTV is about 3.5GB/hour. 1080i HDTV is about 6-7GB/hour. If the laptop is a standard 15.4 in screen, it won't have enough resolution to play anything in true HD anyways. But it will still look very good. A 1.8 dual core should be able to handle the decode of h.264 1080p if the right codecs are installed. But you still won't be able to see anything better than the native resolution of the screen/monitor. Does the laptop have a HD DVD or blu ray drive or are these files?

 

[aviwil]

Thanks everyone for the replies .
superunknown98 , I looked at the wikipedia article - bit too technical for me .
videogames101 the monitor is in fact the standard 15 inch .
spdfreak , the DVD movies are just files on the hard disc .
If I understand you all right , a 5 GB version of a movie will not have any great advantage over a 1.5 GB movie , for my setup ?
The codecs are software installed , or come with the hardware ? They reside on the video card ?

 

[qbfx]

Your 15.4" monitor does handle 720p HD movies (1280x800) and there is an advantage over conventional DVD movies. Your cpu is powerful enough to decode 720p with no problems. Codecs are software. Finally, in most cases it's either impossible to change the video card on a laptop or it does cost you a leg, in your case I think it's the first because you have an integrated gpu so the mobo most probably doesn't even have a slot for that, let alone MXM.

 

[aviwil]

Thanks qbfx . Would never dare trying to change the video card on this laptop . Glad to hear that the bigger 5 GB movie versions are an advantage for me over the standard 1.5 GB .