Better DVD Playback : Windows 7 for Notebooks and Netbooks

Better DVD Playback

By Mary Branscombe, published on November 26, 2008
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Windows, seven, Netbook | Themes: Windows Tech Talk, Business Notebooks

Contents

6. Better DVD Playback

Microsoft expects the biggest power savings when Windows 7 is idle; but the next area Microsoft is concentrating on is using less power when a notebook plays DVDs by making changes such as spinning down the optical drive more aggressively. More of the video is loaded into a memory buffer, so the drive can spin down while that section of video plays back and Windows will no longer check the drive once every second to see if a new disc has been inserted (which is unnecessary because the device can tell Windows when a new disk is loaded). The difference between the DVD drive spinning and being in standby is “easily 1W on most PCs and often more,” says Stemen—this could improve battery life by at least six percent.

Windows 7 also uses power-policy settings to render interlaced content at 30fps to save power. By making better use of graphics chipsets, Microsoft claims it takes less power to watch a DVD in progressive mode than in interlaced mode. Dealing with copy protection and DRM for commercial video DVDs used to take a significant amount of processing; Windows 7 improves CPU utilization for this, now keeping the CPU in a lower-power mode while playing DVDs.

Initially these improvements will only show up if you’re using Windows Media Player; but Microsoft is working with software companies so they can add the improvements to other software media players. This is not just about saving power. When you put a video DVD into a Windows 7 system, the PC will do the sensible thing and assume you actually want to watch the movie, instead of asking what program you want to use—Windows 7 will simply start playing the DVD.

6 – Better DVD Playback

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zodiacfml 11/26/2008 2:59 PM

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i just hope that on the desktop we can turn off windows features.

Anonymous 11/26/2008 4:43 PM

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It looks like my lenovo already has most of these features. And always this discussion about battery life. I have never gotten the advertised battery life is I actually use my laptop. So the screen can not be too dim (let alone outside... what a joke). I actually need the harddrive. So much of these features don't seem that interesting. What is really new in Windows 7. (all the features for OEM's... do I care if I already have it?).
The easier networking. Interesting. didn't XP show you the wi-fi networks with one click. And then in Vista they removed it. So now it is a feature again? Come on...
An 8Gb footprint for barebones windows. What is that all about. I can run XP easily on a 10Gb drive. And it needs only about 2Gb. So where is the progress here...???
Overall from what I read: not much new stuff.
Sounds like lots of these are already in XP... Should compare battery life with XP, not vista I guess....
And would love to see a comparison on some of these tasks with an Apple. Just to know if it will be worth my money to switch.

Anonymous 11/26/2008 7:19 PM

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-1

I've played around with Vista a bit, but glad I skipped implementing it as my main OS.

hellwig 11/26/2008 8:14 PM

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-1

Same here with skipping Vista. I had plenty of driver-incompatability fun when I switched to Win XP Pro x64 (for the heck of it). I figured I would just skip the whole Vista issue entirely. If Windows 7 needs less hardware than the 2-year old Vista it is based on, it just further shows how unnecessary Vista was. Looks like the wait for Windows 7 will be well worth it.

Anonymous 11/27/2008 7:29 AM

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what about tablet features?
to my understanding the 7 OS supports active, passive, wacom technology and multitouch options much better then the Vista did.
Since the vista did (does) it well, i wonder how much better will the 7 be on my tablet-pc...

Anonymous 11/28/2008 1:21 PM

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Windows 7 IS Vista with options to strip down unnecessary parts and with some tuning done. But most important, with completely new marketing! And people will pay for something that they should already have when they bought Vista. Smart Microsoft is and that's why they're rich.

Anonymous 11/28/2008 5:22 PM

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That's right medmeks..

So, Why don't we make another class action lawsuits against Ballmer and his god-damned Microsoft?

Anonymous 11/29/2008 9:19 PM

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I agree with medmeks... it is just an updated version of vista as said by Microsoft themselves...because the update was so big they deemed it release. But then Apple charge for each of their big updates every time...so nothing new here...Mircosoft copying Apple??

I run Vista as my main OS now having bought a copy upgraded from XP. I think it is great and have had zero issues with it in 3 months... i have a macbook too but will be selling soon as i dont use it enough - XBOX 360 etc.

jkeelsnc 11/30/2008 10:40 PM

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This is all good. I finally started using Vista recently and after SP1 it is acceptable (finally). However, this still begs a question. Why the hell didn't Microsoft write Vista with these features to begin with to allow it to run properly on smaller machines and less hardware? I understand that SSD's were not popular at the time but the rest of the features could have been implemented. Not to mention they should checked on the hardware and software compatabilities before shoving it out the door. Having said that, VISTA is finally pretty good and it looks like Windows 7 will actually be very nice.

Anonymous 12/02/2008 2:46 PM

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vista is a rushed product - that's why...

Anonymous 04/08/2009 7:14 AM

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