Full HD movie skips on Core i7

[lopdog]

Hi!

I just got my new external monitor with full HD resolution, connected to my laptop, also with full HD. But when I try to play HD content on one of the monitors the movie doesn't play smoothly. If I use only one screen there is no problem watching the movie in full HD.
My computer is a Lenovo W510 with a Core i7 processor with Nvidia Quadro FX 880M graphics card, and I used VLC to play the content.
I usually don't need to watch HD content on one screen while working on the other, but my question is if it is normal for a computer like this to struggle with HD movies when two monitors are active?

 

[LNCPapa]

It could possibly be a video acceleration issue on the external monitor. I'd try playing the vid with something a little more light weight - like MPCHC and full screen it on the secondary monitor. Open up taskman on your primary and pay attention while it's playing. If your CPU isn't pegged (on any core) and you're still seeing skipping I'd bet that what I mentioned is the problem.

 

[lopdog]

Well, it looks like MPC-HC will be my new preferred media player. It plays my videos perfectly, no skipping and no lost frames, even when I tried to do other stuff on the other screen at the same time. It also works in power-saver mode. Thanks for your help

 

[lopdog]

UPDATE: Following the suggestion from another post on this forum I changed the UMPlayer video output driver (Preferences-General-Video), that seems to solve the problem. I choose "gl (fast)", and now it plays my file without problems. I don't know if this is the best output driver, there are many to choose from, but as long as it works I'm happy