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I have a few training DVDs that I RIPed to a hard drive. (They are in VIDEO_TS folders)

Using Windows 7 Media Player, I am able to play them back on my workstation without any problem.

I am just starting to look into buying a Netbook and I was wondering if they will have any problems playing them back off its hard disk?

The Microcenter computer salesman did not know for sure but recommended to get at least a Atom N280.

I also want to get Windows 7 on the system to stay consistant with my other three computers.

Anyone doing this currently on a Netbook?

If you are, what type of machine are you using?

Are you also playing it back with Windows 7 Media Player?

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4 Answers 4

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I have an Acer Aspire One Netbook and it is extermely happy playing DVD and Videos. I have XBMC loaded and use it to watch shows off my media streamer everyday. Depending on the Graphics Card, which is generally the Intel GMA series, you should have no problem running or watching movies on Netbooks, as the Atom Processors are dual core and more then capable of handling the streams.

Media Player works well, although I inherently don't like using it.

I am also running Windows 7 Professional on mine without any hassles whatsoever. You can read about my experience on my blog.

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I would recommend using an actual ripper instead of just copying the DVD files to your hard drive. Save space, for one thing, often at a premium on netbooks.

Disclaimer warning! I helped with this product: Rip DVD Plus. For that reason, I have tested it extensively on my own netbook, and the MPEG 4 files it rips play great on my Atom-based Eee PC. I even did the ripping there using an external DVD drive. I haven't tested Windows 7 on the netbook, just XP and Ubuntu, but that should not be a problem.

I'm sure many of our competitors will also work, but I haven't actually tested them.

Whatever ripper you use, I would suggest ripping at a reasonable video bitrate, say 512kbps. The original DVD files may be as high at 5000kbps, but you can't really reproduce that on a netbook's video system anyway so it just adds overhead for the player to drop frames while taking up more space. If you're using the built-in speakers, they're probably not great, so there's no benefit to putting the audio bitrate over about 64k. If you're using headphones or external speakers, a higher audio bitrate might give you detectably better sound.

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  • Right now my file size is around 8gb. With the specs you mentioned above, what file size would 8gb end up being?
    – Gerhard Weiss
    Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 10:57
  • I don't know because I don't know the original bit rate or compression system. Order of magnitude says it would be somewhere near 1/10 the size.
    – CarlF
    Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 13:45
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I remember playing DVDs on my old Pentium III at 450 MHz, so an Atom processor should handle that just fine.

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In terms of software, if Windows Media Player 12 (which ships with Windows 7) does not work, then VLC should be able to play the DVD files.

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