# Disabling system tasks during DVD playback



## CraigNZ (Apr 22, 2010)

Last night I was watching a movie on my HTPC and part way through the movie the playback stuttered for a few seconds then everything was okay. When I finished the movie and closed the player application a pop up window showed that a Windows update has been downloaded and needed to be installed. I am guessing this is why the movie stuttered, probably when the download completed.

But this got me to thinking about the random stutters I have seen on previous movies. Could it be that there are system activities taking place behind the scene that from time to time disrupt the movie experience. So doing some checking I found this seems to be the case and that there are system tasks that should be disabled or not even running at all when watching a movie. It is so annoying to have a movie interrupted due to an operating system event.

So my question is has anyone pulled together a recommended system 'configuration' for an HTPC under Windows 7 64 bit .. or just Windows 7 I guess. If so we may want to check this and then move it up into the sticky area so all HTPC owners can easily access it. Would also make for easier updating of the information as we all gain more experience in this.

Craig


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## lsiberian (Mar 24, 2009)

CraigNZ said:


> Last night I was watching a movie on my HTPC and part way through the movie the playback stuttered for a few seconds then everything was okay. When I finished the movie and closed the player application a pop up window showed that a Windows update has been downloaded and needed to be installed. I am guessing this is why the movie stuttered, probably when the download completed.
> 
> But this got me to thinking about the random stutters I have seen on previous movies. Could it be that there are system activities taking place behind the scene that from time to time disrupt the movie experience. So doing some checking I found this seems to be the case and that there are system tasks that should be disabled or not even running at all when watching a movie. It is so annoying to have a movie interrupted due to an operating system event.
> 
> ...


I would recommend running as bare bones as you can get for DVD playback. Unfortunately nearly every computer setup is different so recommendations normally need to be specific. I normally don't let windows update run automatically. For DVD playback I normally would kill explorer.exe and then restart it with the task manager. I could create a script to disable window update for you, but that sort of thing has dangerous potential so I will refrain. 

Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update is the file path for Windows Update please be advised that by disabling it you are increasing your risk of malware infection. 

It is possible to create a script yourself to setup you computer for DVD playback. WinIT is what I normally use for easy script writing.


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## CraigNZ (Apr 22, 2010)

That is good information. I also found this:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/tune-18.html

It is related to Windows XP and is a bit dated, but I noticed in Windows 7 that indexing is still a feature of the system, just not sure if it may cause the same problems as noted in the article. It is things like explorer.exe and indexing that I think we all need to look at.

I read in another forum one user commenting that every HTPC system is unpredictable, and for a given HTPC the performance can vary by day and even with the same DVD. It is the nature of a multi-tasking operating system and especially with today's computers .. I counted some 40+ processes running in the background doing who knows what.

The script idea is a good one, some method that even when you do figure out what all those background processes and services are doing, how to you suspend them during the movie. So the first task is to identify what all those things are doing and second to determine which can be safely suspended while watching a movie.

I did note on my system that DVD playback is smoother through Windows Media Center than through a player like TMT5 or PDVD10. To me that would indicate that WMC (Microsoft) 'knows something' and is suspending some system tasks in the background. I'm not sure of this, but if it is possible then these would be the guys to do it. Who knows the system better.

Craig


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## CraigNZ (Apr 22, 2010)

Here is an interesting article:

http://www.computingunleashed.com/speed-up-windows-7-ultimate-guide-to.html

I will try these out and see if any improvement.


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## drummerbod (Jun 28, 2010)

Turn off Auto Download\install of updates and change to notification only.

Nothing else will make any difference. Turning off services etc was at a time when processor power was an issue because everything was processed by the CPU. Once the likes of ATI & Nvidia sorted there acts out the processing was then done on the gfx card. That was probably 6 or 7 years ago.

Unless you PC refresh rate is perfectly set to that of the film\video material and that of your display then you will always have stutters whenther they be continuos or random.


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## CraigNZ (Apr 22, 2010)

My HTPC is just that .. nothing else. So it has minimal applications on it, but I have installed a lot of different "Free Trial" stuff over the last few months. So thinking there may be some clashes with that I wiped the system drive and installed a fresh copy of the O/S. Using only Windows Media Center to play the DVD's I see no jittering at all .. absolutely perfect playback.

My plan now is to let the system settle down for a few days with this new load and then one by one add in the extra applications that I finally decided on. By watching a few movies after each load I can watch to see if the jittering returns. If so then I know what the last program installed was and begin to investigate why that one.

It may be that after trying out so many different programs that when removing them they left things in the registry or drivers that over time started causing problems. So maybe one word of advice is that after you have settled on the exact applications you want to run on your HTPC that you then do a complete rebuild and thereby removing for sure any junk that may have been left over.


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## peterselby7 (Nov 29, 2008)

I had problems with this too until I got my HTPC overbuilt to the point that it doesn't matter any more. If the PC is fast enough, with enough RAM and CPU speed it will not stutter during playback. It's just a matter of the machine being able to handle the load you put it under. 

What RAM, CPU, motherboard,etc are you running?


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## CraigNZ (Apr 22, 2010)

My configuration:

Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H
Intel Core I3 540 processor
4 GB RAM
Windows 7 x64
Asus Xonar 1.3 Deluxe
LITE ON Bluray drive
10 TB external HDD storage
4 Crown XTI-2000 amplifiers
Klipsch K Horns (fronts), Klipsch THX surrounds
Definitive Technology Trinity Sub
Samsung 63" Plasma 3D screen
Furman PL-PRO DMC power conditioner
Behringer ECM-8000 calibration microphone
M-Audio DMP3 mic preamp

The good news is after I wiped the HDD and reloaded the system everything has been great. No stutters or pauses, etc. So my conclusion is that during my initial building the system phase where I was trying out various software packages that somewhere along the line it so confused the system that it caused problems. Once I selected my final components, both hardware and software, I then wiped the system, installed only those components and it now plays DVD and Bluray movies perfectly. As mentioned above, if the system is working correctly there is more than enough performance available in the system to play movies.


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## peterselby7 (Nov 29, 2008)

Yeah, that PC is fast enough you shouldn't have been having a problem. The other thing is to keep your temporary files cleaned out from time to time. That can slow it down too.


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