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    Does Media Direct have better battery life?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by greystone, Jan 16, 2008.

  1. greystone

    greystone Notebook Consultant

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    I haven't used Media Direct much but am not seeing the benefit at this point. One big plus would be if it is more efficient with power use than running Vista and Media Center to watch a movie. Anyone have any experience comparing the two? The marginally fater boot isn't enough for me.

    Thanks.
     
    greystone, Jan 16, 2008
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  2. greystone

    greystone Notebook Consultant

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    Does anyone even use Media Direct? Seems like one of the few potential benefits would be better battery life.
     
    greystone, Jan 17, 2008
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  3. M1chel

    M1chel Notebook Geek

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    I don't use Media Direct (launched twice, didn't see the point, erased), but MD is basically a very clean installation of Windows XP that only runs a single application. Dell probably tuned everything for optimal power management, but it's not like we can't do better, right? My take on it: use XP (or even a well-tuned Vista if you insist) with the right power-management settings (RMClock or similar and what have you), and we'll be ahead of the game.
     
    M1chel, Jan 17, 2008
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  4. billcsho

    billcsho Notebook Deity

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    It saves the power of many unnecessary processing, however, the major energy consumption goes to the audio output, optical drive, and the LCD display when watching DVD. So the energy consumption during an MD session would be higher than regular use of the laptop. Nevertheless, you may extend the play time by watching Divx instead of DVD.
     
    billcsho, Jan 18, 2008
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  5. ifti

    ifti Undiscovered

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    I took off MD straight away. Thought it was rubbish.
     
    ifti, Jan 18, 2008
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  6. billcsho

    billcsho Notebook Deity

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    It is a great portable Divx player if you installed the codec.
     
    billcsho, Jan 18, 2008
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  7. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    I use MediaDirect for DVDs when Im travelling. I believe i get about 30-50 more minutes of life from the 9 cell.

    It doesnt matter as much as it used to though as the battery life for this battery is 4hrs plus, enough for 2 DVD movies.
     
    Les, Jan 18, 2008
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  8. sinstoic

    sinstoic Notebook Deity

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    Once you tweak MediaDirect by adding other codecs, you'll find it useful. Do a search in this forum and you'll get the appropriate threads.

    I feel MediaDirect is a convenient way to quickly check on pictures, music, videos and DVDs/VCDs. By the way VCD stands for Video Compact Discs. You can even check on Presentations and Windows Contacts. You can even password protect it to make it secure.

    The contact option would have been helpful only if there was a way to display Outlook Contacts. Flamenko, do you have any idea about this?

    Even though MediaDirect increases battery life, it is not significant when you have a high capacity battery. Therefore stick with MediaDirect for the convenience factor.
     
    sinstoic, Jan 18, 2008
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