HP 2510p help with playing HD movies

I have a HP 2510p with the u7700 at 1.33 and X3100 video card. I have downloaded some HD movies from the internet, I play them all with VLC media player. My laptop has the 120gb 5400rpm hard drive that came with it, most other 2510P's have the 4200rpm drive model. I play the HD movies from the hard drive.

Well my problem is that the HD movie (in 720HD) doesn't play too well on my laptop. Some movies skip alot, they seem to be waiting to load or something like that. I play other movies (around 700-800mb) and it does not do that.

Do current and past 2510p owners ever have this problem with playing HD movies. Is the X3100 video card powerful enough to play 720HD movies or could it just be a driver issue. Maybe I can upgrade the X3100 drivers, I keep hearing stories about intel drivers, so I will see if that helps.

Any help would be great.

 

VLC seems to be poorly optimized, I had the same problem with my 2510p.

MediaPlayer Classic worked much much better for me:
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

If you still need codecs I've found the codec pack from http://www.shark007.net to be very good.

 

Is that program for free, that is why I use and love VLC.

 

Yup, it's free.