Can You watch a full DVD movie on battery power?

Recently i tried to do so. I took my toshiba on a camping trip, and planned a movie night.

The laptop (sattelite A100-ofh)is about a month old. I have not used the battery too much. Initially, i gave it a 24h charge, and it has been completely run down.

I used the express media player to avoid loading windows. The movie was 146 minutes. The battery just fell short. It shut down with less than 5 minutes to go. Apparently DVD is heavy on battery drain.

So, the question is, can you watch a full length DVD movie on your laptop using battery power?

Feel free to chime in even if you don't have a toshiba.

Any tips to maximise DVD playback life?

It is not often i would need to watch a movie away from AC power, but i did expect to get one movie out of the battery.

 

rip the dvd to your HD instead of using the dvd drive

 

I have a P105-S9312 and after some volt modding with NHC I can watch just about any movie with express media player and still have a bit of battery time left

 

I just watched both discs of the extended version of Fellowship the other night, using the DVD player, and had some battery to spare. I have the A100-S8111TD with the 12cell battery. Check your power settings, the Toshiba Power Saver looks like it does a decent job and there's a setting specifically for DVD viewing (I used the default power setting which is a generic "laptop" setting and the screen was on full bright)

 

I only have the standard 6-cell battery.

 

Gotcha. Be sure to check your video setup- the nVidia display settings (if you have the nVidia card) will allow you to set the acceleration of the card while using battery. It's only necessary to give it max performance (as opposed to max battery) if you're gaming.

Did you check the Toshiba Power Saver settings?

 

Tweaking the settings can only take you so far. It's a mathematical impossibility to overcome the lack of 50% extra capacity that a 9-cell battery would give you. Now you have a good excuse to get a spare 9-cell battery. Ripping the DVD to your hard drive should increase your movie playtime.

I was able to watch the extended version of LOTR The Return of The King with my HP laptop, but it has a 12-cell battery.

 

Nope. I am on Vista, no luck at all. Back in the Win XP days I might have been able to do it, although I have never tried.

 

No argument about that. However, if he only needs another 5-10 minutes to finish his movie I'd think playing with settings would be the thing to do. As of yet he hasn't come back to tell us what, if anything, he's done.

 

I can probably do a little bit of tweaking. I didn't think that the power saver settings were relevant since i was using the express media player, and did not boot windows. does it automatically select the DVD playback settting? Can i still change the power settings using the Fn key while in the media player? I did not try that.

Also, i have the integrated intel video card.

 

rkj
i know this might sound stupid, but when you took your laptop on your campling trip. you messed up one you charged your laptop for 24hours.
i have a toshiba a100-200.
ive realised if you charge it for more than your suppose to, it will drain your battery life down.
if you have the standard battery that came with it. i think its 6cell, it should be only charged until the blue light appears on the battery, and thts about 4hours tops!

try that, let me know if it helps

maatt

 

can i ask, how you do that?

 

Erm...DVD Decrypter. It may or may note be legal to do it in your country. Consider this post to be off-the-record if it is illegal in your country to backup DVDs that you own, fully paid for.

 

No! My battery is pants and my cpu has no speedstepping. Not actually tried but if I got more than 1:30 I'd be very surprised.

 

Are you sure the NHC volt modding affected your play time in Express Media Player? I thought the NHC settings only affected Windows. Express Media Player is not running under Windows.