How to get best battery life watching movies

Faced with a few 14 hour flights, I'd like to see some movies of MY choice on this very nice Sony TX. Which will provide better battery life:

1. Stay in "media mode", playing actual discs on it as though it were just a costly DVD-player. The computer will be OFF. The optical drive, however, is spinning. That won't give me control over screen brightness and size, as the aircraft will be quite dark and playback won't need much light.

2. Store the movies on the hard drive and play them from there, in which case the optical drive will be OFF but the computer itself will be ON. I'll have good control over screen brightness and size, of course.

In all cases, wifi and bt will be OFF.

And when the screen size is smaller than full screen, is the unit using less power? The TX uses that LED-illuminated screen, not CCFluorescent.

I'll appreciate guidance as to how to stretch the viewing time...

Thanks!

 

Option two will give enormously better battery life. Optical drives use A TON of battery to keep spinning (like playing a movie would do!). The difference between "media mode" and being actually booted is very minimal anyway as far as power consumption.

If you have a smaller viewing area, it will not improve battery life as the primary reason screens use power is the lamp (or in your case, LEDs). Not actually changing the pixels.

Lock the CPU's speed at the lowest speed you can that still allows movies to decode properly with RMClock, and also read The Undervolting Guide.


EDIT: I also just noticed the keyword "few." If you're going to be going on long flights a lot, I would buy a second battery, or at least an extended life (extra cells) if available... or even better, both.

 

Put the movies on a memory card (SD/MS) and play the movie from there. This will allow the HD to spin down to save battery life. Get high speed cards so the movie will not lag due to slow read speeds.

 

THANKS!

Just ordered an extended battery from an ebay source, with the understanding that in this TX there is no intelligent dialog between battery and computer - it should work fine. That will more than double my available viewing hours, though it's a heavy battery (1/2 the weight of the laptop alone!).

The idea of playing movies from SD cards sounds good (they're inexpensive now), but the computer must be running for that to work, so battery life...?

Since Coach doesn't have power sockets, someone suggested putting a dixie-cup lined with photoelectric cells over the reading lamp...
Right. I'll get on it.

 

It might be a good idea. You'd have to set the harddrive to power down very quickly.

The only thing is that reading memory cards can cause higher CPU utilization. So you'd have to test both scenario's to see which one is most power efficient.

If you install RMClock (free) you can monitor exactly how much power your laptop is using.

 

Hi.

You should rip the dvd to your hdd and watch it off that!

Regards

John.

 

Good info.
I just downloaded RMClock which is another TMI (too much information) tool. To use it, the CPU has to be running. It won't tell me anything when in the Media Mode.

Storing a movie on the hard drive will work, but of course the hd will be spinning while watching the video - and it's probably a watt or so all by itself.

Which dissipates more power: optical drive or magnetic drive?

 

As I said, optical drives consume much more power than hard drives.

 

- This is ordered in decreasing of power usage: Optical > HDD > external memory (USB & flash card).... you do the math and tell other which way is the best. (the correct answer should be putting it on your USB drive or a external memory. If you get the correct answer, you can now watch an extra movie. If you get it wrong then go back to middle school).

- Smaller screen area will not do much. Face it, the screen is on then it still use battery. It's pointless to watch in smaller footprint when it still eat up the battery.

- Lower the brightness is an option.

- Switch to HDMI and use your monitor is another way to cut down battery consumption while watching movie but if you able to use a TV, then plug the laptop in.

 

I think that is a bad assumption. Sony machines do have an "intelligent dialog" with the battery. Even to the point of, in some cases, refusing to work with off brand batteries.

Gary

 

If you remove the ISB utility, that dialog will be off.

 

If battery life is your concern, don't use the Media Mode - use Windows.

Believe it or not, the AV Mode actually uses more battery than Windows.

 

Now THAT is a definitive answer to an important question. Based upon this information, my best bet is to play the movies from SD chips...