# DivX video freezing

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 26, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588 "2003-06-26T19:10:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fuel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Fuel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuel)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588/1 "2003-06-26T19:10:26Z")

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I have a couple of AVI video files on my computer, such as Snatch and American History X, ect. … just normal movies at 690 or so MB (decent quality). Now, my system is fairly old and outdated by 4 years (Dell), except for a memory & hard drive upgrade and OS upgrade (Win 2000). Most of the time I can watch these movies, and when I do, the memory is barely reaching 25% capacity. But the CPU is cranking between 97% and 100% the whole time (according to the Task Mgr.). The videos usually run fine for hours with the CPU running that full. I watch these movies with DivX Player 2.0 Alpha (By the way, is this the free best player for these files?). Every once in a while the program will freeze up, saying “abnormal termination” or something along those lines and there is nothing I can do to play past a certain point in the movie. I have a Pentium 3 in my system (not sure of speed).

Question is: Why can’t my processor handle this? Am I using the wrong player? I have a decent system that is functioning properly otherwise, why can’t I play these files without using my CPU to capacity and risking a freeze-up every time?

Thanks for your help.

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**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588/2 "2003-06-26T20:40:26Z")

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Try this: [DivX video download](http://www.divx.com/divx/). Alpha software can’t always be trusted; give the release version a try. That page lists the DivX player version as 2.1.

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**Author:** ![Fuel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Fuel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuel)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588/3 "2003-06-27T04:28:20Z")

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I DL’ed that newer version. Now all the movies run with 40% CPU and no freezes so far! Thanks!

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588/4 "2003-06-27T09:23:42Z")

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U just download the DivX codec and use Windows Mplayer 2 or PowerDVD players and it seems to work fine.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divx-video-freezing/184588/5 "2003-06-27T09:25:48Z")

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U should be “I”: **I** just download the DivX codec and use Windows Mplayer 2 or PowerDVD players and it seems to work fine.