Addng video card to laptop for HD movies

No. An external video card would probably be even worse than what you have now. With laptops, you're kind of SOL.

you can play around with different media player software/codecs. Some maybe be more efficient then others.

Probably goes without saying, within a particular codec, you can adjust the post processing or other settings to see if that helps.

He's not SOL. You can get Expresscard PCI-express adapters, breakout boxes, etc. Not the most elegant solution but it's possible.

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/grap...

Other options, buy a cheap used PS3 or Xbox and convert your movies into a compatible format for them (The 360 is pretty verstile now and can play them from a network device via windows media player)

There is also USB->Video cards for laptops, although you want USB 3.0 for good HD bandwidth. Even here in this review, they used an expresscard->USB 3.0->External video box and were able to play full HD no prob.

http://www.everythingusb.com/targus-usb-3.0-dual-video-...


There are solutions "outside the box".

or if you don't want to go for a game console,

There are plenty of "media center" boxes that will do the decoding. Some are just built-into standalone blurray players with network capability. some are sold just as network media players.

Price range, they are now relatively cheap for what they can do.