JSI Tip 7686. Windows Media Player 9 Series for Windows XP exhibits poor performance for every other item in the playlist?

When you play AVI, MPEG, and some other items on a multi-monitor computer, every second item on the playlist has poor performance.

This problem occurs because because the hardware buffer is only used on every second item on the playlist. When the operating system is used to render the video, it requires more resources than when the hardware buffer is used.

NOTE: Windows Media video files use a different playback mechanism and don't exhibit this problem.