dvd-r does work. That's all I ever throw in it. The dvd player goes into a gui that lists the files on your disc. You can drill into folders and play whatever file off the disc you'd like. It can be cumbersome at times (I've noticed if I play something then hit menu, it goes to the menu for a split second, then moves it to play the first thing on the disc, then you hit menu again and it takes you back to the menu. Pretty annoying)
i have a bunch of cds that have a single .avi file on them. What i was wondering is..if the compression for the video is "MS-MPEG4 V2" ... will it play on this player?
Just got the dvd player. LOVE IT. Plays my divx pro 5.02 encoded files just fine. I wonder if it will play divx pro 5.05? Any body have experience with that version of the divx codec? or is that sine v 5.02 works all the v 5.x will also work?
i notice that the dvp642 for external subtitle support is lacking. I have some .srt files that have the <i></i> tag which means italics but it actually shows the tag on the screen instead of making the words italics.
In response to VBR MP3's ... I've experimented with it and it pretty much works but I've noticed problems. As long as the video portion of the stream is "constrained" using one of the divx hardware profiles (the datarate peaks over a 3 second period won't exceed some 4mbits/sec or something like that)... And you perform dual pass or N-pass operating, the audio seems to play back w/o sync issues. If you (like I have done) do single Quality based pass with VBR MP3 (Lame or FhG), then the audio can get upto 1/2 second behind or ahead... Kind of wierd... HOWEVER.. (using XviD as it gets better quality and smaller sizes if you tweak it correctly)... I've using Single Pass Quality settings... Like 3.5 and B-VOPs offset of 0.9 and ratio of 1.35 (~10% better in B frames).... I have to use constant bit rate audio (AC3 448kbps, MP3 CBR 112kbps, etc.) for the audio to never drift. (also increase motion search and others stuff to max). I've got a AVI file that is Star Wars #4 WITH AC3 that plays back excellent... and only 1.13GB in size. (I did add a zone to increase loss during ending credits to Q 5.2). I resized so it looks correct on 16:9 TV.. The ONLY noticeable issue is that during the first major peak in the "video" stream (during the interior scene where R2 and C3PO when the ship is under attack).... There is a little bump during playback (hickup is the better way to describe it).. Even tho the peak datarate is NEVER above the limit of the unit (4mbps), there is a hickup, however if you back it up (to the yellow text that scrolls up in SW#4) and play again... It plays fine. This suggest that there is some buffering strategy that is updated when it sees the first major peak of the file. I guess I could add a zone change to Q of 1 during the very beginning for a few seconds and solve the 'hickup'. Formally when I experimented with recoding the AC3 448kbps to VBR MP3 (no more than 128kbps and no less than 64kpbs, via LAME codec)... I always get drifts when encoding StarWars #4 in a single pass "Quality" mode (as described above). Just thought you'd be interested in it... And XviD with VirtualDub (with MPEG2 VOB support) works the best overall in quality and size... REALLY! I've spent almost a month (on and off) testing, coding, recoding... Trial and error (and learning). --Doug
What are the max number of Divx files that the player will recgnize? I have a DVD that I burned that has 22 files, and it wouldnt play. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance for the quick and helpful response! J
Not sure... It has a limit... I've noticed that... HOWEVER.. it seems to support sub directories (at least one directory deep, off of the root) ... so you might be able to group the files into directories... Now the next question is how many directories does it support... I dunno... I haven't reached it yet .. only had two
To add to the "it seems to have a limit" comment above. I've had something like 8 AVIs (MPEG4) in a directory and was able to navigate to the last one and play it... but when I pressed stop to return to the menu, it was buggy and the MPEG4 icon on the last few AVIs was gone -- it would only play the first ~6 or so (however long the list it)... After power cycling or open/closing the tray, the MPEG4 icon on the latter files (near the end of the list) came back... I suspect it is some buffer thing, the directory is read into a buffer and it gets destroyed during playback (decoding MPEG4) ... not really sure. Perhaps if the DVD(-ROM ISO) had directories I would have been able to change to another and change back (and re-read the directory) and work around what I've noticed. It's not perfect... (the whole "square" pixel thing is silly, MPEG2 assuming pixels are either 0.91) or 1.21) -- it's because MPEG4 is still in it's early stages I guess). --Doug
Uh, how would we know that? I have a mixed disc (mpeg, jpeg, divx, xvid, etc) that has over 1000 files. It works fine.
I broke the 22 files into 5 folders and now it plays fine. I think there might be a 6 main folder max on the player. Not sure. But I think the solution is to just break things into smaller directories. To whomever suggested that to me, thank you very much! J
No Problem... As people discover stuff -- even if you can't exactly describe it... Just report it here and see if others have any comments.. The "Mixed" disc... Sounds like (based on what I am hearing -- could be wrong) the 642 has problems with AVIs ... The "1000"'s -- sounds like photos and MP3's maining (I am guessing) ... Please dlocke, give a file count by type and a description of the directory layout... Maybe the ~6 file limit (I think it is that) may only be in the root directory ... Not sure... Any information is better than none (and appreciated). --Doug
I recently purchased the dvp642 and am having trouble wit h xvid disc's. When ever I insert a disc with xvid media, it attempts to read and then ejects the disc, there are however 25 files per disc and I believe I may have read somewhere that 24 is the max. Does anyone have any idea's on why the disc's would eject right away? Thanks for any help. Also if anyone has any tips for burning dvdr's with divex/xvid encoding from the amount of files per cd and arrangeing them to burning software that would be great as well.
Look guys, from what I gather, this player is very sensitive to what media it is fed. I have a DVD with 32 Family Guy episodes, and it plays flawlessly. I have another DVD with 1200 mp3s, 6 episodes of stuff and that plays fine too. As a matter of fact, the only problem I've EVER had with it, is with some xvid file types. I don't think there's a limit on the number of files it can handle on one DVD... at least not on the DVP 642/37. Maybe it has to do with the brand of DVDs you're using. I've used only Memorex and Imation, and I've had VERY little problems. Just an idea...
I RECENTLY BOUGHT THAT PHILIPS DVP642. HOW CAN I BURN A DIVX TO A CD-R WITH NERO?I'M FAIRLY NEW TO THIS DIVX THING SO CAN ANYONE HELP THX
Well I don't have the disc in front of me and it was burned before I ever got the dvp 642. It has a vcd in the root file and it has many directories within that directory. The disc is mainly jpgs. It has at least 70 mpg and avi files on it. The rest is jpgs. One tip. Make your folder names start with letters a, b,c, but not v! I have a "video" folder that is #653 in that directory so I either have to page down for five minutes or hope it lets me type in the item I want to jump to (which works sometimes and not others, go figure). I can give you guys an offical count if you think it would be helpful. This particular disc has many subfolders (again, it was never intended to run on a dvd player, it was more of a backup).
dlocke -- Thanks for the information and I am kind of understanding what is going on. A more specific layout would be appreciated but not 100% necessary. djj7917 -- You should be able to use any format as all formats (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW) have been at one time or another "Reported" to work. Now any problems are probably due to the ISO9660 w/ Juliet, UDF, UDF/ISO Hybrid, etc. -- the various different filesystem type "layout".. I've had decent luck with nero's basic DVD-ROM ISO9660 w/ Juliet (even tho the 642 ignores extended Juliet filenames, w/o the Juliet stuff / BARE ISO-9660 (32 char or 8.3MSDOS) had problems -- go figure!) Foxcraft -- have had problems with both Divx and Xvid until I figure out what is going on. There is a "max" datarate (over a ~3 second window) of somewhere around 4mbps. And the pixel size must be square. And the frame size should be a multiple of 16... Multiple's of 8 might work but 16 is highly recommended. Aka 640x480. 720x480, 704x480, 352x240 all good sizes. 704x408 bad size. The key (I) frame should occur every 250-300 frames (no longer than ~250-300 frames, less is okay). the max length B-VOPs (tested -- sometimes hickups -- actually stopped play AVI in middle of decoding) . 3 works w/o problems. B-VOP length of 2 is was the max Divx Pro allows for. Xvid allows for any length it appears, but anything more than 4 is extra compression time wasted. B-VOPs length / percent range: 1 / 30-60%, 2 / 35%-65%, 3 / 0-10%, 4 / 0.0 - 0.75% -- don't need to spend time on anything longer than 3. Xvid tends to use B-VOPs lengths of 2 more than Divx and results in much smaller files. SW4 Xvid ~1.13GB (including AC3, max frame width 720) versus Divx 1.65GB (and Divx reduces the width a little bit). Really I have spent a lot of time re/compressing and analysing the IPB structure and statistics from my reference SW4 source. Hope this helps somebody! --Doug
If I am trying to put DivX and iVid files on a dvdr to watch on this player, will I most likelyhave to re/compress them? Say if it is a tv show that i downloaded? If so, what is the best software to do this?
I'm pretty fed up with this whole overscanning cutting off the subtitles on my downloaded anime issue. Think I'll just hack my X Box and use it to watch downloads, at least I won't have to reconvert files, etc. Don't get me wrong-I love my DVP642, it's just not he "swiss army knife" I thought it would be. Don't know if Philips will do something about it or not.
zrdb: Just a little confusing.. Subtitles are off the screen, below the bottom of the screen / can only see the top of the letters... There might be some software to (size) scale and translate (move) the subtitle (.srt for example) information. I don't know. However it probably isn'y an overscanning issue (when I hear overscan, I think of CRT's / aka the good old TV Tube). I suspect that during the conversion, the Divx final output is (perhaps) reduced in frame size to help reduce file size. A native 720x480 (0.9:1 pixel ratio) D1 (MPEG2 DVD) video source would need to be converted into a square pixel format. 640x480 (4:3 ==> 640/4 = 480/3) is popular, 720x540 would also be 4:3 and assuming a square pixel. 512x384 is also 4:3 w/ square pixels. So is 320x240. Seriously, I just glanced at the contents of the '.srt' file and I seem to remember (I could be wrong) that the subtitle uses pixel location. If that is the case, a '.srt' file *could* possibly not line up (or be off the screen). I wouldn't put it past the 642 of messing up in this way! Perhaps I am completely wrong and misinterpreted the message. --Doug
