Zrdb and others who have used MPEG4 Direct Maker, This seems like a neat tool, and good alternative to re-encoding with VirtualDub. If you have used it, what is the ballpark time for conversion of a 90minute movie? To those having problems with xvid videos: For all my movies, I would use a tool called Easy Video Splitter (google it) to cut a very small 5 minute clip from your movie first, and burn this clip onto a CDRW. You can also cut with virtualDub, but the EVS tool works faster. Then test the clip on my player. If it skips and/or the sound is laggy, I know I have to re-encode. Re-encoding is really not that bad, for a 2hr movie, it only takes me around 45 minutes (xvid compression). If you need directions on how to re-encode properly w/out losing any quality, lemme know.
u should tell me how i can get rid of the qpel encoding on some xvids, nice easy and fast way of doing it. that would be great.
I have found that .AVI file playability on my DVP642 depends on the DVD media and the type of FILE SYSTEM used when burning DVDs. WORKS consistently: ISO9660 file system. Playback often SKIPS, freezes, or FAILS; or Fast-Forward fails: Joliet file system. Using the same burner, same software (Roxio), the same files, and the same media batch (DVD+R)... I have burned several DVDs that work, and several that do NOT work, very consistently... the only difference being the FILE SYSTEM selected when burning my DVDs. Also, I have found that off-brand, cheap DVD-R media often fails on my DVP-642. This may explain some of the problems others have seen with the DVP642. (I have one made in October 2004 and I did NOT upgrade the firmware yet -- too many scary reports about more problems created than problems solved with new firmware!) - Geo
Maybe it is time for Philips to honor their marketing ploy "You have it, we play it!" and give us a firmware upgrade that works!!! They should support .WMV and other formats too! So far, it plays 90% of what I have tried... not perfect, but not too bad... but I have burned lots of coasters to find the right combination of settings... - Geo
me again, i just got latest gspot version and it does show opel and gmc and much more. now i can see that the only xvid movie i have that wont play , has opel and gmc on. all the others dont have this highlighted and they all play ok in the phillips player
Thanks for the update, naddams. It's good to know what we're up against! Also, thanks for the tip on the latest version of Gspot. I will have to upgrade as well. Do you know of any tool that will do what Gspot does for an entire directory? It will be a pain to run Gspot one file at a time. Thanks again.
That is scary. I have experienced the same problems. Sometimes the picture and/or sound just freezes for a moment. I thought it was an error writing the CD. But now that i think back the CD had Joliet File System. Have u informed the Philips support of this. It wud be best if they introduce the support for Joliet Filesystem in the next upgrade.
naddams and others :: You asked about how to re-encode your movie in about 45 minutes. I will try to whip up a web guide when I have the time ...but here is the quick and dirty of it: QPEL and/or GMC will often times cause problems with your xvid, so if you find these within gspot, you'll have to re-encode: 1. Open up your VirtualDub (I'm using 1.6.1 build 220222), and drag and drop the movie into there. If you get a "Audio CBR" error right away, you will have to do what naadams mentioned in his thread and extract the wav file and re-encode. If no Auto CBR error message, then proceed with these directions. 2. Now from the Audio menu, make sure "Direct Steam Copy" , and "Source Audio" have a bullet next to them. 3. Under Video menu, select "Fast Recompress". 4. Now go back to video menu, and select "Compression", new window should pop up that lets you pick the type of compression you want to use. 5. I already have the Xvid codec installed on my computer, but some of you may need to get it before proceeding. FFDSHOW is the codec package to get. 6. Select Xvid MPEG-4 Codec at the bottom of list. And press the "configure button" to the right of it. 7. The xvid configuration should popup. The third button down from the top should say "Target Bitrate", if it says "target quantizer", click on it and it should toggle back to "Target Bitrate". Make sure you have AT LEAST what the average video bitrate (kbps)that your video shows in GSPOT, otherwise quality will be really bad. 8. Profile@Level Should be AS@L5 , Encoding Type should be Single Pass , dont mess with any of the other settings. (There is a detailed guide out there on what they all mean, but for our purposes, it's not relevant). 9. As a double check, click on the "more" button next to AS@L5 drop down box, and make sure NOTHING is checked. Quantization type should be left at H.263 , although I find the MPEG setting to be higher quality (but slower). Hit ok on the subwindows to get back to main screen. 10. Click file, save as avi , and you should be ready to roll. The status bar window that pops up should show you how long you will have to wait, and the approx. size of the file. There's a good tutorial page that can be found on Doom9's page, : [bold]http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/xvid-vdub-dev.htm Small note: You may want to only re-encode only a small portion of your video to test if it will work with the player. Before saving the file, hit the "home" key on your keyboard to select the start of the clip, slide the bar to where you want the clip to end, and it the "end" key. Encoding of a 5 minute clip should be nothing more then 20 seconds.[/bold]
Ritek DVD-R 8x (GO5) work fine, as do 4x (GO4) and even 1-2x (GO2/GO3). For the past 2 years, after experimenting with a lot of DVD-R brands, Ritek have always been the best ang-for-te-bck. I have never burned a coaster using themj when it wasn't my fault. Also, I'm surprised nobody mentioned this in this forum... The reason for the ommission of DVD-R/W from some of Philips documentation is because Sony/Philips are the real proponents of the DVD+R/W formats. It should be obvious that they would mention their format, not the -R/W format. It has been my experience that DVD-R is much more compatible with more set-top players than DVD+R formats.
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arag0rn Thanks for the info,I have to clear some codec problems then i will follow those steps and hope i can speed things up. You have been a great help.
when i follow that, i get a error as soon as i open a file up in VDUB saying "Couldnt Locate decompressor for format "XVID" (unknown) so what am i doing here? i have the ffdshow codec installed. and i get this error plz help.
ok, so this player is supposed to support .srt files for subtitles right? Well, I tried playing one of these but the subtitles didn't work. I upgraded my player to 1109 by the way. Any help would be appreciated.
Subzero and others with subtitle problems, Yes this player supports .SRT files. First off, get a subtitle reader for your pc (VOBsub) and put the name of the movie the same as the name of your subtitle file ( gladiator.avi , gladiator.srt). Test if it plays and you can read the subtitle on pc. 1. Then burn the two onto a cd or dvd and make sure they're in the same folder. 2. Pop it in , hit the "disc/menu" button on the remote. You should see the contents of the cd/dvd on screen and be able to navigate around. 3. Go to the subtitle file (it has a text icon next to it), and hit the "subtitle" button on the remote. 4. The screen should say something like "Divx Subtitle Selected" 5. Go back to the movie file and hit "ok" button. It should display subtitles.
Vibe, Not familiar with this error message. Are you able to play the movie ok on Windows Media Player? My guess is that the codec was not installed properly. To test if you have xvid at all, check out the "configuration" tool for ffdshow located in your start menu. It will show you a list of codecs that are installed on your system. The title of the window should say "ffdshow properties". Under the codecs submenu, make sure you see Xvid in the list, and that it is not disabled. Mine is currently on "libavcodec".
Hi All: I know that this is a bit off topic but it seems like a reasonable forum to ask the question in. Has anybody reading this ever actually played a PAL, non-Region 1 DVD on the 642. The reason I ask is that Ally McBeal was one of my wife's favorite TV shows. The complete series is only available in the UK as Region-2 PAL (don't ask me, ask Fox). I was thinking of buying the whole series from Amazon UK for her birthday. It would be nice if the Philips could play the disks. Moss
