HDD Multimedia Player, XVID & Aspect Ratios

[neily]

Hi,

I recently got a Rapsody RSH-100 Multimedia Player, Somewhat similar to the TVIX 3000 and Modix 3510, which has pretty much lived up to my expectations so far.

I tried encoding some video material to XVID, from a standard 720x576 PAL source, and tried all the different pixel and display aspect ratio options in XVID, but only ever got square pixel output on my TV.

Does anyone know whether this is something peculiar to this player, or whether it is common to all of this type of player, or whether it may be due to XVID (v1.1.0)?

Has anyone got a Rapsody/TVIX/Modix to respect an XVID aspect ratio?

Many thanks.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Firstly....

Are your MPEG-4 720x576 anamorphically signalled encodes correctly displayed in a software player - with the relevant MPEG-4 direct-show decoder installed?


Cheers

[neily]

Thanks for the reply, and a very good point, which I have to say I hadn't thought of. But yes, I just tried my test files in mplayer, and they display as I had expected, with correct aspect ratios.

I had produced a short 10s clip from a 720x576 bitmap with a square in the middle for 4:3, 16:9 and 2.35:1, resized so that when displayed at the correct aspect ratio they would be square. For each, I used the 4 different pixel aspect ratio and the 3 different display aspect ratio options, ending up with 21 test files. Each file was just displayed with a square pixel aspect ratio on the HDD player.

I tried the same trick with MPEG2, using the 4:3 and 16:9 AR options and everything is fine.

I was really hoping to keep all the video files in native 720x576 interlaced for simplicity and quality. If I have to resize the video it will end up with me having to de-interlace, which I would really rather avoid.

So now that you have helped me rule out XVID as the culprit, I still would like to find out whether it is a chipset (shared by all these players) or firmware issue.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Support for MPEG-2 anamorphic signalling has been a basic requirement for both hardware and software players since its launch.... Sadly the same can not be said for MPEG-4... but it's a lot better now :)

I see from the Rapsody RSH-100 spec it's fitted with a Sigma Designs EM8511 chip-set, which should be capable of supporting anamorphic MPEG-4 streams within .AVI (and .MP4 if memory serves).

Do you know what "middle-ware" it runs on. If it's Syabas you might be struggling to get what you want.

In the meantime, please try the following MPEG-4 AR Signalling Test Files (http://81.98.148.105/Uploaded_Files/Doom9_Forum_files/MPEG-4_in_AVI_with_DAR_Signalling.7z) and report back.


Cheers

EDIT: Link amended

[neily]

Nice files, SeeMoreDigital, sadly still displayed as square pixels. I suspect the software is not by Syabas, as they seem to specialise in networked solutions.

I'll try emailing tech support, but I'd be surprised if I get a reply. No company representatives seem to have commented for over a month on their forum, and after several days, I haven't even been registered to join it as a poster.

It would still be interesting though to hear from a TVIX user, as they seem to be the most popular models.

At least I'll know what questions to ask when getting my next device. It never occurred to me that it may not support anamorphic streams.