New firmware for Philips DVD owners (subs + FF/REW working)

[RoopeT]

Originally my DVD 622 came with firmware 2.9.6. 010515 P33 5.1.14

- REW/FF bug
- SVCD (& VCD) freezes, apparently because of bitrate peaks / valleys (TMPGEnc doesn't make constant enough VCD's with the standard template, detect scene change on
- Subbed SVCDs freeze nearly always, managed to make a few working ones
- Wrong subtitle timing: subs stay on the screen until the next subs appear

Upgraded my firmware to 4.15.O-0 020219 P33 5.1.14

- ALL the above mentioned problems SOLVED
(High peak bitrate with subbed SVCDs seems to turn the subs off, but the player won't freeze. Subs can then be turned on again)

The new firmware can be downloaded from http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips....vd/sommaire.htm
(DVD modèle Step2001- VFM2001 avec l'ensemble SD3.0/3.3 - Upgrade Soft 4.15O-0)

Models: DVD612/002; DVD612/022; DVD612/052; DVD612S/002; DVD622/001;
DVD712/001; DVD712/021; DVD712/051; DVD712/171 ; DVD722/001; DVD722/021; DVD722/051; DVD752/001; DVD762/001; DVD762/021; DVD762/051; DVD870/001; DVD870P/021; DVD870P/021; DVD870P/051; DVD870L/01; DVD703/032; DVD952/01; DVD952/021; DVDQ40/01; DVDQ40/021; DVDQ40/051; DVDQ50/001; DVDQ50/021

[Juhan]

I have heard that upgrading firmware forces your player to single fixed region again. Is it true ? What are your experiences with DVD regions after upgrading ?

How to make the player to multiregion again ? Does it require a special remote or the original remote can be used ?

Can you check if bitrate limits are higher now ? Can it play 3500 kbit/s now ?

Sorry about so many questions but I'm planning to upgrade my Philips 752 also and I do not want to loose the multiregion capability.

[RoopeT]

Sorry, but I have no clue about the multiregion hack, as I haven't tried it (yet). I'm not aware of any other means than a special remote to make my player multi-region, and I'm not planning to buy one (I might build one, though: http://home.hccnet.nl/r.de.haas/RC6/rc6_main_english.html).

I think the bitrate limits are about the same as previously, the player just handles bitrate peaks better. I try to stay within the SVCD specks bitrate range, which, as you should know isn't always that easy (if you trust Bitrate viewer). I haven't done any extensive testing, but I had a few encodes that freezed/skipped every now and then with the original FW, and they play without problems now with the new FW.

[Latexxx]

The remote control trick has to only done once. After that your player is region free.

[Juhan]

@Latexxx

Is it region free even after upgrading firmware ?

[borndevil]

I confirm the upgrade fix most but not all problems.

RoopeT, did you see that subs turn off in a random way?
If you rewind after subs failed, in the same point subs work.
Some other time, in place of sub I see a box filled with lines flickering.

Is it the same for you?
Any idea to solve this?

Latexx, I have a 722 (4.5O-0), what's your report?

[RoopeT]

RoopeT, did you see that subs turn off in a random way?
Yes, the same thing happens on my player too. I suspect it is due to the sub file timecodes, I'll try to edit them and see if I can get them working better.
Some other time, in place of sub I see a box filled with lines flickering
I've seen this too, but it is quite rare. I suspect the maximum bitrate, as this has never happened to me when setting max=2400.

I just got an report that claim the zoom also works now. I haven't tested this myself yet.

[borndevil]

@ RoopeT

Yes, that was my post, zoom works.

I saw your post about wrong calculation of bitrate by CCE due to GOP structure. Assuming that I encode Pal movies, what kind of options I must set in DVD2SVCD to have minor chances of defects (max bit, GOP, average bit ecc.)?

I also tried Tmpeg Enc, result was the same.
If it can help, in a movie I have, subs problem is more frequent in Ita sub, when I choose French sub it's less frequent.

Thank you.

[RoopeT]

I saw your post about wrong calculation of bitrate by CCE due to GOP structure
In my test encode the GOP structure didn't have much of an effect on the maximum bitrate peaks. And GOP cannot be changed in DVD2SVCD (for now). I really don't know of any foolproof way to make sure there's no bitrate peaks over, let's say 2600 kbps. I haven't checked how CCE 2.64 behaves, though (I don't have it). It claims to create SVCD compatible streams, so maybe there's a "SVCD compatible" checkbox to assure the bitrate stays within the specs all the time (like there's for DVD in v. 2.50).


If it can help, in a movie I have, subs problem is more frequent in Ita sub, when I choose French sub it's less frequent
This can indeed give us some more insight about why this all is happening, but it requires some work to do (and you to still have the sub + bmp files). If you still have the files, I would try the following:

- Try to locate a spot where the ita subs are not showing but the french ones are
- find the correcponding bitmap files for the subs and locate the spots on the sub files for these bitmaps: there should be something different with the timecodes between the working sub and the not working one. My GUESS (I really don't KNOW anything about it) for a working sub timecode is hh:mm:ss:xxx, where xxx=020+(n*040) (020,060,100,140,..., where 40 ms is the frame interval for PAL and the 20 ms comes from bbMpg muxing stage offset 180 ms).

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by Juhan
@Latexxx

Is it region free even after upgrading firmware ?

I don't think so

[borndevil]

@ RoopeT and other interested.

Here I posted subs with different effects:
French sub works well, Italian doesn't, if I start to see movie from the begin.
French goes wrong after 4 subs, as you can see in the readme.txt, I posted this bmp too.
I haven't idea about the source of the problem, I hope it can help you and you can discover something I can't see.

Thanx for help.

[borndevil]

here's the zip (I hope, I don't see anything)

[RoopeT]

I can't see any zips. Anyway, I'm as lost as you are. Have to admit that I was wrong when I though just editing the timecodes would make the sub behave better.

I did a little test last night: watched a subbed episode of Simpsons with DVD connected to my TV-card, so I could follow it on DScaler window on the monitor. I had the subs ripped as a text file too and had them opened at the same time, putting a mark on the spots didn't display correctly. I didn't notice anything out of ordinary with the lines not working. Furthermore, one of the subs just showed a box of garbage. I previously suspected this has to do with a bitrate peak, but the maximum bitrate peak of the whole mpg was ~2580 (video 352x576 @ avgr 1650, max 2400 + audio @ 160). I've encoded the same episode previously with different settings, and it was the very same sub that also then gave garbage out. On the spots the subs were lost, the player also hanged for a split of a second (so not that badly it was before the firmware upgrade, but noticeable still).

I also re-ripped the subs with Subrip 0.97b and ran submux to insert the newly ripped subs into the unsubbed program stream. Subrip generated subs had ~2 s difference with all the timecodes when compared to DVD2SVCD generated ones. The subs had problems on exactly the same spots as the subs generated by DVD2SVCD!

I'll give up for a while. Maybe I'll try again with Philips SVCD Designer a little bit later (i'll have to re-install NT4 for it, already removed it from my system)

[borndevil]

Now .zip file is here.
I confirm boxes of garbage, and I confirm also the little freezes in spots when subs turn off.

And U're right when U say that's not a problem of bitrate, my test movie is always under 2100 (!).

Well, I'd like test with SVCD Designer, but I haven't found it.

I've a partition with NT 4.0, but I have just the "trial" of Designer.

Did you try with VCDImager, without chapters and XML?

[Kosh Ulkesh]

has anyone tested the firmware updated and checked if the player is still multiregion?

[klara31]

I own a DVD752 (purchased around new year) and tried to download the firmware into the player. After a while, the display shows 'FLA ERROR'

Does anyone know what that means?

I guess that I do not have a downloadable player, but how to determine this without opening the cover?

Thanks,
Klara

[Juhan]

@RoopeT

Can you test one simple thing: Does audio come out thru digital output with SVCD (with new firmware). I have 2.9.6 firmware and audio comes out from digital output only with VCD and not with SVCD.

I need this information because with SVCD-s the digital output is muted. I don't know why it is so because audio is MPEG-1 in both VCD and SVCD.

If SVCD digital output is enabled then maybe it is possible to send AC3 audio to receiver and enjoy Dolby Digital 5.1 with SVCD-s.

[RoopeT]

Testing digital audio output isn't simple for me, as I don't have the cable and even if I did, I don't have anything to plug it into.

[borndevil]

I think it's a bug fixed in new firmware version as specified in revision box on Philips site.

see
http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips.com/assistance/dvd/DVDSD3_0_soft4_15C.html

@ RoopeT
I tried to use a different palette and VCDImager, even if Avg Bitrate is under 1500 the garbages are still there.

Did you have more lucky with SVCD Designer?

[borndevil]

@ Clara31

You can't. You must open the cover.
However, if that's the message returned the player haven't flash Rom.

Sorry

[RoopeT]

Maybe the garbage and subtitles not showing is due to the subtitle timecodes generated by DVD2SVCD after all. From what I read from Philips site (http://www.licensing.philips.com/includes/download.php?id=688&filename=svcdsubtitleformat.pdf&PHPSESSID=0276ea24f0de1ebc29e9f932ffaf2507) the subtitle timecodes are in a format hh:mm:ss:ff, where ff is the frame number (00-24 for PAL). The subtitle timecodes generated by DVD2SVCD are in a different format (hh:mm:ss:ms), where ms=fractions of a second (ms=00-99).

Ripping the subtitles with subripper 097b gives subtitle timecodes in the Philips supported format. I did a little test, subbing a already encoded videoclip with both subs generated by DVD2SVCD and with subripper, and the ones done with subripper had less problems. At least some of the subs that didn't show up with DVD2SVCD worked ok when done with subripper. I still noticed slight playback problems, though.

[borndevil]

@ RoopeT

see http://212.88.77.140/Readme.txt

You see in bugfix, the author writes that will remove garbages in the new version, but he means "like very very small" subtitles.

What did he mean?

With garbage I mean a flickering box with bad graphic that doesn't disappear if you don't turn off/on subs.

If this is what you mean, does Subripper solve it?

And if yes, is there a way to inglobe that sub conversion in DVD2SVCD?

Thank you again for your help.

[RoopeT]

You see in bugfix, the author writes that will remove garbages in the new version, but he means "like very very small" subtitles. What did he mean?

Hard to say, I'm not in the right psychic level right now.


With garbage I mean a flickering box with bad graphic that doesn't disappear if you don't turn off/on subs. does Subripper solve it?

I think the garbage boxes are either due to wrong timecoding or too small bitmaps. Need to do some more testing to be sure. I have no idea how to make DVD2SVCD to rip the subtitles with subripper, if that's what you're asking. And at this point, I don't care how much work it requires to make an working subbed SVCD, I just want to make it.

[borndevil]

Originally posted by RoopeT

Hard to say, I'm not in the right psychic level right now.

I think the garbage boxes are either due to wrong timecoding or too small bitmaps. Need to do some more testing to be sure. I have no idea how to make DVD2SVCD to rip the subtitles with subripper, if that's what you're asking. And at this point, I don't care how much work it requires to make an working subbed SVCD, I just want to make it.

I agree.
I'll do some test too.
BTW, did you mean SubRip 0.97b?
I found just 0.4b of Subripper.

Keep in touch.

[RoopeT]

Yep, I meant SubRip 0.97b.

I re-installed Win NT 4.0 (english) last night and installed the new version of SVCD Designer for it (it was still complaining about a missing dll, copied the missing file from my XP/System directory and it started to work). I also managed to create a subbed SVCD with it, BUT: NO problems were solved. Actually, I had many subtitles shown as boxes of garbage. These subtitles worked when done with SubRip + SubMux. Both the disc subbed with submux and the disc created with SVCD Designer had playback problems.

[screaminghell]

Hi RoopeT the link in your first post http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips....vd/sommaire.htm (http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips....vd/sommaire.htm ) does not work -see the jpeg attached. Whats the full URL?

[screaminghell]

Its not working :confused:

[borndevil]

http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips.com/assistance/dvd/sommaire.htm

[borndevil]

Originally posted by RoopeT
Yep, I meant SubRip 0.97b.

I re-installed Win NT 4.0 (english) last night and installed the new version of SVCD Designer for it (it was still complaining about a missing dll, copied the missing file from my XP/System directory and it started to work). I also managed to create a subbed SVCD with it, BUT: NO problems were solved. Actually, I had many subtitles shown as boxes of garbage. These subtitles worked when done with SubRip + SubMux. Both the disc subbed with submux and the disc created with SVCD Designer had playback problems.

:eek:
heeh... Philips!
Well, it seems that the way to follow is doin' all manually and use Subrip. I don't remember anymore best way to make a SVCD manually, but I'll study again.

BTW did you see this?
http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=81201

[screaminghell]

http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips.com/assistance/dvd/DVDSD3_0_soft2_96.html
I've got the DVD722 with Firmware 2.9.6 Does this update to 2.9.6 or from 2.9.6 to 4.150-O ?

Anyone tried it?

I cant try it now I'm in the office!:(

[RoopeT]

http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips....0_soft2_96.html ugrades the player FW to 2.9.6.

To upgrade to 4.15.O-0 the link is http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips.com/assistance/dvd/DVDSD3_0_soft4_15C.html

[screaminghell]

I'm not so sure - the "Objet" line says "Upgrade du soft d’application version 2.96 (Remplacé par version V4.15O.0)"
Its a long time since I spoke any french but I think this means update to V4.15O.0
Anyone agree? Any french natives out there that can confirm or deny ?!? :) :)

[borndevil]

Originally posted by screaminghell
I'm not so sure - the "Objet" line says "Upgrade du soft d’application version 2.96 (Remplacé par version V4.15O.0)"
Its a long time since I spoke any french but I think this means update to V4.15O.0
Anyone agree? Any french natives out there that can confirm or deny ?!? :) :)

:rolleyes:
I understand you've fear, but you HAVE 2.9.6 and you WANT 4.15O-0.
The link is http://www.euroservice.pfr.philips.com/assistance/dvd/DVDSD3_0_soft4_15C.html
Trust in RoopeT!!!
...and you'll discover that your player isn't flashable... :D

[borndevil]

Ok, I notice another thing.
I see garbages without displaying subs too.
I mean, if in subbed video I select no subs, a flickering box is displayed after some minute in same place of subs.

Please report about it.

[borndevil]

@ RoopeT

Update:
I tried to submux subs that gave me problems with another video and in the same point I have bad graphics. This means that it's not the video stream, but submux or subs.
Now, I used Subrip and muxed with submux using 8bit bmp.
(is it right 8bit?)
I still notice bad graphic in the same point, but player freezes for a second, and when it starts againg, in re-sync, subs re-appear.

[Juhan]

@borndevil

Can you test if new firmware with SVCD+AC3 ? Does it work with digital output ?