Philips dvp 642

[Brother Darrell]

I Just recently bought one of these things(2 days go, to be exact) after reading about it in this forum. I have noticed a few problems. most notably, smearing and severe blockiness. I just encoded Amistad with the latest version of XVID. I did it with b-frames & without b-frames. both give the exact same severe blockiness & smearing. What is interesting is IF i go into the system menu while it is playing and (in this case) go to the personal picture adjustments, it will start playing just fine. Even the parts which were originally blocky & smeared. I did not adjust anything. It seems just going into the menu did the trick. It will play flawlessly after that.
Any ideas? Will changing the 4cc header to divx fix this problem?
I noticed there is a firmware upgrade available, but since it does not tell me what it is supposed to do & what problems it will fix, I have been hesitant about using it. I suppose it ain't gonna hurt to do it but I'd really like to know what it is supposed to do prior to that. Has anyone had the problem with the blockiness & smearing before?


Okay. I just did the upgrade. it did not help.

[speed_X]

Hi Brother Darrell...

I updated the firmware on mine however, I don't know what it fixes since Philips hasn't been forthcoming with that info.

As to the blockiness, what is your average bitrate for the encode?

speed_X

[Brother Darrell]

1045(on this movie).The bitrate is fine, looks very good on my pc. Also looks very good on the player..tyhat is, once I go into the personal setup for contrast, brightness..etc.. it won't let me DO anything, of course.
The point is, it's beautiful once I do that. Could not ask for a better picture.

[speed_X]

Brother Darrell and all

Here is my setup:
General

osd lang---------eng
screen saver-----on
smart power------on
disk lock NA
program NA
divx VOD NA

Audio setup

downmix----stereo
digital output--all
lpcm output--48k
sound mode--none
reverb mode--off
DRC--off

tv display

tv standard--ntsc
tv display--4:3 PS
closed caption--off
video uotput--s-video
progressive--off
smart picture--standard


preferences

audio--english
subtitle--english
disc menu--english
parental--no parental
password--NA
default--NA
mp3/jpeg nav--no menu


These are my settings. NA means not applicable, not used.

What do you mean by "it won't let me do anything"?

Is your menu password locked?

[Brother Darrell]

No, At least I don't THINK it is. I can press the system menu button while the vid is playing. It stops playing. I then go into "smart picture"->personal settings & it seems to start again with the express purpose of allowing me to use whatever is on the screen to set my personal settings. The little hand comes up, letting me know it is not allowed, then it will play the vid flawlessly.

[speed_X]

Well Brother Darrell that's got me!

Don't know what to say, perhaps you should take the unit back and exchange it.

[Brother Darrell]

Found the problem, It does not like Custom Matrix's...
My encode was using HVS Best quality.
Once I did it again using Mpeg standard or H.263, it was fine.

[bond]

Brother Darrell, speed_X

if you two have time, can you plz try whether it works to play this MP4 file on this player!
someone reported that the player is able to play files with the .mp4 extension, but in a little bit fuzzy way
would be great to be sure if it works or not

[DJ Alik]

it looks like philips released a new firmware dated 0531 check it out
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/

[Brother Darrell]

Originally posted by bond
Brother Darrell, speed_X

if you two have time, can you plz try whether it works to play this MP4 file on this player!

Yes it does. Bone Collector..right? Angelina Jolie And wazzizname the audio was out of sync though.
Gspot did not recognize the codec though. what is it encoded with?

[bond]

Originally posted by Brother Darrell
Yes it does.

nice! seems you are owning one of the first "MP4-enabled" players

Bone Collector..right? Angelina Jolie And wazzizname the audio was out of sync though.

its denzel washington ^^
was the audio strongly out of sync? did the sync become bigger with the time or was it out of sync by the same length right from the beginning?

Gspot did not recognize the codec though. what is it encoded with?

gspot doesnt handle .mp4 files
the video stream was encoded with xvid if i remember it right (no b-frames, no qpel, no gmc to avoid problems from this side for the player)

btw you have pm

[Brother Darrell]

Kinda hard to tell, the screen remained blank for at least 5 seconds while the audio played(not accurate, just an "as I remember it" estimate).
Then the picture came up, macro blocks all over the place.
Another "as I remember it" is it stayed out of sync for the same amount of time. also...I got curious about the codec & simply changed the extention to avi & tried opening it in AviDubMod. It did not recognise it either. Bplayer would play it but it gave me the same problem as the dvd player did.ie...blank screen(well...not truly blank. it gave me a black screen frame but at the correct resolution)then finally kicked in the video.Out of sync of course.
I will try some more testing & let you know, I will also try to be a bit more specific about sync, audio quality, and vid quality.

[bond]

Originally posted by Brother Darrell
Kinda hard to tell, the screen remained blank for at least 5 seconds while the audio played(not accurate, just an "as I remember it" estimate).

hm, the video stream is very dark, almost black, but i assume thats not what you mean

Then the picture came up, macro blocks all over the place.

wierd, the video stream is simply mpeg-4, as output by xvid or divx5

I got curious about the codec & simply changed the extention to avi & tried opening it in AviDubMod. It did not recognise it either.

renaming is not possible. mp4 and avi are totally different things
i wrote a small guide on how to find out which codec was used to encode a mp4 in my mp4 faq, linked to in my sig

Bplayer would play it but it gave me the same problem as the dvd player did.ie...blank screen(well...not truly blank. it gave me a black screen frame but at the correct resolution)then finally kicked in the video.Out of sync of course.

hm, do you have the latest version of 3ivx installed? if yes, than playback should work correctly in bsplayer (at least here its that way)

[speed_X]

Hi all!

bond-> Hadn't been to the forums in a couple of days. Tried downloading the file bot no go!

Brother Darrell-> I'm glad you got it going and your problems are solved!

BTW, does anyone know what the new Philips firmware is for? There are 2 files within the archive, one is dvpxx.rom and the other is dvpxxdv.rom. What's the difference?

[DJ Alik]

Originally posted by speed_X
Hi all!

bond-> Hadn't been to the forums in a couple of days. Tried downloading the file bot no go!

Brother Darrell-> I'm glad you got it going and your problems are solved!

BTW, does anyone know what the new Philips firmware is for? There are 2 files within the archive, one is dvpxx.rom and the other is dvpxxdv.rom. What's the difference?

There is a pdf file on their website that has instructions and what was changed

[speed_X]

Hi DJ Alik!

Thanks a lot! You are a gold mine...you're really super!

I posted the info at divx forums hardware section!

[Brother Darrell]

I tried making my own mp4. I tried following the guide faithfully. I got the same thing as when I played the sample you had.
Only this time, no video at all. I did the newest upgrade and all that did was mark all my AVI's as MP4 on the disc menu. I suppose when it says it supports mp4 format, it does not mean the container.
Mind you, I have not tried a fully encoded mp4, just Xvid in the container. I am more than willing to experiment if you are willing to be the Sensei to my Quai-Chang.

[bond]

Originally posted by Brother Darrell
I tried making my own mp4.

have a look here for a bunch of mp4 samples i created

I did the newest upgrade and all that did was mark all my AVI's as MP4 on the disc menu.

what does this mean? you renamed your .avi files to .mp4?

I suppose when it says it supports mp4 format, it does not mean the container.

as you already could play a .mp4 file, it surely supports the .mp4 container

Mind you, I have not tried a fully encoded mp4, just Xvid in the container.

in what container? in .mp4?
beaware to NOT use xvid/divx5 features the player might not support, as qpel and gmc and to avoid problems i would suggest that you also dont use b-frames for testing

I am more than willing to experiment if you are willing to be the Sensei to my Quai-Chang.

lol, i will do my best, plz have a look at the samples i linked to above

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bond
lol, i will do my best, plz have a look at the samples i linked to above

Agreed.

It's very important for us MP4 enthusiasts to establish which players can support the .mp4 container.

If the Philips DVP642 can support the .mp4 container or can be tricked into playing them be simply changing the file extension to .avi.... we would like to know please

You might also want to give these files a try?


Cheers

[bond]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
You might also want to give these files a try?

yep, its good to also test if the player can handle the subs (tough i fear it will not do it)