Playback problem of Divx files

[mrpsanter]

I'm using Win XP Pro and Divx 5.02 with an ATI Radeon card on a brand new PC.

I'm able to playback some Divx movies from my CD drive but if I copy the movie from my CD to my hard disk, the display will be blocky and corrupted (bad colors depth...).

In a word: I can see DivX movie from my CD drive but not from my hard drive.

Any suggestion is more than welcome.


TIA,
Mr Psanter

[mrpsanter]

Anyone ???

[manono]

Hi-

I think no one knows, and neither do I. I also have WinXp and an AIW Radeon and have never had the problem. Is your desktop color depth set at 32 bit (although I don't see why that would solve it since it plays fine from the CD). Have you tried to duplicate the problem on a friend's computer? Can it be getting corrupted when being transferred back to the hard drive? I always create a Quick SFV file for my movies so I can easily detect any corruption when transferring files.

[Hiro2k]

Hey manono

What is a Quick SFV file?

[manono]

Hi Hiro2k-

QuickSFV is a little utility that does a fast CRC check to make sure the file hasn't gotten corrupted when being transferred from CD to hard drive, over a home LAN, or to someone else (like FTP). It creates a little file that you include with the main file. The guy at the other end (if he also has QuickSFV installed) can then use it to verify that the file transferred without corruption. You can find it at the QuickSFV Homepage (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/index.html).

[Hiro2k]

Oh kinda like an MD5 checksum right. That sounds usefull.

[mrpsanter]

Manono,
Thanks for your suggestions. I'm unable to reproduce the problem therefore I believe my hardware (HD, motherboard?) might be faulty.

[manono]

Hi-

I'd still recommend using QuickSFV on the file. Create one on the video on the CD. Then rip the video to the hard drive and try and verify the file. If it shows as corrupt, then you're right-some sort of hardware problem. If the file is OK, then something else is at work, and can be fixed. If you have another optical drive on your PC, or can borrow one to check, you could pretty easily find out if your CD burner is bad by using the different one to transfer the video to the hard drive. Good Luck.

[lovecraft25]

Is your motherboard based on a VIA Chipset ?
I've heard of such problems when copying files to HD...
There is a patch called "VIA PCI Latency Patch"
Look here :
http://www.networking.tzo.com/net/software/

[mrpsanter]

Manono,
I have tried your suggestion and it looks like you were right: the file was corrupted and I notice that I'm able to transfer the movie correctly only from my Yamaha burner therefore I guess the problem is from my CD/DVD Pioneer drive which might be faulty. I think you solved my problem.

Lovecraft,
Thanks for your answer. Yes I have a VIA chipset and an Athlon 1200 so I will give a try to the patch you are suggesting.

Thanks to both of you for your precious help!

Mr Psanter

[manono]

Hi-

So it was because of the DVD-ROM? Although my Creative DVD-ROM can transfer .avis to my hard drive OK, DVD-ROMs use a different laser wavelength and that could be the reason, particularly if it's an older model. So maybe there's nothing wrong with your Pioneer at all. In the future just do the transfers from the CD-Burner. As long as the Pioneer can rip and play DVDs, I wouldn't worry about it. But I would take lovecraft25's advice and get the patch if I were you.

Although the information is a bit out of date, This Link (http://www.emedialive.com/EM1998/bennett3.html) can help to explain what's going on.

And you might try and clean the laser lens with a kit like one of these in case dust is causing the problem:

Laser Lens Cleaning Kits (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&newu=1&query=dvd+laser)

[mrpsanter]

Guess what?

I installed Lovecraft25's PCI Latency patch and it completely solves my problem: I'm able to transfer my movies from the DVD drive to the HD without corruption.

Anyway, it sounds strange that this VIA bug didn't occur when I was using Win98 SE, it only started when I upgraded to XP.

[DaveQB]

yeah i noticed the same.
upgrading to XP a while back and my HDD gave me CRC errors and XP lower transfer rates for my HDD to PIO.
if anyone has had this happen you can imagine the effect on the system.

VIA has a notorious problem with transfer errors on the IDE controller. even to the fact that a large group of users in the VIA forums were talking bout sueing VIA coz of file corruption that cost them money in there business'


BTW, what chipset was it ??
KT266A

i think from the KT333 onwards its all fixed.