Fast Laptop Divx 5 playback problem..

[hardwork12]

Was not sure of the best place to post this but since it is a playback problem I put it here.

New fast Laptop does not work: (Latitude C640 with a 2.0ghz CPU 1 gig memory, radion mobility 7500, win2k SP3 Directx 9 latest). Tried running on LCD and External Monitor both on AC adapter and on Battery. Sound plays perfectly. BTW this is my work computer so no I did not spend my own $$ but would like to play Divx on long business flights etc :) )

Divx 5 movies (tried a few encodings using GK) with AC3 sound track. Plays perfectly on My AMD Duron 1.2gig with an old permedia 2 Vid card. Also plays fine on My Amd XP2100 with a geforce 2 Video card.

So what is wrong:

Using either bsplayer or Windows media player I get this, not sure of the technical term for it so I will describe. Video is jerky with windows media player but with HIGH priority set BSplayer appears smooth when running. Using BSplayer then when something like say a ball goes across the screen (any fast motion) the image streaks kind of like what you see when you wave your hand in front of your monitor (multiple images). I also get minor to severe pixelation.

What did I try:

FFDshow and DivXNetworks pro 5.03 CODEC's, both same problem.
BSplayer, windows media player, zoom player, core media player all the same problem.

Set the hardware accelleration for the video card debug at different settings to dissable some video card capability and this had no effect.

Tried different settings including dissable of "smooth playback" (can not be sure the settings actually got set and used though) for the CODEC.

Since all my systems that this does work on fine are AMD and non ATI I can not tell if it is an ATI radeon 7500 mobility problem and intel problem or both (can't take the laptiop video card out and put into one of my other systems so this does not help figure this out). Just seems like the system is having refresh or memory problems of some kind (used memtest86 to test memory and tests OK).Is it maybe a patch or something I need for the ATI or the Intel.

BTW: DVD's play perfectly. Also I have the same problem running the divx 5 from the hard drive or the cdrw/dvd drive....

Thanks All!!!

[alexnoe]

Let me guess: you muxed your file with NanDub or sth similar, right?

[hardwork12]

Thanks for the reply

I used Gordian Knot which I looked and it appears to use Virtualdub for its encoding and I think VitualDub and Nandub are basically the same.I have to tell you I use Gordian Knot as it makes things easy for me since I am not experienced but learning. I have done encodings without this program.

Last night I tried a few movies I have done with the same method and they all exhibited the same problem. They work fine on the desktop system I am typing on now using BSplayer smooth and perfect. On the three I tried two had the same problem on the laptop as I described above. One of the movies did run without the problem and ran almost smooth (a little jittery but not bad- Men In Black II). All I could think of is that all of the encodings I tried that did not work at all were AC3 soundtracks and the men in Black II I think was MP3 (lame).

Sounds like you have seen this problem before so what can I do to fix it (or at leasst avoid it in future encodings). I do not have that many encodings yet so no big problem if they will not work on the laptop.

Appreciate the help.

[alexnoe]

Remux your file with AVI-Mux GUI

[hardwork12]

I will give that a try. I do not have the separate audio and video files for those movies so I am encoding a movie without Audio MUX this time. I will see if without sound it runs OK (hope it does). Then I will use AVI-MUX GUI to add the sound in. I will repost what happens.

I guess I can not FIX the movies I have where I do not have the separate audio and video files. is that correct??

Thanks Again !!!!!

[Chibi Jasmin]

That's not correct...you can simply run the final movies through AVIMuxGUI.

[hardwork12]

I ran the movie I was using for testing and I processed it with AVIMuxGUI using all defaults. I just added the file and selected it and it placed information into the video and audio sections. I then just left the "all audio" and "all subtitles" selected and then selected Begin.

Doing this the movie now does run without the streaking and pixelation so the program definitely solved that problem. What I have now is some jerky or stutter in the playback (this may have been there before hard to say with the streaking and pixelation problem). The file I ran through using AVIMuxGUI definitely runs fine on the computer I am on right now.


Edit #1: Can it be that I need a better/different AC3 filter?

I tried playing the encoding i just did without any sound and that played perfectly and smooth.

I then used the AVIMuxGUI to mux the AC3 sound with the movie (all defaut settings) and the movie has bad stutter/jitter so it seems it is definitely a sound problem. The sound players perfectly no skipping its just the video. Any ideas??

EDIT #2

OK here is the problem. First the AVIMuxGUI is an exceptionally good program. It definitely is superior in its ability to MUX. I used it to MUX in the AC3 and a lame encoded MP3 (using Be SweetGUI) and both have no video artifacts anymore just the stutter/jitter that I talked about above. The AC3 version is quite bad and the MP3 version almost runs without stutter. The Stutter/Jitter is definitely caused by a problem with the EIDE/Hard Drive configuration in the Laptop. YES they are slower than a desktop but not 6 times slower (benchmark sisoff sandra). The CPU benchmarks perfectly using the Prime95 benchmark capability (pure CPU no hard drive influence). I am sure this is what is the cause of my stutter/jitter problem.Will have to call Dell as it seems that the DMA capability is not working so there is a BIOS problem or an EIDE driver problem. I do have a question. I have solved this kind of data rate problem in Linux using mplayer and its data BUFFER. Is there a win2K player that has this kind of a buffer capability. This capability is one where the data is buffered into memory to smooth things out.




Thanks Again !!!

[hardwork12]

Thanks for all the help..Here is the final solution for my system.

The AVIMuxGui solved the video quality issues. :) :)

The stutter/jitter was the computer itself. My wonderful IT group that sets up the computer (they delete the DELL installation and use a standard company accepted win2k immage) did not properly install the Primary IDE controller. They used the old Mshdc.inf to install the controller so my hard drive was running in the PIO mode they needed to use the newer Mshdc.inf in the microsoft service pack. Now my primary drive is running ultra DMA mode the stutter is GONE!! :)