Hardware DIVX player question

[bengbrewer]

Ok. Im sure this has been brought up a thousand times. Say for instance i bought a dual layer dvd burner (sony drx700ul) and a hardware divx player (Philips DVP 642) In theory shouldn't you be able to burn 12 divx movies at 700 megs each on a dual layer dvd+rw disc and play them on the player on ur tv? If so what are the disadvantages in this? Thanks and sorry if its a stupid question.[/url]

[akrako1]

The first problem with this senario is that DIVX are Mpeg4 video, and are not DVD compliant. You (or your authoring program) will need to convert these files to mpeg2 compliant video. Mpeg4 is a MUCH more advanced encoding scheme, and you can get great results with small file sizes. When converting to mpeg2, you will need a much higher bitrate to achieve the same results. In my experience, you will need to about double the bitrate to get the same quality - this making 700MB movies, 1.4GB movies - and you will get much less on a DL DVD.

[junkmalle]

In theory you are right, you can put 12 divx encoded movies on a dual layer disk and play them with a divx enabled player like the Philips DVP 642. There are some issues though:

1) Can the DVP 642 play dual layer DVD+R media? If not, some player in the near future probably will.

2) Reducing a 90 to 120 minute movie down to 700 MB is a bit ambitious. I usually squish a 90 minute movie to about 1000 MB. But even at that the quality isn't quite as good as the original.

3) Are you going to convert AC3 audio down to stereo MP3? If not your files will be larger still.

4) Will Divx (MPEG 4) become obsolete before MPEG 2? Probably not. Although MPEG 4 isn't widely supported now, the new HD formats all use MPEG 4 variations. On the other hand that doen't mean Divx encoded AVI files will play on all those future players.

[junkmalle]

Oh, and if a friend wants to borrow your "DVD" you'll have to lend them your player too!

[twen]

I have a Philips 642. I don't know about playing DL discs, but I have put 6 avi movies on one DVD+R and it plays just fine.

It'll play automatically and every movie just like a file so if you push next on your remote, it'll play the next file. There's no need for conversion. The same with mp3 and mpg, the player just treat it as files. (I use RecordNow Max burn data format to burn the discs.)