Looking for a device that will play my home movies....28000 kbps

[hygieneboy]

I have an entire external hard drive (1 tb) full of AVI movies recorded with my Sony TRV 720 camcorder. It recorded these movies natively in AVI format. All of the files are 28,771 kbps. Xbox 360 and PS3 cannot come close to playing them, and converting them to another format has not worked without significant quality loss.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what kind of device i can connect my hard drive to directly that would play all these files? I want something that I can plug my hard drive into, and then connect to my 40" Samsung hd tv and watch the video on it.

[Supreme2k]

Try the Phillips 5770 or the WD TV.

[edDV]

Your video format is DV-AVI. Audio is either 16bit 48kHz stereo or 12bit 32kHz 2 or 4 channels.

I know of no stand alone player other than a camcorder or dedicated DV deck*. The WD HD does not have DV in the format support list.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/produ...72&language=en

A home theater PC or Mac or Linux machine can play DV (the VLC player works for all three).


* a Mini DV or Digital8 player can play DV from tape and can pass-through an external DV stream over IEEE-1394 to analog out but cannot access files from an external drive. Again a computer would be needed to play the files to IEEE-1394.

[hygieneboy]

Here are the specs for one of the files I am wanting to play. Does this confirm your suspicion that there is not a device available aside from a computer that I can connect to a tv and play this files as is?

[Supreme2k]

Yes. It is DV. Have you tried H.264? You shouldn't see significant loss, and it should open the door to more players.

Maybe even high-bitrate DivX?

[RabidDog]

Surely you must have got some software from Sony to convert your files to mpeg2? If not I'm sure one of the consumer level products will do what you need.. I don't think you are expected to keep these files in this format for precisely the reasons you are finding.. that its unplayable on most devices. Also it takes up unacceptable amounts of disk space..
Quality loss on conversion should be minimal if you use a high bitrate eg 9880-15000k on mpeg2 or 2000-3000k for divx/xvid/mp4 and even lower for x264.
Conversion to mpeg2 is the most mainstream option as then you can author some DvD's to [s:6cc7c620b0]bore[/s:6cc7c620b0] show your friends 'n' Family

[hygieneboy]

Surely you must have got some software from Sony to convert your files to mpeg2? If not I'm sure one of the consumer level products will do what you need.. I don't think you are expected to keep these files in this format for precisely the reasons you are finding.. that its unplayable on most devices. Also it takes up unacceptable amounts of disk space..
Quality loss on conversion should be minimal if you use a high bitrate eg 9880-15000k on mpeg2 or 2000-3000k for divx/xvid/mp4 and even lower for x264.
Conversion to mpeg2 is the most mainstream option as then you can author some DvD's to [s:9d9131fdd1]bore[/s:9d9131fdd1] show your friends 'n' Family

I was thinking the same thing, but I cant find a good software program that allows me to go up to the high a bit rate. Most are in the 2,000-3,000 range, and many dont give you an option to set the bit rate. Maybe Ive spent too much time with the freebies and should go pay for a good one. Any suggestions?

[jagabo]

There's a big problem with conversion to Divx, Xvid, or h.264: the DV AVI files are most likely interlaced video or telecined movies. Although those codecs can deal with that, player support is very spotty. You're better off converting to MPEG2 for DVD.

[hygieneboy]

There's a big problem with conversion to Divx, Xvid, or h.264: the DV AVI files are most likely interlaced video or telecined movies. Although those codecs can deal with that, player support is very spotty. You're better off converting to MPEG2 for DVD.

Ok....do you know of any software packages that would do the best job? I was thinking about download Premier Elements 7.0 and trying that.......Any suggestions you have would be welcome.

also, what about me connecting a home theater pc to my tv? Ive seen some nice looking ones, and I assume that a computer could play my DV-AVI just the way the are.

Thanks

[edDV]

There's a big problem with conversion to Divx, Xvid, or h.264: the DV AVI files are most likely interlaced video or telecined movies. Although those codecs can deal with that, player support is very spotty. You're better off converting to MPEG2 for DVD.

Ok....do you know of any software packages that would do the best job? I was thinking about download Premier Elements 7.0 and trying that.......Any suggestions you have would be welcome.

also, what about me connecting a home theater pc to my tv? Ive seen some nice looking ones, and I assume that a computer could play my DV-AVI just the way the are.

Thanks

Premiere Elements should work. Adobe usually defaults MPeg2 to 6Mb/s VBR but this is low for hand held MiniDV. Go into the settings and make the changes.

Yes you can play the original DV files on a PC. Some good player programs are PowerDVD, WinDVD and VLC. Make sure they are set for software deinterlace. VLC is Free. PowerDVD or WinDVD often ship with DVD drives or new computers.

You can also play the DV files to your TV through the camcorder's hardware decoder at highest quality with WinDV.
PC (WinDV)---IEEE-1394--->Camcorder---S-Video--->TV

[RabidDog]

PLenier Aliments Pro gets very good reviews .. possibly trial versions of main suspects ??
Avid is good too (mirk) pro level software $$$$ x 10..
Most authoring packages... for DVD, specify 1 hour per Disc.best quality
3 hours per Dual layer disc is excellent quality.
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/authoring-dvd