DV-AVI playback via Blu-Ray player or WDTV with USB connected HDD

[Splodger]

Why is it that there appears to be no Media Player / Standalone player devices with USB connections for hooking up external drives, that are capable of playing back regular DV-AVI files (.avi) stored on an external Hard Disk Drive ?

There are vast volumes of standard DV files out there on peoples external or network connected back up drives, created over years prior to HD in its many file formats arriving, and it seems odd that non of the media devices I have come across so far support this 'legacy' format.

Sure I could spend a lifetime converting my entire DV media collection to a supported format, but that would take a very long time, and it just seems odd that this most prolific format is not supported by the powerful new media players out there.

Surely this should be a simple codec additions to many of these products ??

Currently I have a Western Digital HD TV Live media player, which can show HD files, and a variety fo other formats, including DivX in AVI containers, but no support for DV in AVI containers.. Lots of WD blogging on that topic ....

I also have a Sony Blu-Ray player, which has an external USB connection port, but this only supports flash drives, not HDD's, and also does not playback DV-AVI files.

I understand that the world is moving to HD, and all of these devices do a great job with that content, but it seems very odd that with the internal processing available in these devices, that they do not support playback of the voluminous DV-AVI files.

Is anyone aware of any standalone media player devices that can support playback of both HD and DV-AVI in Standard definition ??

Cheers

Splodger

[jagabo]

I don't know of any standalone player that supports DV. They all use hardware decoder chips. If the chip doesn't support DV they can't play DV. They can't "add" a codec.

[jman98]

I also don't know of any standalone players that support DV in any container. Once again we have a post that says "I do X. Therefore everybody does X too and X should be well supported". Well I personally don't know any person, not one, who has anything in DV. Zip. Zero. Nada. I wouldn't conclude at all based on this that "nobody uses DV" but I sure as heck might conclude that DV is not quite as common as you think it is. And as jagabo says, it's all up to the makers of hardware decoder chips what they want to support and it doesn't seem that anybody is really interested in supporting it.

[yoda313]

but I sure as heck might conclude that DV is not quite as common as you think it is.

Well I think its more of a factor of whether or not its a common playback codec not whether or not people use it.

I imagine its bulk at 13gb/hour is a reason hardware media players don't support it. I would surmise they figure most people will end up converting it to dvd mpeg2 or mpeg4 or some other compressed form for viewing and save the dv-avi for archiving for later re-editing.

Also would any of these dv-codecs be proprietary? That might get in the way of the players being able to incorporate enough dv-codecs to ensure that dv-avi from camera x plays properly.

Edit -

Also the alternative that is staring you in the face is to simply stream the file. Assuming you have a gaming console like a 360 or ps3 or a networkable bluray/dvd player you should be able to use a plethora of streaming apps to get the dv-avi over to your tv without reencoding.

[titigrom]

Similar thread : https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319246-media-player-with-support-for-DV-AVI?p=1976680

[pcourtney]

we use Mediagate MG-35 boxes at work, plays all our DV-AVI files via NDAS and USB drives

not sure if they sell them anymore, but checkout the later model M2TV, only $80 bucks at Amazon

http://www.mediagateusa.com/M2TV.html


http://www.amazon.com/Noah-Company-MediaGate-MG-M2TVD-Digital/dp/B002DUD43U/ref=sr_1_1...9174872&sr=1-1

[poisondeathray]

we use Mediagate MG-35 boxes at work, plays all our DV-AVI files via NDAS and USB drives

not sure if they sell them anymore, but checkout the later model M2TV, only $80 bucks at Amazon

http://www.mediagateusa.com/M2TV.html


http://www.amazon.com/Noah-Company-MediaGate-MG-M2TVD-Digital/dp/B002DUD43U/ref=sr_1_1...9174872&sr=1-1

Interesting, maybe it's only the older model that plays DV-AVI ?

The links provide no information saying DV-AVI is supported . It's not listed in the supported file types. I would imagine they would advertise that sort of thing, because it would set them apart from dozens of other competitors

[jagabo]

DV AVI's bitrate is very close to the max (real world) transfer rate you can get through a USB 2.0 port.

The Realtck 1073 (which I believe is was used in the MediaGate M2TV) doesn't support DV:

http://www.realtek.com/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=9&PFid=26&Level=3&Conn=2&ProdID=238

[pcourtney]

some of the Ellion Digital products also play DV25 (or DV-AVI type 1) files as well, the problem for all the other media players is that MJPEG, yes I have spelt that right, was something that Sony et al went with for Mini-DV and it was hugely popular 10 or so years ago, but now very much a legacy codec contained within the AVI wrapper

http://www.elliondigital.com/eng/product02.html

some game consoles like the Sony Playstation have integrated M-JPEG decompression hardware in order to play in-game FMV sequences. The PlayStation Portable handheld game console can play M-JPEG from the Memory Stick Pro Duo under the .avi extension with a resolution of 480×272, It can also record clips in M-JPEG via its Go!Cam camera.

Nintendo's Wii game console can play M-JPEG-encoded videos on SD card using its Photo Channel (up to 32gb size if your Wii is fully up to date firmware wise, which is good enough for over 2 hours of DV25 footage)

The SanDisk Sansa e200 and the Zen V digital audio players can also play short M-JPEG videos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_JPEG

[pcourtney]

I almost forgot the 2nd gen Apple TV 2 now supports M-JPEG providing your file is exactly in line with what the ATV2 expects, I have a feeling that Apple has succumbed to this in order to have more movies that can be streamed on demand via Airplay, but this is most welcome news for people who have lots of DV25 / M-JPEG footage

Apple TV2 needs the video to conform to the following :

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by*720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format, fortunately Handbrake probably has a preset for ATV2 M-JPEG by now

http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/How_to_get_iTunes_to_sync_other_video_formats_to_Apple_TV

[jagabo]

DV is not the same as MJPEG. HDV uses MPEG 2 compression.

[pcourtney]

sorry, I was talking about MiniDV = Motion JPEG = DV25

http://www.tfgtransfer.com/dv25.htm

Sony Mini-DV firewire to Windows XP = AVI Type 1

http://windv.mourek.cz/

I'll get my coat and head off to the pub, it's a very warm night in London

[edDV]

Although similar to MJPEG in that it is frame based, DV is different. Both have different roots and codecs.

MJPEG was a product of the Joint Photographic Experts Group and is simply a sequence of JPEG compressed images (usually square pixel, RGB and progressive).

Like MPeg2, DV is derived from CCIR-601/ITU Rec-601 which is an interlace broadcasting derived format intended for tape or disk recording. DV is YCbCr 720x480/576 and comes in 4:1:1, 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 non-square pixel variants*. DV uses 5x DCT compression optimized for interlace frames making it ideal for editing.

The main reason consumer media players lack support for DV is the high volume consumer targeted chips** used lack support for DV. Simple as that.

In pro applications DV is supported for Blu-Ray recording and playback but the consumer Blu-Ray standard limited codec support to MPeg2, h.264 and VC-1.


* Panasonic also has an HD DV variant called DVCPro-HD.

** Most likely, DV support would require a codec licensing royalty.

[Cornucopia]

Another difference between MJPEG and DV is that DV is CBR (25, 50, or 100Mbps, depending on the application) whereas MJPEG can be CBR or VBR.

Also, it's very NOT clear (and premature to presume) that DV type1 is the only type usable by those Mediagate and Ellon products...

Scott

[edDV]

Yet another reason Google ranks Videohelp above AVS forum in most searches.