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  1. Member
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    Okay, I am a newbie (sort of) and please be gentle with me.

    I have this streaming media player I got for my mom (A Chinese knock off of something) It generally played files streaming from the linux server I set up for my mom to watch some shows I downloaded for her, from the homeland, up until 6 months or so ago. At which time she stopped watching them and I stopped bit torrenting them.

    Now she wants to watch them again. I downloaded an episode and tried to play it using this device (zinwell something 1080P full HD player it says somewhere on it) The team who used to encode them has changed and a new team is doing it. Their codec is not compatible with this POS video player.

    Video quality is not much of a concern as long as the aspect ratio stays the same (I don't want her to watch stick figures or fat-heads, but slight encoding problems, like a little fuzzy or grainy picture, is acceptable.

    I searched these forums and came across a suggestion to use the cocoon software's total video converter. Downloaded and installed it. Looks like their forums are busted. Getting a weird PHP error trying to register. Also the ffmpeg download is not working (maybe stale link problems, not very explicit error messages) But anyhow, I tried to give it a go and convert this file to x-vid, which I thought might work.

    I changed the file settings and pointed to a location where I want the encoded files to be placed. But when I click on Start Encoding, I am getting "First choose your destination folder" or something like that error message and I could not go anywhere further than that.

    Now my question is two fold:
    1. Is what I am trying to use, i.e., Cocoon software, the best for this purpose ? If not what can you suggest ? I am one a Core i7 laptop with 4G memory and I am not the faint of the heart using command line. I also have ffmpeg downloaded in a separate folder.
    2. If what I am trying to use is okay, how can I get past this destination folder error ?

    Thanks for all help in advance
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  2. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Since you're streaming already you should use something that can transcode the video for you.

    ps3mediaserver
    playon
    tversity

    Those three can do the job (yes ps3mediaserver will work on other units besides a ps3). It seems you should have more than a fast enough computer to transcode high def to a format your media player can handle.

    Otherwise I'd suggest using format factory to convert the file if you must have a "physical" file to playback directly. Also winff is another choice to use.


    Edit - I've never heard of this cacoon software you mention - is it used to stream files off your laptop then I assume? Because a "streaming" player could mean directly from a website portal app not directly from your computer. The programs I mentioned must be run on a computer that is on and connected to the same network that your streaming device is connected to. Please let us know if this is not the case. If you are not connected to the computer while playing than you will indeed need to reencode the file for proper playback.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  3. Member
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    Thanks for your suggestion but the cause is lost on me.
    I am not looking for a streaming server. As a matter of fact, the only merit of this sreaming player hardware is to tap into a Samba file server and grab the file and play it with its own codec. I checked the firmware version of the damn thing and it says it is at the latest FW level and no update needed.

    What I need ir something like format factory program to re-encode the file into something that my device can understand.
    My Samba server is running on a linux laptop and accessible w/o any problems at the time.

    My other problem is, I don;t know what I am looking at as fart as the codec's go.
    I have two files. One plays well and other don't. I did a quick and dirty examination of the two with gspot program on windows and I am attaching the screen shots here. They are different but I don;t know how I need to re-encode the doesn't play file so that it plays like the other one. I mean which codec should I use, can you tell just by looking at these images ?

    Thanks again
    Image Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version

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ID:	12603  

    Click image for larger version

Name:	PlaysFineGspot.jpg
Views:	320
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ID:	12604  

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  4. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    There are quite a few differences between the two so its kind of hard to pinpoint exactly why one would play and not the other.

    What is the exact make and model of the hardware player that you are using? Somebody here might have some experience with it and could offer actual experiences with it.

    As far as the actual differences between the two unfortunately I am not an expert on xvid/divx. I usually just use presets and leave it at that.

    There is a program you might be able to use to redo the video to work on your player. mpeg4modifier may be able to adjust some of the header info in the files themselves to make them more suitable. There are a few other similar tools that adjust header info you could look into. Avirecomp I think is another one.

    You're problem will be that if you need to reencode the video you will lose more quality that way. I take it you did not encode these videos yourself?

    The best situation would be to get the original source video and then encode one time to the proper settings your player needs to play properly. However of course that is not always an option and a quality hit may be necessary. Try the header fixes first. That would be ideal to save a reencoding job. Unfortunately I've never used those programs myself so I can't guide you threw them.

    -------------------

    Just a note I am not familiar with what it actually is and does in a xvid file but in your file that doesn't play it has "OPENDML" in it. You should encode WITHOUT this option checked for future files.

    ----------------

    One other note - some players may have file size limits with divx/xvid files. At least standard def dvd players might have problems with divx/xvid files larger than 2gb. If your media player can read off a ntfs drive that should not be a factor but could be. Is the file that plays ok less than 2gb and the file that doesn't play ok larger than 2gb?

    And lastly the actual frame size is slightly different between the two. The one that doesn't work is 640*352 and the one that does is 624x352. I'm not sure that should be an issue but it is another difference.

    Actually one more thing the ac3 audio is pretty universally played without hassles but your file that does play has mp3 audio not ac3 audio. THat is another factor to take into consideration.

    Unfortunately as I mentioned there are quite a few differences between the two files so its not an easy thing to say point x is the reason why it won't work.

    Good luck.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  5. Member
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    Run the "doesn't play file" via virtualdub ... set video to direct stream copy and change audio encode to mpeg layer 3 ... might be due to ac3 being included ... some players aren't able to handle xvid / divx with ac3.
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  6. Banned
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    I agree with Bjs. It seems to me that this is most likely an audio issue as I feel that the video differences between the two files are negligible. The only thing on the video side that might be an issue is that the player may not like the FourCC code that the first video has. You can change the FourCC value with AVI FourCC Code Changer which is available in our Tools section. Note that the file that plays seems to not have a FourCC value so you may need to remove it to get videos to play if using MP3 audio doesn't fix things. Use CBR MP3 audio and not VBR MP3 audio as VBR may be problematic for this player.
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