Philips DVP642 DivX subtitles. WORK!!!

[shrybouski]

Ok, to be short here is what you need to do. Basically install the newest firmware update version 5.something. It now supports DivX subs!!! Very important!!! Read the information file on the upgrade to know how to use subtitle option. Otherwise you will not know how to get it working. This update is somuch more well organised that it does not reset all the options and the manual says what has been added to the update and how to use new software addons.
Here is the link to the upgrade.

http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/common/downloads/downloads_results.jhtml?di...questid=102409

Please report your results.

[Stas]

Something wrong with the link!

[shrybouski]

O.K. Here are working links!!!
Download the files directly from here:
1. Firmware upgrade
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/dvp642_17_fus_eng.zip

2. User guide for installation of the software and its usage. (Read! Very important). Pdf format
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/dvp642_17_fur_eng.pdf

Those should work. Checked myself.

[jogel]

Update : just upgraded the firmware from the links above subtitles does work .
does neone know if theres an option to make it look bigger ?
subtitles are really really small .. really annoying ..

thanks in advance ..

Jogel

[shrybouski]

No, there are no options in changing font of DivX subtitles yet. There might be some in the future firmware though. That's what philips says.

[mcdermd]

Does this work for XviD also? I put a disc together with an XviD file & downloaded an srt subs file. Burned them both to a disc in the root dir. It comes up to the menu but the srt file has a bubble with a red "?" on it. I try to select it and it gives me the Hand.

The srt file works fine in VLC, so I assume the sub file is good.

Any idea?

[montane]

Same problem here: no subtitles. I installed the new firmware (version 0531) but still my DVP642/17 is not able to support external subtitles for DivX movies. The sub files (.srt, .sub and .smi) appear with a question mark (?) in the Disc Menu screen. Read here that the upgrade works fine for some people. In my case I can't see the subs, no matter that I followed the instructions 100%. Help, please.

[shrybouski]

Maybe your subs do not have real srt format. Like converted using notepad or something. THis player plays only real subs like created with DivX lab and other DivX sub authoring programs. If you use notepad it will not recognize them. You cannot simply change file extension. Hope this helps.

[etab]

I had the same problem and could fix it. AT least in my case.

The problems appeared to my great surprise because just a few days before I have tested the new firmware 0531 and the subtitles were displayed OK. They are not good enough themselves too small and you can't change the position and color but player could recognise sub and srt files and display text at least. And another day it stop seeing the file type displaying ? sign against the file name like you can see it.

I made a small investigation and found that the only difference between the previous burn and this one was the DVD format. I burn DivX files on a DVD+RW disk and player displays movies OK. But when I select DVD format as DVD-UDF the player doesn't recognize subtitle type files. And when I selected DVD-ISO the srt and others are recognized fine! When I tried subtitles for the first time a few days ago I used DVD-ISO. That's it. This is probably a bug of the firmware.

BTW my player is european model 630/02. I guess american models 642 will respond in the same way since the firmware looks identical.

Try playing with the disk format but mind that in your case it could be some other bug.

[mcdermd]

Well, I used Subtitle Workshop to create an srt, sub and smi file. None of them worked when burned as an ISO disc. Can anyone give specifics on burning program/disc format settings used? Or suggested programs to create a "good" srt file? I'd like these to work for me ...

[supersonicl2]

Hey yeah yeah I got the subtitles to work (doesn't take a genius) but I was wondering that with the firmware upgrade I aslo got Divx(R) VOD (video on demand). I just want to know is there any possible way to use this at all because I don't see a way to actually download Divx VOD content can someone please tell me if there's a way to use this.

[etab]

Well, I used Subtitle Workshop to create an srt, sub and smi file. None of them worked when burned as an ISO disc. Can anyone give specifics on burning program/disc format settings used? Or suggested programs to create a "good" srt file? I'd like these to work for me ...

Strabge thing. I use Subtitle Workshop too and with it I got srt sub and smi and all of them read fine. When player recognize the file it dispalays "text icon" for the subtitles file in the disk menu. Icon looks like a text file icon of Windows. It's a rectangle with the rounded coeners and dashed lines inside. The player should display it. Check everything.
Make sure you
have the model we are talking about (DVP630 or DVP642)
updated firmware to 0531
selected subtitles file before you started movie
selected correct coding table when film started

If it still doesn't want to work with subtitles return it to the store when it is possible. You probably have a defective one.

If a

[mcdermd]

It's something to do with Roxio Toast's ISO settings. Tried re-burning with Nero's stock "Data CD" settings on the wife's Windows box and it worked fine...onto more research with this one.

Thanks!

[optimus]

I just got one of these. Before I do the upgrade I have a question for the people who have done the upgrade already.

With regard to making the cd with the upgrade, the manual states that the following is required:

File System CD-ROM ISO Level 2
Mode 1/2/XA
Character Set ISO 9660
Finalised Single Session
Write Speed Slow

I see all of these options in Nero. However, does it matter if joliet is checked?

Also, I guess the mode doesn't matter? 1/2/XA

Finally, I see a multisession option and a no multisession option. I select the no multisession option right?

[etab]

It's something to do with Roxio Toast's ISO settings. Tried re-burning with Nero's stock "Data CD" settings on the wife's Windows box and it worked fine...onto more research with this one.

Thanks!

Oops. I didn't tell that I use Nero all the time. I have no idea the ISO format of Roxio differs from Nero's. Actually that should not ever happen.

Meanwhile I came across another subtitle problem and had already found the reason. That's must be another bug of firmware. There's undocumented size limit of subtitle file that the player is able to open and to read. I had subtitle file of 160k size and the player did not allow me to select it as a subtitle file. It displays correct subtitle icon in the disk menu for the file but rejects to select it. When I highlite file and press Subtitle button on the remote it just displays in response the palm of a hand sign like it does for any rejected operation you take. And no subtitles activated when movie is shown.

The cure is simple. I split subtitle file into two files and so did with the movie file of course. Actually I split movie first and then Subtitle Workshop nicely did for me the subtitle part of job based on a movie timing.

The max possible size of subtitle file that the player accepts without a word is unknown to me. 90k is still ok but 160k already doesn't work.

Anyway all the case is not for good. Philips staff should fix the sort of a stupid bugs in the next firmware release.

[iguana]

In the instructions it doesnt say anything about support of greek characters... Can anyone please let me know if it works with greek subtitles?(its really important for me)..i can send a file if you need to try it.Thanks

[shaolinux]

Here is the link to the upgrade.

http://www.consumer.philips.com/(snip)

Please report your results.

Ha ha! I followed the instructions and upgraded the firmware on my DVP642/37 (printed on the white sitcker on back of unit) to the current 1109 version. But when I tried to select the external subtitle and play my avi per the instructions printed on the Addendum to the manual, it didn't work!? Fie! A plague of locusts on the Phillips DVP642! So, I looked a little closer and read some posts and drank anotther pot of coffee.

And what I found is that you have to format everything a certain way. First, the problem:
I burn a cd with a DivX avi and subtitle file of the same name with extension ".srt". Apparently, the DVP 642 only supports text format subtitles, and probably only the ones that look like this:

1
00:00:00,290 --> 00:00:05,960
A Studio Film

2
00:00:06,250 --> 00:00:09,920
2001 

3
00:00:12,470 --> 00:00:15,140
Good Luck, Homer! We' ll meet again

Anyhow, I try to select this, but it comes up as "Bogus Question Mark" icon, and gives me the Hand.

Your mileage may vary, as the Magic Bullet that got me reading the words to the show was simply to burn my cds in non-joliet mode. Thats right, ISO 9660 Level 1 mode. No Joliet. No UDF. I'll betcha that the firmware sees a udf format disk and just goes, "this is going to be a dvd from the store. I'm not looking for any ghetto text subtitles here. I'll give them the Hand.".

Also, be sure that the .srt subs have CRLF line endings (dos style). I made 2 coasters by letting mplayer just handle line endings unix style.

So, I get my avi and srt in a folder. Then burn them to a iso9660 rockridge level 1 disk. When I put the resultant disk in my player, it comes up with the file browser. I select the srt, and click 'subtitle' with the remote. The unit says "DIVX Subtitle selected". Then I arrow up and play the avi, and poof. Words on the screen. Ina really smallish font that is hard to read if its against a light background, but a big fat improvement.
HTH

[skyyblue]

hi guys,

i initially thought the dvp642 couldn't play UDF DVDs, but it turns out they probably can, i just had a bad experience with it, i have a movie that consists of 3 700 avi files, so i merged all three using virtualdub, because this will prevent me from having to pause each tiem it switches file so i can select the respective subtitle file for each movie file. anyways during the merging, i had a warning about div3 decoder, so when it merged the file it tweaked the div3 codec which the dvp642 did not support, and i thought from thereon that dvp simply didn't support UDF altogether, but ppl have said that it does support it, plus i do get to the root menu of the disc where i can select files.

anyways, another thing i have noticed, just like other people have verified, is that subtitles are not supported with UDF format, unlike the usual icon that appears next to a subtitle file, a question mark is present, and you can't select it.

anyways, long story short, i heard from another forum that if you do run into a situation where you need a UDF format, mainly because the movie file you're burning is over 2gigs (whcih mine is), then you can add the subtitles to a different disc (an ISO format) and you load the ISO disc first and select the subtitles....this will actually load it into the memory (i suppose) of the dvd player, and then you switch the disc to the one holding the movie, and from thereon you can watch the movie with the subtitles,

i know it's not very efficient, but if it's for a rare occassion then i guess it's more or less worth it.

i haven't tried this, but it makes sense (if it indeed does load the subtitle into its memory). i will give it a shot though, so i'll let you guys know if it works later, unless somebody beats me to it.

[giannid]

I'm not sure about UDF or files bigger than 2GB, but you can definitely load subs from another disc, like you said.

I did this once with a film that I couldn't get right. I think the first 2 times there were audio problems, and the third time, the subs were not in synch.

So I loaded the disc from film number 2, Highlighted the subtitle file for the film, Pressed SUBTITLE button on remote.

Then I opened up the tray, took out disc 2 and put in disc number 3, Selected film and Played.

It worked! The subtitles were loaded from a different disc and stored in memory.

This is also why you can't have a subtitle file larger than roughly 140kb - because it stores it in memory and is not able to remember larger files.


If you have a .srt file that is too big, you can use subtitle workshop to convert it to a .sub (microdvd) which is about 30% smaller in size.

To do this: put .srt and .avi files in the same folder. Rename them so that they have the exact same name except for the extension .srt and .avi. For example XYZ.avi & XYZ.srt. (Note that we are naming the subtitle and film with the same name so that when you open the subtitle file with Subtitle Workshop, it will also load the film. The subtitle and film however don't need to have the same name to work in the DVP642)

Now open the .srt subtitle file with Subtitle Workshop.

Save the file by clicking on FILE-->SAVE AS

You will then be presented with a bunch of formats in which to save the file. Select MicroDVD. This is the subtitle format for .sub that works with the DVP642.

Now you will have a .sub which hopefully is 140kb or smaller which you can burn onto your disc.

[hardkraft]

Here is the ultimate solution to all of you who had problems with subtitles not displaying. First as it's been mentioned before the subtitle needs to be in the right format. I only had success with srt files. But having an srt doesn't guarantee success either. Lines need to be terminated in windows fashion so if your file was created on a mac or a unix system you need to convert it (all this has been covered elswere). Now for burning the CDs, this is really stupid. The format doesn't matter. Both ISO and UDF might or might not work PC or MAC. All that matters is a version extension that is usually put in with ISO format (it's an option in Toast). UDF never puts it in but you can do it yourself. So for example if you have sub.srt you need to burn it as sub.srt;1 . The file name doesn't need to be the same as the movie but it helps to group the files together. You don't need to put version extensions on movie files. The number you use doesn't matter. I was hoping that I could have sub.srt;1 and sub.srt;2 and cycle between them with the subtitle button but no such luck.

Now, if you were unable to get this subtitle feature to get to work for years like me :P you didn't miss much. The text is tiny and unreadablre untill you use the trasparent back trick descibed elsewhere.

Hope this solves all your problems.

[giannid]

As well as playing .srt (subrip) files, it also plays .sub (microdvd) files which are smaller and size but work in relation to the frame-rate which varies depending upon whether the corresponding video is PAL or NTSC. Because differing framerates can cause problems, .srt is usually better.

The DVP642 has a limit on divx subtitle files of roughly 140kb.

Also it's best to use the most recent 0112 firmware as this will add a semi-transparent background for the subs without having to do any gimmicks.

[handyguy]

Has anyone got their 642 to play .sub? Mine doesn't recognize it, but it does play most SRT.

[macchipazzi]

ppp