XviD plays on PC, not DVR

[yurkyurk]

I have an XviD file that plays fine on my PC, but my Pioneer DVR says that this format is unreadable. Normally it has no problems playing XviD or divX files.

I tried running it through SUPER to reconvert it (this time to divX) but the result was the same.

Any ideas on what I can do?

The MediaInfo properties are:

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 696 MiB
Duration : 50mn 18s
Overall bit rate : 1 935 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release

Video
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Streaming Video@L1
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : Yes
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 50mn 18s
Bit rate : 1 798 Kbps
Width : 816 pixels
Height : 448 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.197
Stream size : 647 MiB (93%)
Writing library : XviD 1.1.2 (UTC 2006-11-01)

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 50mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Video delay : 24ms
Stream size : 46.1 MiB (7%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 40 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms

[Ai Haibara]

Width : 816 pixels
Height : 448 pixels

This might be why. Most set-top players generally limit the resolutions to DVD's maximum resolution or lower (720x480 NTSC, 720x576 PAL). Try scaling the video's resolution down and see if the player will play the video, then.

The packed bitstream may or may not also be a problem, depending on the player.

Edit: In regard to citanool's comment, I was curious about the bitrate as well, but I wasn't sure it was as much of an issue as the resolution might be. Just to be sure, though, try reducing it below DVD's maximum bitrate. According to VH's What Is: DVD page:

Total bitrate including video, audio and subs can be max 10.08 Mbps (10080 kbps)

[citanool]

Looks to me like a crazy amount of video bitrate, especially to be matched with 128kbps mp3 instead of original audio or a reduced filesize. What is generally the highest supported bitrate of typical or average standalone chipsets?

[leghorn]

Video
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Streaming Video@L1
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : Yes
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID

I think the problem is among the codec settings, namely right here: QPel: yes. I'm absolutely sure that stand-alone players will not play Xvid files with Qpel on. The same goes for GMC (which in your case is off). I don't know about Packed Bitstream, but it might be an issue as well...

[citanool]

AVI ReComp is probably the tool you want. Packed Bitstream *should more than likely be OK

[KBeee]

You could use Virtualdub to re-encode the video to 720*392 @1700kbps with no GMC, no QPel, and no packed bitstream using the Xvid codec, and it should play OK.

[citanool]

guide for KBeee's suggestion: https://www.videohelp.com/guides/how-to-recode-an-avi-with-virtualdub-remove-qpel-gmc-etc-id810#810

[yurkyurk]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to re-encode according to that VirtualDub guide.

[yurkyurk]

Okay. I re-encoded and that didn't work. Then I re-encoded and reduced the video to 720 wide and that played on the DVR, but the quality is not too good.

To reduce the resolution I added the resize filter in VirtualDub. Was that the correct way to do it? I had to change to Full Processing Mode to allow this.

Is there a better way to achieve a resize without reducing the quality so much?

[citanool]

Did you try resize/crop results with AVI ReComp [or even AutoGK w/ESS or MTK support which makes use of VAQ in newer XviD although you'd want to de/remux original audio]? Might need to increase filesize to retain quality. Not sure if ITU method or diff. matrix would help.

[PuzZLeR]

Although DivX and Xvid are compatible formats, the latter's encoding profiles are not controlled by DivX, hence DivX can't guarantee compatibility of any Xvid content on a DivX Certified player (which I imagine your Pioneer is) - you'd be on your own with Xvid. Even DivX itself can fail on this player if not encoded right, so it's not a bash on Xvid.

As pointed out, your encode could have contained a number of features that broke compatibility such as Qpel, GMC, resolution, audio, packed bitstream, etc. And I believe SUPER uses a portable open-DivX CLI, which, again, does not guarantee compliance without the right features.

For a playback guarantee, you need to encode with DivX Certified compatible profiles with DivX, such as Home Theatre Profile, which is available in the DivX Codec Properties with VDub (and other VFW support apps). With Xvid, you can prepare one very similarly, but only if you know what you're doing.