PHILIPS problems with X(S)VCD (HICK-UPS)

[Mars-L]

Problems with XSVCD on DVD 723... Why??
Hello,

A friend has a Philips DVD-723, my parents have a DVD-701 (both not patched / upgraded)
I do have 100s of movies on XVCD and XSVCD. They play on my own DVD player (Apex600 / Hiteker 600, hacked upto the limits) without a problem, but they always give problems on Philips machines.
I know not all DVD-players support XVCD and/or XSVCD but this shouldn't be a problem with those Philips machines.

On both Philips machines movies give the same problem; HICK-UPs.

Yesterday I tried a XSVCD on the 723 with this specifications;

MPEG2 - CBR
480x576 / 25 fps
VideoBitrate 2650

Audio: 44.1 kHz / 224 kbps STEREO

Used CDR's are perfect ones (Taiyo Yuden)
Used software:
CinemaCraft Encoder to encode
TMPGenc MPEGTools to merge & cut
VCDEasy to master BIN/CUE xSVCD files
CDRWin to burn the image files

So then the playing begins.....
Disc in DVDplayer hit the play button
There it starts playing...but....within seconds the first hick-up...goes on playing some seconds...hickup.....goes on playing some seconds....hickup...etc etc....
(With Hickup I mean, the movie freezes about a second and goes on after that.)

Does anyone know how to solve this ?
Is it the audio rate ?
The video rate doesn't seem to be too high ?

Might a firmware upgrade be the solution (for sure?) ?
Don't need the region free / Macrovision / RCE hacks... just being able to play XVCD and XSVCD. So another workaround without touching the firmware would even be better

Greetz
deWilde

[mats.hogberg]

Well, your bitrate is actually too high for SVCD specs:

audio + video bitrate max bitrate is ~2748 kbit/s

Your settings make it 2874 kbps total. Try lowering the video bitrate a notch to see if that helps.

/Mats

[Mars-L]

Thanx... I'll try that.
Reading for 2 days in usenet and specific sites, gives me alike answers. Ít seems that the Philips machines only wants to go upto 2600 in total (so including Audio bitrate)
So even 2500 plus 224 for audio would be too much in that case. Which I almost cannot believe....
A Philips machine that doesn't support SVCD.
Philips...the inventors of DVD...didn't they also set the standards for VCD and SVCD ??
The standard for SVCD is 2500 max for Video / 284 for audio.... Which gives a total of 2784.... which is over 2600

Still I'm gonna try to find out the bitrate is the problem. Thanx

[zargo]

Hi,

hm..., it look strange, my Philips 612S/022 supports standart svcd:
video bitrate ~ 2000 kbit/s
audio mpeg 5.1 384 kbit/s
2 x subtitle off/on

I haven't any problems with play vcd or svcd (maybe only with RW/FW).

zargo

[mats.hogberg]

Zargo - But then you're well within the specs (and even below 2600 kbps). From what I've read about those Philips DVD's, they seem to eat anything that's round and has a hole, so why they'd cut off at 2600 kbps, I can't understand.

/Mats

[Mars-L]

It's the bitrate.
You use 2000 for video and 384 for Audio makes a total of 2384 which is less then 2600... so the philips accepts that.
After some testing I found out the max. is indeed around 2600-2700.
Not exactly 2600 BTW !! I tested a 2500 Video + 160 Audio and it didn't give any problem. Atleast not while the test lasted... about 3 minutes. But maybe the less it's over 2600 the less the hickups appear.

The FF/FRW problem you mention is because you probably use Nero to master/burn the discs ?
Try to master them with VCDEasy/VCDImager create images with one of them, and burn those with CDRWin or eventually with Nero.... your FF/FRW problems will be solved.

(The problem with Nero only appears with (X)SVCD / MPEG2 !! (X)VCD / MPEG1 doesn't have that problem)

[apierre]

Mars-L,

You're right. It's a limitation of the bitrate.
I currently use following settings :

- video bitrate of 2450
- audio bitrate of 224

And encounter no more problem.

[vitualis]

How very interesting...

Remember, the SVCD specs limit the bitrate to 2 spin CD... but this is obviously designed around the limitations of a 2 spin CD drive, not a DVD drive.

A 1x DVD drive is supposed to read a CD at somewhere of the order of about 3x CD -- but as has become apparent, some drives can read CDs faster and some reads CDs slower.

BTW, DVD-ROM drives read CDs so much faster than 3x CD because they actually "spin up" when they detect a CD. This is often not the case for stand-alone player DVD drive mechanisms.

Regards.

[Mars-L]

Funny... I just did "Ice Age" with (also) 2450/224 and indeed no probs.
While a movie with 2600/160 already gives the problem, so it looks like the limit is between 2674 and 2760....

Thanx all for the help, a big mystery for months to me has been solved with this.

Greetz
Mars-L

[Mars-L]

BTW; On Doom9's forum I also read that in case of MPEG1 (xVCD) the limit is even lower (1374 (1150+224)) for PHILIPS. And the only way to get around that is remuxing it to MPEG2/XSVCD....

I haven't tested a xVCD that goes over 1374 yet on those Philips, anyone else ?

Greetz
Mars-L