Toshiba SD290 DivX interlaced field problem

[Sainsbo_McManus]

So i have a Toshiba SD290EK DVD player with DivX playback via USB stick ... it's not a bad player except it fails when given an interlaced video encoded top field first (i.e. PAL). It seems to output the video as lower field first, causing jittery playback whenever any motion occurs, e.g. credits rolling across the screen.

Same problem happens with the XviD codec, and as with DivX, it doesn't matter whether I check the "top field first" box. Encoding as progressive leads to proper playback but reduces quality, apparently the encoder struggles with the combing. I also realise that I could shift the image up by a single scanline but then I may find that no other standalone will play the vids back properly ...

Am I missing something here ? Has anyone else tried playing back full SD interlaced vids in PAL land ? On this or similar standalones ?

[Baldrick]

Doesn't most standalone players have problem with interlaced divx and xvid? Even if it's supported in the mpeg4 divx/xvid standard.

[Sainsbo_McManus]

This is the only Divx/MPEG4 standalone I've owned, so I don't know about other players. I emailed Toshiba about this, and got the following reply :

Many thanks for your recent enquiry regarding your Toshiba SD290.

I have spoken to one of my engineers in Head Office with regard to your query. As the picture is refreshing itself every 25th of a second it is extremely unlikely that you would notice if the picture was refreshing lower or upper field first. However, as you correctly say with PAL it will always refresh as upper field first. Please advise if this playback is happening on all the DIVX programmes you are watching.

I had already explained that I believed it was displaying lower field first because I could see the jittery motion.

I tested this by ripping a small VOB file from a commercial DVD and converting to DivX (6.8.5) as interlaced TFF. Comparing the clips in Virtualdub, they are identical (except for a few compression artifacts). I copy them to a USB stick. The VOB plays back smoothly, the DivX jittery.

I explained all this in another email to Toshiba, and will post again if I make any progress.

As I said, shifting the image up a scanline "works" - and the output is crisp, creamy smooth 50Hz playback ... very nice. It just probably won't work on other players.

[jagabo]

Interlaced Divx/Xvid is often a problem on standalone players. Most don't support it properly. Typically they will play one field order right, and the other wrong (ie, they ignore the field order flag). Sometimes they slip in and out of phase. Basically, you should avoid interlaced Divx/Xvid.