AVI to DVD - no picture

[Budfudder]

I have a number of avi files I want to burn to DVDs as data files and then watch on my TV via my DVD player. I have run them all through Avi ReComp and given them all the same settings - No to QPel, No to GMC, disabled B-VOPs, and so forth. They are all using variations of the Xvid codec.

The problem is that while some of them work just fine, for some, when I play them in my DVD player, there's no picture. The sound is just fine, but there is no picture at all - I just get the logo for my DVD player, just as if there was nothing playing at all. Note that all of them work just fine when I play them on my PC. For all the ones that don't work, I have other ones that do work that use exactly the same MPEG-4 coded (Xvid 62, etc.).

It seems to me that I've tried everything - recompressing them, running them through NanDub, everything I know of - but nothing fixes the problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[yoda313]

Just a thought but are any high def files? I would imagine if they were high def the dvd player wouldn't play them at all but perhaps it would play the sound but not the video?

Not sure but you could double check the resolution and make sure they are standard def or lower.

[davexnet]

Use mediainfo in view/text mode to compare a working Vs. non-working file.

[Budfudder]

I used mediainfo to compare working files against one that doesn't work. The significant difference seems to be that the "Format profile" for the one that doesn't work is shown as "OpenDML". The files that do work don't even have a listing for "Format profile".

I looked up OpenDML and found it's a new format for AVI files. Could that be the problem? That my DVD player can't handle the OpenDML files? If so, is there any way to change the files back to non-OpenDML AVI? I've tried using both Avi ReComp and nandub. Neither has an explicit option about OpenDML, and after running the file through them it's still OpenDML.

Thanks for your help.

[davexnet]

Perhaps you should post the mediainfo of a non-working file here and somebody willtake a look.
Put it in view/text mode.

Some players have issues if the file is beyond a certain size (1 or 2GB), if the bitrate is too high, frame rate is non-standard,
or the resolution is beyond 720*576.

[Budfudder]

Here's the mediainfo output for a file that doesn't work:

General
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 2.19 GiB
Duration : 1h 36mn
Overall bit rate : 3 245 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2542/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2542/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : 1
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 1h 36mn
Bit rate : 2 913 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.132
Stream size : 1.97 GiB (90%)
Writing library : XviD 62

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 1h 36mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 221 MiB (10%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 42 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms
Writing library : LAME3.98.4

Any thoughts, suggestions or whatever will be very gratefully received.

[manono]

Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
.
.
Any thoughts, suggestions or whatever will be very gratefully received.

As Yoda313 speculated, it's Hi-Def and most (all?) DVD players that also play Xvid/DivX AVIs won't play Hi-Def AVIs. You'll have to lower the resolution considerably.

[Budfudder]

Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
.
.
Any thoughts, suggestions or whatever will be very gratefully received.

As Yoda313 speculated, it's Hi-Def and most (all?) DVD players that also play Xvid/DivX AVIs won't play Hi-Def AVIs. You'll have to lower the resolution considerably.

Thanks for that. How, from the output above, can you tell that it's Hi-Def? Is it just the width and height? If so, is there a limit to what most DVD players will play, in terms of width/height?

[aedipuss]

might be time to move up to a blu-ray player, they can support media files up to 1920x1080.

[Ai Haibara]

Thanks for that. How, from the output above, can you tell that it's Hi-Def? Is it just the width and height? If so, is there a limit to what most DVD players will play, in terms of width/height?

Most DivX/Xvid-capable DVD players will only play videos up to DVD (SD) resolutions - 720x480 (NTSC), 720x576 (PAL). Anything exceeding that will likely not play, or players may just play the audio stream only, as you've noticed. For some general 'limitations' to watch for when encoding videos for a DivX/Xvid-capable DVD player, you might want to read this post: Common DivX DVD Players AVI Playback problems!

might be time to move up to a blu-ray player, they can support media files up to 1920x1080.

Not all Blu-Ray players play everything, though. They can be just as picky about video files as a DVD player, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of them just happened to limit DivX/Xvid to SD resolutions just as a DVD player would, either.

[Budfudder]

Thanks a lot for all your replies and suggestions.