Are there no Blu Ray players that will play VCD & SVCD?

[GSP_87]

My Philips DVD player that I used to play VCD & SVCD has a tray that will no longer open or close, so I'm wondering if there's a Blu Ray player that will also play VCD & SVCD, in addition to DVD, DVD-R, etc. I know it's possible to convert the SVCD video files into DVD files, but that'll take a long time and is a hassle.

[jman98]

Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to find these kinds of players. Oppo still makes them. The last time I checked Philips did too.

Failing to support VCD and SVCD is just a firmware issue. The players could do it. I've got a Samsung 3D BD player that refused to play VCD or MPEG-1 files, but I have a test DVD that I made some years ago with MPEG-1 that's valid for DVD (352x240, less than 1700 Kbps, AC3 audio) and it played it without any problems so manufacturers being lazy is the reason for this lack of support.

[Cornucopia]

My guess is that it has more to do with licensing's legal & financial hassles than anything technological.

However, one should never put off too far into the future the idea of "data migration" anyway. Guess now's the time for you...

Scott

[louv68]

GSP_87,

I haven't done this in a long time, but the last time I did, I demuxed the streams (can't remember with what program) and made a DVD (without reencoding) with DVDStyler. I even added simple menus. It actually was pretty fast as there was no encoding involved. Seems so unnecessary though, but as jman98 says, manufacturers are getting lazy.

[CobraPilot]

Just out of curiosity, have you given up on fixing the Philips?

The reason I ask: I've had more than one DVD player (one of which was a Philips) that became balky at opening and closing with the remote and sometimes the on-machine buttons.

In many cases, I could simply tap on the tray during the "open" cycle to "unstick" it and then apply pressure on an open tray to close it.

Most of mine have had a manual tray release, usually on the bottom, and I could always manually close the tray by gently pressing on the tray until it closed and locked.

In another instance, I opened the case, found it had more than a little built-up of dust and other crud, did as much cleanup as I could, and solved the problem when it seemed to be mechanical (vs. electronics) problem. (I tend never to open a unit that's still under warranty.)

Unless you've tried all these workarounds, one of 'em might work for those times you need to play a VCD/SVCD.

Good luck!

[Cornucopia]

Migrating VCD doesn't take too much effort, but it isn't as seamless as was mentioned.

If you are migrating the assets to work in DVD material (as all DVD players, and most BD players do still support that), you can simply demux the V+A and leave the V alone (until you re-author as DVD), but you WILL need to convert your stereo/16bit/44100Hz mp2 audio to 48000Hz in a format that is legit for DVD (AC3, mp2, dts, LPCM).

If you are migrating simply to plain *.MPG files, you only need to rip the assets from *.DAT to *.MPG (assuming your player supports that type).

If you are migrating to BD or AVCHD, you will need to re-encode BOTH the V+A, as those formats no longer support MPEG1.

Scott

[johns0]

Get a blu-ray player that plays media files on usb or data disc and just extract the mpeg2 and mpeg1 files and play as is.No need to re-encode or author.

[yoda313]

I wonder if any settop bluray player will play any type of svcd being 480x480 and all (if memory serves).

Yes the vcd conversion should be seamless and supported by most if not every bluray player.

Its the svcd that will trip you up most likely. It will most likely involve reencoding of the video unfortunately.

But you should be able to find some digital media player that will play svcd as is.

Do the wdtv media players play svcd? What about others players of that type? I don't have any svcd samples to test on my wdtv gen 1 nor on my sony bluray player.

Good luck.

[johns0]

I just copied a mpeg2 straight from a svcd and it plays with no issues on my sony bdp-s380 through the usb.

[GSP_87]

Thanks for the suggestions re: playing the video files via USB. I don't see any manual tray open hole on the bottom of the Philips DVD player, unless it's underneath. I just tried the open button, and it opened, but mostly it wouldn't open. Really inconsistent. It turns out I can just rename the VCD .dat file extension to .mpg, but PS3 will not play either converted .dat to .wmv or renamed .dat to .mpg or original SVCD .mpg. Does anyone know what wmv video & audio codecs PS3 will recognize as playable rather than as corrupted data or unsupported file?

[jman98]

I just copied a mpeg2 straight from a svcd and it plays with no issues on my sony bdp-s380 through the usb.

Yea for you that Sony supports this, but Samsung does NOT at least for MPEG-1. It won't play MPEG-1 at all unless it's made into a DVD. I've tried. However, as I don't really mess with SVCD any more I suppose that might work on my player, but I'm too lazy to try. Seeing if VCD would work was interesting to me. Testing SVCD was not, so I didn't.

[Cornucopia]

Thanks for the suggestions re: playing the video files via USB. I don't see any manual tray open hole on the bottom of the Philips DVD player, unless it's underneath. I just tried the open button, and it opened, but mostly it wouldn't open. Really inconsistent. It turns out I can just rename the VCD .dat file extension to .mpg, but PS3 will not play either converted .dat to .wmv or renamed .dat to .mpg or original SVCD .mpg. Does anyone know what wmv video & audio codecs PS3 will recognize as playable rather than as corrupted data or unsupported file?

Don't do the "simple rename" hack. It is fundamentally a flawed idea. See previous posts about VCD, *.DAT to *.MPG...
Boils down to: use VCDEasy, VCDGear, or ISOBuster to convert WHILE RIPPING the *.DAT tracks (which include extraneous CD-ROM-XA M2F2 sector data) to clean *.MPG files (which do NOT include that interspersed data). Of course, that doesn't mean your particular player would play it, just that it would be more "legit" & standardized file.

AFA WMV/WMA, what does the MANUAL or PS3 website/forum say about support for those codec types? (check also on the firmware updates, because many times Sony has added support for certain filetypes during an update).

Scott

[Brad]

MPEG-1 is supported by the PS3 but not .DAT.

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/video/filetypes.html

I have one legit VCD. The PS3 just sees it as a Data Disc and refuses to play anything from it.