Mpeg4 playback on Philips Pet 1000 query

[qwertyfx2006]

Hi

I have recently purchased a Philips Pet 1000 and I notice that it has a Mpeg4 logo (next to a Divx logo) on the disc tray door. I have Mpeg4s I've made for play back on a video iPod, can I play these from optical media as mpeg4s and if so how do I do so? There is nothing in the manual!, I've tried buring them as data and as a dvd (toast 6) but with the latter I think they are just encoded out of Mpeg4. I am kinda new to all this so any advice or help would be very much appreciated, thanks.

--
Fint

[jagabo]

The MPEG4 logo probably is referring to Divx. Divx, Xvid, and several other codecs implement the MPEG 4 compression scheme. Usually in an AVI container.

The iPod uses MPEG 4 encoded video in an MP4 container. Few set-top players will play MP4 files. I don't know your player but the Philips DVP-642 can play the video portion of MP4 files (created with programs like Nero Recode) but cannot play the AAC audio that usually accompanies it.

Players that can play Divx (and usually Xvid too) AVI files and MP4 files play them off data DVDs (or CDs) burned in ISO or UDF format. Be sure not to use multisession as most players don't like that. I recommend you burn a Divx AVI file and one of your MP4 files onto a data disk and see if they play.

There are several other limitions for set-top Divx players. Most don't like the QPEL and GMC features of MPEG 4. They usually can't handle very high MPEG 4 video bitrates (over 4000 kbps or so), very low MP3 audio bitrates (56 kbps or below) or many of the other audio codecs you find in Divx files around the net.

You might find this Divx test CD interesting:

http://www.divxtest.com/What-is-DivxTest-Where-can-I-find.html

The ISO image is available for free.