BUSH 2004 - Low bitrate XVCDs

[boston]

I just bought this UK unit today from Argos, and have tried to play a low bitrate (766 kbps CBR video, 112 kb stereo audio) XVCDs on it (DVD rip of 'Family Man' - which equates to about 120 Minutes for the single CD. The 2nd XVCD (DVD rip) was Grosse Pointe Blank (893 kbit/sec = 103 mins on a CD)

The settings used were:
352 x 288 PAL (content is widescreen - clipped)
Constant bitrate (CBR) @ 766 kbit/sec
VBV Buffer size = 112
Motion search precision = normal
System stream type = MPEG-1 Video-CD (non-standard)

These work fine on my Sony DVP-FX1 portable (surprisingly, as it isn't supposed to play XVCDs, according to the DVD compatability list)

Anyway - the error with the Bush 2004 DVD player is it skips sections of the film every 5 to 10 minutes (gets worse as the bitrate is reduced), as well as screen artifacts on the lower bitrate XVCD. This machine is supposed to be very good in terms of support for all media, should I be keeping the rate higher (I don't mind the quality loss) - or is there anything that I can do to get these to work perfectly on this player?

Are there any other players out there that play low-bitrate XVCDs?

[Phil Pugh]

I have not been able to get this machine (BUSH 2004) to play XVCD or XSVCD as some members have reported. I have tried bit rates upto about 2500kbps on each 'format' and I get terrible pixellation. I suspect that there has been a firmware revison somewhere along the way. Mine is a unit purchased from Argos in Jan this year.

Anyone know where you can get firmawre for this box?

[a1anp]

Phil,

Sounds like you've got the 2004/A model like me (look at the sticker on the back). It's partially crippled compared to the earlier model, but I've managed to get X(S)VCD working (sometimes!).

Can you get any VCDs (commercial or compliant) to work in the first place? It should play them no probs. If not, take it back to Argos pronto!!!

I've had success with MPEG-1 at video bitrates of 900 - 2300 kbps. MPEG-2 isn't so good - it looks great most of the time but can get pixellated in high action scenes, though that may well be down to the encoding. But I've had no success trying non-standard video sizes so I just stick with 352x288 for XVCD.

Get hold of some high speed CD-RWs and try out a load of different settings - you'll get there in the end

Alan