Philips DVP5960 and USB

[oli_d]

I tried to hook my external Lacie 250GB HD (hard-drive that is, not high definition) to my new 5960 but it failed with the common "device not supported" error.
It had a FAT32 and NTFS, but those where logical partition created into an extended partition.
I used PM8 to remove the FAT32 logical partition, reduced the size of the extended and created a new FAT32 primary partition.
Moved a few divx to the new partition, hooked the HD to the 5960 and ... it's working !!!

So if you HD is not working, make sure it uses primary partition formatted as FAT32.

To check which kind of partition you have on the disk using an win XP computer to which you have hooked your external HD:
- get a command prompt (start/run/cmd.exe)
- launch "diskpart" (you will then get a diskpart prompt)
- use "list disk" to get you external disk index (mine is disk 2)
- use "select disk X" where X is the disk index found with previous command
- use "list partition" to show detail about the partitions on the disk and you get something like

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary             29 GB    32 KB
  Partition 2    Extended           204 GB    29 GB
  Partition 3    Logical            204 GB    29 GB

- use "exit" command to exit from diskpart

In the example above the first partition is 29GB big, primary. By the size I know this is my FAT32 partition.
If you have only extended+logical, you will have to remove the partitions (and loose the data on it, so make a copy first) and create a new primary partition that you format as FAT32. To do that use diskpart or a partitionning utility like PM8.

I hope this will help some of you to get your HD working.
Olivier

[Uncle DondaDONDONDON]

Guys, I think I am going to get a USB flash drive. Bestbuy is having a killer sale. Thank you for the external enclosers I may just get one anyway

[tashayar]

Ok, now I am *really* frustrated!

I opened up a brand new Seagate 200gb and dropped it into a Mad dog enclosure. Two of my computers read the drive and I can add files to it, however, it is NTFS.

Soooo, I follow the advice earlier in this thread about SwissKnife, download it and install. Then every time I open SwissKnife to use it, as soon as I click on the usb drive, the program crashes. After a few times, thinking it was a bad download, I tried it from another mirror and on my other computer and same thing. <sigh>

I went to the link of the first program which was posted for formatting FAT32 and well, I got a bit confused.

Any suggestions? Thanks for the help!

[louloomis]

hi. i'm using an external seagate 320 GB HD in a pretty decent enclosure.

i had to format the whole hd in ntfs, then re-format in fat32 to get this hd working with the philips 5960 dvd player. so there is only one partition (320 gb fat32 which can be seen perfectly by my pc). HOWEVER...

the dvd player can still only see a much smaller subset than the 32 gb. i have about 125 gb of data on there now and not all of it shows up in the 5960's usb menu. in fact, i can't figure out how the dvd player "decides" what to show and what not to show. it seems like the newer stuff you put on there bumps the older stuff off the list, but only sometimes.

is there anyone out there who can see over 40 gb of data on their external hd via the philips 5960?

thanks,
LL

[kiab115]

Do a google search for a program called fat32 formatter, it will enable you to format a drive in winxp for fat32 and it will allow the player to see up to 2tb. I can see all of my 120, but I no longer have the program.

Still looking for ideas on how to have this hooked to the dvd player and a laptop I have slaved for downloading at the same time without having to switch cables back and forth. Any thoughts guys????

[louloomis]

Hi. If it's this:


http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm

...then I already tried it.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Thanks.

LL

[devastor]

I been using my DVP-5960 for about 6 months now. I plug in my 30 gig Ipod for use for this lovely player's usb drive. Now since I updated my Ipod to the latest apple's software. My Ipod is "Device Not Supported" for the Dvd player. What is up with that?

Anyone else having the same problem and know of a solution? Please help.

[Blackman75]

I know this may have been mentioned a million times before but just to mention it again since I just bought the 5960 and was pissed when my 6GB USB mini hd (thumb drive whatever, the kind that hangs on your neck) would stutter. I simply formatted the drive and it played smooth as silk (or at least rayon ) Anyway if you get stuttering try to defrag or just save the files on it on your comp and then reformat (much faster to reformat by quick formatting) and you should be good to go.

The Blackman

[Blackman75]

I know this may have been mentioned a million times before but just to mention it again since I just bought the 5960 and was pissed when my 6GB USB mini hd (thumb drive whatever, the kind that hangs on your neck) would stutter. I simply formatted the drive and it played smooth as silk (or at least rayon ) Anyway if you get stuttering try to defrag or just save the files on it on your comp and then reformat (much faster to reformat by quick formatting) and you should be good to go.

The Blackman

Or maybe not.

[Blackman75]

Ok thought I had this problem solved as I played an ep of Family Guy with no stutter for a while. However everything else has a stutter every 3-5 seconds. This is pissing me off and I only bought this friggin 6 gb mini hard drive (keychain type) with the view that it would store and play my divx TV show files. Can anyone help get this to work?

[lacywest]

Ok thought I had this problem solved as I played an ep of Family Guy with no stutter for a while. However everything else has a stutter every 3-5 seconds. This is pissing me off and I only bought this friggin 6 gb mini hard drive (keychain type) with the view that it would store and play my divx TV show files. Can anyone help get this to work?

Your 6 GB thumb drive ... what name and model

I use the Memorex 1GB Travel Drive U3 ... works great ... I have not seen any stuttering. I've put a few episodes of ... Threshold on it.

And a few days ago ... Mission Impossible 3 ... I used Dr Divx 1.06 ... I set the size to 850 megs ... and it is 850 Megs and it plays fine on the DVP5960.

It also plays fine on the computer at work that I'm typing on ... as of right now.

[Blackman75]

Ok thought I had this problem solved as I played an ep of Family Guy with no stutter for a while. However everything else has a stutter every 3-5 seconds. This is pissing me off and I only bought this friggin 6 gb mini hard drive (keychain type) with the view that it would store and play my divx TV show files. Can anyone help get this to work?

Your 6 GB thumb drive ... what name and model

I use the Memorex 1GB Travel Drive U3 ... works great ... I have not seen any stuttering. I've put a few episodes of ... Threshold on it.

And a few days ago ... Mission Impossible 3 ... I used Dr Divx 1.06 ... I set the size to 850 megs ... and it is 850 Megs and it plays fine on the DVP5960.

It also plays fine on the computer at work that I'm typing on ... as of right now.

My drive is a Qrisma and the model is just the 6.0GB mini hard drive. Now remember this is not just a flash memory stick but is an actual mini hard drive that you can hang around your neck or put in your pocket. It is about 2/3 the size of a credit card. I get power and can watch the video I just get stuttering. I hear others who have much larger external drives and even some without power and get no stuttering. I don't want to have to run everything through Dr. Divx before I play it, that would be a pain. Any suggestions?

[matic]

does it matter if the external HD is USB 1 or 2...?
i wanna try and use this drive
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5368064

lemme know any input..

[Blackman75]

does it matter if the external HD is USB 1 or 2...?
i wanna try and use this drive
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5368064

lemme know any input..

Shouldn't matter.

Also about my issue with stuttering I tried a 4.0GB mini hard drive same make and model with no stuttering. Seems the 6.0 is just a bit to big and maybe requires more power so causes some stuttering. Oh well sux but at least it works with one of my drives.

[slvrscoobie]

How are you connecting the Receiver to the player. The only way I get DD is if the player is set to "all" but then I get no Audio from my HDMI. I can get sound from both if I have my setting on PCM only, but then its not 5.1, its just stereo :P thats no fun!
I did the upgrade, do I need to have the RCA's connected to the TV? Sounds kinda dumb to me...

[Blackman75]

How are you connecting the Receiver to the player. The only way I get DD is if the player is set to "all" but then I get no Audio from my HDMI. I can get sound from both if I have my setting on PCM only, but then its not 5.1, its just stereo :P thats no fun!
I did the upgrade, do I need to have the RCA's connected to the TV? Sounds kinda dumb to me...

What is this in reference to?

[slvrscoobie]

kind of a off topic on how to use the "all" setting on the 5960
cant get audio out on the dvd player to the TV over HDMI or RCA when outputing DD or DTS tracks

[synchro505]

Is anyone getting weird file names (that you didn't create) listed onscreen when loading files via USB on either a hard drive or flash?

I'm using a pre-formatted Seagate 300GB FAT32 external USB/FireWire drive on a Mac running 10.4.8 The Mac's OS seems to harmoniously transfer and name files and directories just fine.

I've shortened my file names (since there seems to be a eight character limit) and list them by numbers like 301.avi or 102.mpg

The weird part is that I'm getting file names like _301~ and also the normal 301.avi file name in the same directory listing onscreen. This is happening in all directories.

I've run a utility that reveals hidden files in the Mac OS Finder but didn't find the same weird file names that I saw.

I think I'll hook the drive up to my windows computer and see if it sees these things.

I'm tempted to get another drive and format it using the Mac OS or even UNIX format just to see what it will read. DiskUtility in OS X allows you to choose all of these flavors including MS-DOS (Fat32) format.

I'd hate to reformat this particular drive since I have sooo many files in there already. Perhaps in the name of science I inevitably will have to. 8)

All in all, I just love playing movies and TV shows off this drive even if I feel like I'm accessing an Alien computer file list when I do.

Anyone else getting weird file names?

[tikigod19]

4gb verbatim sotre n go u3 = plays

but with episode 301 of lost that was 900x450 I re-encoded to 700x400 as that is about the max this player supports... when kate meets that big bad guy at the beach it stuttrers like mad it appears that as there is lots of movement on the screen

I get this same problem when playing the file from a DVDR. What is suggested to cure this?
I have ordered my player and I'm not looking for a 4gb usb drive. Will probably go for the Transcend JetFlash 120 4GB Flash Drive as people seem to recommend it on here. I hve a question, if i watch an avi file from the usb drive through the HDMI will I see a noticeable difference from component or will I only see this difference if I watch a HD DVD? If they even exist yet! I realise the idea of an upscaler is different to a HD DVD but I'm unclear of whether the video on the usb drive can also be upscaled??
thanks

[jagabo]

with episode 301 of lost that was 900x450 I re-encoded to 700x400 as that is about the max this player supports... when kate meets that big bad guy at the beach it stuttrers like mad it appears that as there is lots of movement on the screen

I get this same problem when playing the file from a DVDR. What is suggested to cure this?

In all likelihood this is a VBR encoding and a bitrate spike has exceeded what the player can handle. The solution is to use a lower average bitrate or to increase the Min Quantizer value to reduce the bitrate at peaks. It might also help to use frame sizes that are multiples of 16. Other sizes require special handling at the edges of the frame which might require more CPU power to decompress.

[lacywest]

How are you connecting the Receiver to the player. The only way I get DD is if the player is set to "all" but then I get no Audio from my HDMI. I can get sound from both if I have my setting on PCM only, but then its not 5.1, its just stereo :P thats no fun!
I did the upgrade, do I need to have the RCA's connected to the TV? Sounds kinda dumb to me...

Dolby Digital 5.1 ... can only be obtained using a COAX connection usually the phono jack is surrounded with a Orange background. Or ... it will be the fiber optic connection for obtaining Dolby Digital 5.1.

For the Phillips DVP5960 .... they use a Coax connection for a Dolby Digital 5.1 connection.

Common ... left and right stereo phono jacks ... only provide simple stereo sound.

Your Stereo Receiver needs to have a coaxial or digital [Toslink fiberoptic] input to decode the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

[tikigod19]

The solution is to use a lower average bitrate or to increase the Min Quantizer value to reduce the bitrate at peaks. It might also help to use frame sizes that are multiples of 16. Other sizes require special handling at the edges of the frame which might require more CPU power to decompress.

thanks for this, is there a program you could recommend for me to change the bitrate of an existing avi file?

[jagabo]

The solution is to use a lower average bitrate or to increase the Min Quantizer value to reduce the bitrate at peaks. It might also help to use frame sizes that are multiples of 16. Other sizes require special handling at the edges of the frame which might require more CPU power to decompress.

thanks for this, is there a program you could recommend for me to change the bitrate of an existing avi file?

I would do it with one of the variants of VirtualDub. But there is a program called AVIRecomp which is designed for this and may be a little easier to use. AutoGK should work too.

[tikigod19]

jagabo, i downloaded avirecomp but it only lets me open avi's, plus i cant see anywhere where i would join two files into one? I think I'm going to keep them as 2 seperate files as I have read about synching problems when joining two to one.

Does anybody know what the dvp5960 is like when accessing a portable hard drive with lots of files on (hundreds). If I wanted to play a file beginning with Z would I have to use the remote to scroll through all of the files or scroll to the Z folder if I put them in alphabetical folders?

[jagabo]

jagabo, i downloaded avirecomp but it only lets me open avi's, plus i cant see anywhere where i would join two files into one?

I thought you were asking about recompressing an AVI file. Are you converting a DVD? Try AutoGK.

[tikigod19]

sorry! i'm getting confused between two different threads. I will give avirecomp a go to recompress. thanks!

[TBoneit]

trust me on this, use folders a to z, It's a big pain when their are too many files. In my experience it also seems to want to display files in the order they are added.

[daisbrown0722]

Will Philips make a new DVD player with usb 2.0 and that can read NTFS? I love all of there players, but would like to see something just for usb and divx!

[jagabo]

USB 2.0? Probably. NTFS? probably not.

[nahhee]

LaCie Porsche 500GB external drive (Product Code 301103U) straight out of box recognized and works fine in DVP5960/37 fw v37.06.42.29. Note that this drive, like most, is formatted FAT32 at the factory. I have a couple foldering questions I will ask on new thread to avoid jacking this one.