Philips DVP5960 and USB

[Raptor16]

whenever the is noise in the picture, it stutters! Like now, I'm watching a normal 350MB episode of NCIS (3x23) and whenever there's a flashback in the episode, they use picture noise to show that it is indeed a flashback (like some old photos or something) and it stutters EVERY TIME

Noisy video requires high bitrates. Any VBR encoding will have very high bitrates during that type of scene.

That explains it... Annoying though

[TBoneit]

Easy cure, More or less anyway.

Take the file and load into VirtualDub and trim out just the picture noise and see if the video is still true enough to the storyline with the missing bits and that it plays without stuttering.

Other possibility is to re-encode to say 700 Mb or 1 Gb per episode with a lower max bitrate (experiment) or even CBR

That would be iff you are using the already encoded file as source to keep up the quality. Or go back to the original unless these are avi caps then you need to set the bitrate lower.

This is what I'd try first. Of course the other alternative is burn them to CDs or DVDs as the DVD drive has a higher transfer rate than the USB port and shouldn't stutter.

Have you noticed that the FF/FRev is much smother off of a DVD with AVIs compared to off of a USB drive? Same reason, higher transfer rate from the DVD Drive. The AVIs start playing faster off of a DVD than off of a USB drive. Once again same reason.

I've been burning +R DLs with 8.5 Gb of Divx/Xvid on them and use them in the phillips for those reasons. One oddity, at least to me, is that it will turn of after a period of time when playing AVIs off of a DVD or a USB drive. However it seems to stay on with Real DVD format discs.

[GrayStrickland]

A pound sign at the start of the name will cause it to be munged from the very first character.

Munged? Qu'est-ce que c'est "munged?"

[jagabo]

A pound sign at the start of the name will cause it to be munged from the very first character.

Munged? Qu'est-ce que c'est "munged?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung

Or were you making a joke about this:

http://foldoc.org/?munge

"munge... This term is often confused with mung and may derive from it, or possibly vice-versa. One correspondent believes it derives from the french "mange" /monzh/, eat."

[tikigod19]

hi i have a question regarding mp3's on an external hard drive through the usb port. All of my video works fine but when i go into my music folder the folders are in REVERSE alphabetical order (the movie and tv folder is in correct alphabetical order) Although I have checked on my pc and each folder has albums in there, they only show up as being in folders Z down to about T or S... has anyone got any ideas??

[tx_jeff]

I receieved a DVP-5960/32 for a Christmas gift. In order to avoid having to burn DVDs or CDs, I purchased a high speed 2GB USB solution which consists of a Kingston 120X Ultimate SD Card and a Crucial Hi-Speed USB SD/MMC Card Reader. Using FAT32 on the USB drive, I have measued the read speed of my USB storage solution at 16MB/sec (via HDtach3). Hence, USB performance SHOULD NOT be an issue (excluding the DVP-5960).

I was experimenting and used AutoGK 2.40 to encode a George Michael Video from a DVD. I encoded it into 4 ea. 700MB Xvid files with native AC3 5.1 and stereo MP3. Yes, I realize that will up the video bit rate. One of the videos that has rain skips terribly (audio and video) when the rain is falling (i.e., lots of video updates). Once it flips to a scene without rain, its plays fine until the rain reappears. Next, I burned the avi file onto a DVD. The DVD plays the same AVI fine... skip free during the rain. I suspect this problem is due to insufficient read-ahead and caching of USB data (likely a software design flaw). I'm curious, has anyone else experienced problems playing videos via USB when they work fine on DVD? I disappointed as this seems like software development 101 to me and the engineers at Philips should have addressed this long ago. Then again, this might be due to a poor h/w interface design.

Comments?

FYI: I'm running the 37.06.42.29 firmware.

[jagabo]

The USB port on the 5960 is a 1.1 port, not a 2.0 port. It's burst speed is 12 mbit/sec, real world throughput about half that. So USB throughput could well be an issue.

Many people have reported the same problem -- files play fine from DVD, skip from USB port.

The problem is probably a combination of CPU loading, USB 1.1 throughput, and insufficient readahead buffering.

[tx_jeff]

The USB port on the 5960 is a 1.1 port, not a 2.0 port. It's burst speed is 12 mbit/sec, real world throughput about half that. So USB throughput could well be an issue.

Many people have reported the same problem -- files play fine from DVD, skip from USB port.

The problem is probably a combination of CPU loading, USB 1.1 throughput, and insufficient readahead buffering.

Amazing... I just assumed it was USB 2.0. Let me guess... I'll bet that saved them $0.10 on an IC which would have added $1 to the price of the player at retail. What an incredibly foolish design tradeoff. I suppose they could have been looking at a new IC all together as USB 1.1 might be included in the ARM core (or chipset) the unit uses. Having said that, its still broken in my view. If anyone at Philips is reading this... when you choke the H/W bandwidth, you should compensate by implementing highly-optimized read-ahead. Shame Shame.

[jagabo]

its still broken in my view. If anyone at Philips is reading this... when you choke the H/W bandwidth, you should compensate by implementing highly-optimized read-ahead. Shame Shame.

Philips doesn't claim the unit can play video via the USB port at all. See the second post in this thread.

[Trac]

Philips doesn't claim the unit can play video via the USB port at all. See the second post in this thread.

Yes and no:
The manual does not specify DivX via USB, however their website advertises that the USB does support DivX.

Multimedia Applications
Multimedia connections : USB memory class device
Playback Formats : DivX, MP3, JPEG Still pictures

http://tinyurl.com/ya3sqg

Thanks to all for the great advice in this thread.

[Trac]

I deleted this post since it was not relevant to the thread.

[esc24]

I've had the 5960 for a few months now and have never been able to get an external hd to work on it. I stumbled across this forum yesterday and read practically every post hoping i could get this thing to work. I've spent the last day clearing up 250 gigs so that i could reformat the hard drive correctly. I followed all the rules, i'm using swissknife, set it to fat32, made sure it was primary, made sure to plug it into an outlet and power it up before plugging it into the dvd player but i can't get it to work. Is there something i'm missing?

Here are what the settings look like just before i format.

[psitech]

Anyone using a 60gb Maxtor "one touch" mini III? I've read this entire forum and still can't get my drive to work with the 5960. I've converted it over to fat32 using swissknife. The drive did not come with an external power adapter, but it does have a dual usb connection where the 2nd connection is used for power only (if needed). I have a dvr that has a usb port and I plug the secondary usb for the maxtor into this just so I can have the extra power. After converting over to fat32 and using the additional power the 5960 recognizes the drive but doesn't show any content. It also makes a strange clicking or almost beeping noise. I'm not sure if my ears aren't that good but I can't tell if the noise is comming from the 5960 or the drive. The way I have the usb connected to both the dvr and the 5960 I can't move the drive far enough away to distinguish the sound source. The noise doesn't go away until I either power the 5960 down (drive still powered up through dvr) or totally disconnect the drive.

If any has any tips or suggestions I'd surely appreciate it.

[GrayStrickland]

STUPID QUESTION...

Is it possible that you could have some sort of usb harddrive which is simulataneously visible to the 5960 and readable/writable over a network by a pc? I assume that the answer is no, that it's not possible, but since this thread is visited by geniuses, I have to ask.

[dzgilad]

STUPID QUESTION...

Is it possible that you could have some sort of usb harddrive which is simulataneously visible to the 5960 and readable/writable over a network by a pc? I assume that the answer is no, that it's not possible, but since this thread is visited by geniuses, I have to ask.

Not Stupid. Great Idea.

If you're willing to spend, then, Yes, You Probably Can.

Look at infrant's ReadyNAS units -- RAIDs with every conceivable interface and file service. We have one at the office, it works great. I'm 90% sure you could hook it up to your 5960 via USB and have it on your ethernet at the same time. Question is: will the 5960 recognize it? Don't know.

(www.infrant.com)

[GrayStrickland]

If you're willing to spend, then, Yes, You Probably Can.

Look at infrant's ReadyNAS units -- RAIDs with every conceivable interface and file service. We have one at the office, it works great. I'm 90% sure you could hook it up to your 5960 via USB and have it on your ethernet at the same time. Question is: will the 5960 recognize it? Don't know.
(www.infrant.com)

After further investigation, I've found many drive enclosures for <$100 which have both RJ45 ethernet connections so that they can serve as a NAS and usb ports so that they can serve as a conventional usb drive. However, none seem to have the ability to do both simultaneously. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but I'm pretty skeptical. When an enclosure acts as a NAS, an onboard cpu (and Linux, probably) acts as a file server through which all read/write control is handled. In other words, the enclosure is in control. PCs/devices which want to read/write data send their requests to the enclosure which actually controls the drive. OTOH, when an enclosure acts as a usb drive, then the pc/device which is reading/writing through the usb port is in control of the drive. I question whether the hardware specs would permit both to happen simultaneously. But it would ROCK if it could work. The idea of my pc being able to write to the drive over my home network while a 5960 plays from it would be sweet.

[Trac]

@esc24

Everything in your screen shot is correct: Primary > File Type Fat32 > Label SWISNIFE1 (Their default).
All you have to do is click on Create.
Pie changes from Pink (Unallocated) to Blue (Primary).
NOTE: At this point it does NOT show up on your computer with the new label and Fat32 format.
Notice the note at bottom of screen “Please exit this application…newly formatted drives will appear shortly.”
Exit the prog, and click the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the taskbar for that HDD.
Disconnect the USB, wait a minute or two, then reconnect the USB HDD.
At this point, your PC should recognize it as Fat32.
I would rename it ie; DVP5960A or whatever, add some videos and it should work with your player.

[esc24]

trac, thanks for responding, but i already tried all of that. From what i can see there's no reason this shouldn't be working. I'm guessing it's just a problem with the hard drive, because i don't see what else it could be.

[Trac]

esc24, If your HD is showing on your PC, then it is the USB port on your player.

[bobsolo]

Just wanted to say thanks to all. I've had a 5960 for about 3 months and finally got tired of copying files to my 512MB thumb drive and/or burning discs. I just bought a WD 160GB MyBook (on sale at best buy this week FYI) and it was recognized by the 5960 out of the box. 26GB down 124GB to go.

I know there won't be a USB 2.0 solution for this player, but I hope Philips can fix the file order issue, add folder depth, and extend the filename length in the next firmware update.

[Trac]

...i already tried all of that. From what i can see there's no reason this shouldn't be working. I'm guessing it's just a problem with the hard drive, because i don't see what else it could be.

Did you try a hard format before using SwissKnife?
Quick format will leave fragments which could be causing the problem.

[esc24]

trac, just tried that and it still says device not supported. I guess at this point it must be the external hd. Since the usb port on the dvd player works with my flash drive, it's probably not that, and it seems like i'm doing everything right with the formatting, so the only thing that seems like an answer is that this hard drive doesn't work on the dvd player. I'm thinking that like maybe since my external hd also has memory card slots and a usb port on the front, the dvd player is seeing it as multiple drives and like can't comprehend it.

Anyway, this is the hard drive i have

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144340

Has anybody else had any luck with this hard drive or any of the other western digital media centers?

[Wyntre]

@esc24 - I would try fat32format if you are still havving problems. It worked fine for me, and is a simple dos program that does that trick. You can get it here: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/download/fat32format.zip

Also, I'm not sure if I am the only one, but I have had no problems at all plugging in my HD either powered on or not. I hot swap it all the imte between my laptop and the 5960 and if the player is on, it reads it fine.

For me, I have had success no matter what combination/order I turn them on:

Power on player, then power on plugged in HD - OK
Power on HD plugged in, then power on player - OK
Power on player, then plug in powered in HD - OK
Power on player then plug in powered off HD, then turn on the HD - OK

Basically, not matter what combo I use, it works just fine.
I am using a SimpleTech External Hard Drive (STI-USB235/160) I got at Circuit City and formatted it with fat32format (see above).


BTW - I still can't figure out the ABSOLUTE order of how this player lists files. At first I thought it was alpha, but I have a mixed set of files that seem to be date/alpha! Even renaming them to 8.3 doesn't help. Those that are out of order seem to be date last modified instead of file name.

Most of the time this is fine, since episodic files are usually chronoogical as well. But its a real pain when an episode, say #4 was encoded or repacked after episode #8. Then #4 shows up after #8 in the list.

Other than that and the whole "no long files names via USB 1.1" thing, this is a great player!!!

[esc24]

Wyntre, i actually tried fat32format the other day and that didn't seem to do the trick either.

[tikigod19]

guys please, has anyone ever put various folders of mp3's on an external HD and they are there when you check on a pc but the philips player shows certain folders as being empty when infact they should have other folders containing mp3's inside them.

Could it be something to do with the length of file names, anyone?

edit: after doing some testing I have discovered that some folders will work if there are only 3 folders in the name, for example music/a/aerosmith where previously it was music/a/aerosmith/album name.

[Wyntre]

esc24, what order do your drives show up as when you plug it in to your computer? I think your previous thoughts are correct in that the 5960 may be seeing either the WD's USB or card reader slots first. IF either of those gets a drive letter before the HD when you plug it in to your computer, then that is almost certainly the case.

[esc24]

I just checked and my hd was listed after the usb port and card reader. I changed the letters around so that the hd would come up first, but it still says device not supported on the dvd player.

[jagabo]

I changed the letters around so that the hd would come up first, but it still says device not supported on the dvd player.

You mean with the Windows Disk Management utility? That only effects the drive letters in Windows.

If I understand correctly you can press the USB button on the remote to cycle through multiple USB devices hooked up to the 5960. Try sticking flash cards in the drive enclosure -- see if they show up on the 5960.

[photonphase]

Has anyone experience with WMA files digital rights protection on a usb hard-drive connected to the DVP5960? (see post 1633129)

[jagabo]

Has anyone experience with WMA files digital rights protection on a usb hard-drive connected to the DVP5960? (see post 1633129)

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=307310