Philips dvp5960-37 and MP42 codec

[Inv8r_ZIM]

Hopefully someone can help me out. I haven't seen anything about this issue in the forum but...I recently picked up a 5960 to replace an aging JVC DivX machine. I have found that the avis which played pretty much flawlessly on the old JVC come up with a Video Codec not Supported message on the Philips. This surprised me, since the Philips is supposedly able to play just about anything you could throw at it. The files are all older avis, which a random sampling of them in Gspot indicates they seem to have MP42 as the FourCC. Is it possible to simply change the Fourcc to get these running on the Philips without transcoding the whole lot (there are HUNDREDS of files, a couple of hours each, and not the highest quality to begin with)? It seems like it should be reasonably easy, but I'm stumped.

[jagabo]

You can try AVI FourCC Code Changer.

[jman98]

MP4 is NOT a supported container on (apparently) any of the new Philips DVD players that support Divx. The old DVP-642, which I think is still being made, did have some limited support for the MP4 container, but it couldn't play AAC audio at all. If you have AAC audio in these files you will definitely have to replace that as
it's never going to work.

You might take a look at this guide:
http://www.jarnot.com/twiki/bin/view/Public/DVP642LisaBsAVIGuide
but be warned that it is specific to the DVP-642. It may not work at all for you, but at least it's something you can try.

[jagabo]

I don't see any indication of an MP4 container. Since the player indicates it can't handle the codec the implication is that it is in an AVI container. MP4 files don't even show up in the list with the Philips DVP-5960.

MP42 is Microsoft's old implementation of the MPEG 4 part 2 codec, from before they went with their proprietary WMV. I don't know if it is close enough to Divx/Xvid to play in the Philips DVP-5960 after a fourcc change.

[Inv8r_ZIM]

Sorry, I should have been more clear; the files are packaged as AVIs, not MP4. If it's any help, it's a collection of the old DAP MST3K encodes. They show in the menu, but won't play. I tried switching the FourCC to Div3 this morning, but that didn't get me anywhere - there was an attempt to play the video, but it's totally garbled. Someone on AVSForum suggested that it was going to be nearly impossible to find any player which would support the codec, and it was surprising that my old player did. Short of transcoding mediocre video to begin with (and doing that for 10 seasons worth of films-YIKES!), I'm not sure if there's any other solution.

[bobsimoneau]

You could try MP4Cam2AVI. It is suppose to convert MP4AVI's from some camera. Maybe the same format.

[jagabo]

Try changing the fourcc to divx/DX50.

[Ai Haibara]

Try changing the fourcc to divx/DX50.

That might work - using the fourcc 'divx,' anyway. I'm not sure about DX50.

I'm surprised using DIV3 didn't exactly work - DivX 3 was basically a hacked version of Microsoft's MP4(2) codec, if I remember correctly.

[Inv8r_ZIM]

Well, when I used AVIFourCC Code Changer, the highest version of DIV it showed in the drop-down was Div3, so that's what I used. DIV3 was pretty wrong, as DR DIVX couldn't decipher it either, and generated the same garbled video as the Philips displayed. Is that MP4Cam tool a transcoder, or does it do something else? Not sure about it, since it seems to work on MP4 container files, and not AVI? Thanks guys!

[jagabo]

You can manually type fourcc codes into AVIFourCC code Changer.

I created a short MP42 AVI file with VirtualDub and ffdshow. I then changed the fourcc from ffds/MP42 to:

div3/DIV3
divx/DIVX
divx/DX50
ffds/MP42
MP42/MP42
MP43/MP43
xvid/XVID

None of them played properly on my DVP-5960. MP42 gave a "codec not supported" error. It tried to display DIV3 and MP43 but the picture was completely garbled. It played all the others with no picture.

[Soopafresh]

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=AVI_ReComp

[Timoleon]

Here is how I did it with my old mp42 MST3K avis:

1) Run the movie through Any Video Converter
http://www.any-video-converter.com/

2) Then run this through MP4Cam2AVI

That's it!