philips 5982 divx playback problem

[wkk]

hello all,

just got the 5982 after a lot of research, because it's supposed to have great divx playability.
but my unit doesn't seem so....maybe i got a dud (AND it was a fresh batch from BB, manufacture date: aug 2007)

here's the problem:

i connected the 5982 via composite video to a Pelican system selector...
(dvd, ps2, vcr, satellite goes to the selector, and the output goes to the tv...my tv only has 2 inputs)

then i played a divx movie on a dvd+r... and it played slightly choppy, not that noticeable at first,
but the actors move like they're robots...very annoying once you do notice it.
played the movie a few times, and i notice the choppiness in the opening credits too, so it's not
just when there is fast movement on the screen.

i happened to have the same movie on another brand of dvd+r...and the same thing when played on the 5982.

so i copied the movie onto a WD Mybook 320 gb, and tried playing the movie through the usb port
but the same thing happens....choppiness throughout the whole movie.

so i disconnected the 5982 from the Pelican, thinking it might be the selector that was causing the problem,
and connected it directly to the tv...but no difference.

i've played a bunch of divx movies on my computer, and they play fine...
and i've tried those same movies on a cheapy Norcent player, and they also play fine.
i also tried a regular DVD movie, and it seems to play alright, but i'm not sure at this point.

btw, the movies that i've tried are 23.97 fps, i think this might have something to do with it.
here's the reason why, i have a dvd+r with 4 movies on it all about 700mb.
movie A=23.97 fps
movie B=25.00 fps
movie C=23.97 fps
movie D=23.97 fps

all 4 movies play smoothly on the Norcent, but when played on the 5982, only movie B seems to play smooth,
while the 3 others play choppy.
is it my particular 5982?....or the 5982 in general having problems with movies that are 23.97 fps?

i'm so frustrated, considering that i was debating whether to keep the LG LDA-831 i bought a 2 days ago,
but since it froze at the same point of a movie when played on the Norcent...i returned it.
(although, when i played through the same section again, the LG did not freeze a second time)
but, i figured i would not take any chances, and get the 5982, and not have to worry about divx playability!

btw, the reason i don't just use the Norcent and forget about the 5982, is because it doesn't play every movie...
and some movies freeze halfway through, otherwise when it does play, it plays them smooth.

well, hope you guys can help...thanks in advance.
sorry for the long post.

[yoda313]

all 4 movies play smoothly on the Norcent, but when played on the 5982, only movie B seems to play smooth,
while the 3 others play choppy.
is it my particular 5982?....or the 5982 in general having problems with movies that are 23.97 fps?

25fps is Pal standard so the player probably handles pal video fairly well and would not have problems with it.

23.97 is not a regular standard for home equipment. You need 29.97 fps for NTSC video.

There may be someway to do 3:2 pulldown in the player but I'm not an expert on that issue by any stretch of the imagination.

Take a sample from one of the videos and see if you can convert it to 29.97fps using something like virtualdub or even converting to mpeg with tmpgenc plus. Then see if that framerate works more smoothly. That would be my suggestion.

EDIT- Yep I just checked you need to do some research on 3:2 pulldown in the forum:

23,976 fps with 3:2 pulldown = 29,97 playback fps (NTSC Film, this is only supported by MPEG2 video)

https://www.videohelp.com/dvd

That should create a playable file. You need to do some reading on it.

[jagabo]

The Philips players handle 23.976 fps Divx files fine. They will automatically perform the 3:2 pulldown required for a standard definition NTSC TV. Most Divx/DVD players are very flexible as far as Divx frame rates are concerned. Your problem lies elsewhere.

My guess is your 23.976 fps files were created by someone different than the 25 fps file and hence different settings were used. I suspect the problematic files use packed bitstream and the other one doesn't. You can check for this with GSpot or MPEG4Modifier.

If packed bitstream is the problem there are two solutions: I believe Philips has updated firmware for the 5982 that fixes the problem (I know they fixed the problem in the 5960). Or you can unpack the files using MPEG4Modifier.

There are other things that can cause problems for some palyers, too large a frame size (over 720x480 or 720x576), too high a bitrate, bad multiplexing of the audio and video, GMC, QPEL, etc. The 5982 simply refuses to play videos with too large a frame size (giving an error message). It can handle very high bitrates from a DVD (but not from the USB port). Bad multiplexing would likely cause problems on your other player as well as the 5982. QPEL and Divx's single warp point GMC shouldn't be a problem for the 5982. It can't handle Xvid's 3 warp point GMC though. If your files have this they will have to be reencoded.

This site

http://www.jarnot.com/twiki/bin/view/Public/DVP642LisaBsAVIGuide

has more details on what can cause problems and how to fix them. It was written about the Philips DVP 642 but many players have the same limitations.

[wkk]

hey guys, thanks for the response,

just a few thoughts:

how do i do the 3:2 pulldown manually?....maybe my 5982 is not doing it automatically.

how do i find out what firmware i have...perhaps i need to upgrade.

if it is because the files are too hi a bit rate or bad multplexing...etc...
(i checked, the frame sizes are smaller that 720x480)
it's disappointing to know that a brand spanking new 5982 has problems,
but a 2+ year old norcent plays them smoothly.

isn't this just the way it goes? do a lot of research, finally decide on one,
and when you bring it home...@#?!
same thing with my motherboard....

[jagabo]

You're 5982 does 3:2 pulldown, or whatever pulldown is necessary (for example 3:2:3:2:2 for 25 fps to 29.97 fps) automatically. You NEVER have to worry about that.

The 5982 can handle over 8000 kbps divx/xvid from DVD, about 3000 kbps from USB.

Your problem is almost certainly packed bitstream. Easily fixed with MPEG4Modifier or a firmware update.

[wkk]

hey jagabo, thanks for the quick response

i just checked, and the firmware is 37.07.32.40....
according to the philips site...that is the upgrade version,
so i'm guessing it's the latest.

also, i checked the choppy movie with gspot....
under video: 773 kb/s QF=0.207 bits/pixel

in fact, all the movies i've tried with choppiness problems
are way under the 8000 kb/s that the 5982 can handle.

i'm hoping maybe i just got a dud, and a simple exchange will
solve my headaches.

[jagabo]

Did GSpot show packed bitstream? You can fix that in a minute with MPEG4Modifier.





By the way, Philips is notorious for fixing packed bitstream in one firware update, then breaking it again in the next. You might have to find a specific firmware version.

[wkk]

hey jagabo,

first off, just want to say thank you for your patience and input.

well, i had initially checked with gspot 221, i saw that you used 2.70
so i tested again using 2.70
here's what i found:

the choppy movie that played on the 5982
was "packed bitstream", 23.97 fps, 769 kbps, QF 0.206, 608x256

so like you mentioned that would explain the choppiness.

but another movie i tried that did play smooth on the 5982
was also "packed bitstream", 25 fps, 936 kbps, QF 0.166, 640x352

btw, both movies played smooth on the norcent
so do all 5982 owners have movies that play choppy when the
file is "packed bitstream" ?...or is it just my unit?
i'd assume that they'd be using the same firmware out of the box.

kind of sucks that i would have to update to an older firmware to fix this
problem, for that matter, that i even have to update the firmware at all
with a brand new unit.

again thanks jagabo for all your help.

[jagabo]

GSpot doesn't report this but there are single b-frame and multiple b-frame packed bitstream. Most players don't have a problem with single b-frame, only multilple b-frame. Once again, try using MPEG4Modifier to unpack the bitstream.

[ZoneRanger]

So, anybody got a link to the 5982 firmware upgrade that will enable it to play packed bitstream Divx without being choppy? My mom's asking my dad for a DVD player for the den and I told him to get one that plays Divx. He said he didn't see one at Costco (although, I think he probably doesn't know where to look) and I know they've got a 5982 at Sam's Club and we're going there tomorrow to pick it up. My dad's a little impatient and wants to buy one right away and I'm afraid it'll probably be the 5982. I was able to talk him into getting a 5960 before, and I upgraded with Fsweds firmware, and now it works perfectly. I really need to be sure that I'll be able to get the 5982 working fine with packed bitstream files, because I just want to drag and drop to a flash drive without any hassle. Thanks in advance!

[FulciLives]

If you have an XviD or DivX file with PACKED BITSTREAMS then just do the following:

Fire up MPEG4Modifier and load the AVI file.

You should see something like this:



See the box that says, "Unpack" ?

Click on it. Now click on the SAVE ... icon and input a new file name.

It will save a copy of the file to a new file and the new file will not have PACKED BITSTREAMS. No loss in quality.

It is very simple and only takes a few moments. Should take less than a minute.

I usually name the new file _unpack so using my example VAULT_OF_HORROR_unpack.avi

Now you are ready to burn to a CD or DVD etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I have a Philips DVP 5140 and this works for me. BTW if you are creating your own XviD or DivX files then use autoGK and select the "hidden" option called, "ENABLE STAND ALONE SUPPORT" and then click on the "MTK/SIGMA" option. Your XviD and DivX files will come out unpacked. To access this "hidden" feature in autoGK you have to use the CTRL-F9 combo.

[wkk]

hey jagabo, i couldn't get MPEG4Modifier to work, but even if it did
work, it would mean extra work and another disc, because my friend
gives me divx movies...and it'd be a hassle to unpack and burn again
to another disc.

i did exchange the 5982 for another unit at BB, hoping that maybe the
unit i got was a dud....but the new unit still plays the same movies choppy...oh well!

so, as much as i'd like to keep the 5982 because of all the great reviews
about it....it doesn't seem that great for me, and i'm going to refund it.

meanwhile, i got the LG lda-830...and it seems to work pretty good....so far. and it plays all the movies (that were choppy on the 5982) smoothly

btw, ZoneRanger here's the link to the newest firmware
http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?scy=CA&slg=ENG&sct=DVD_PLAYERS_SU...=Link_Software

it's the latest one, so if you do get the 5982 i'm guessing it'll already have it.

also, here's a little something on build quality about the 5982 for those
that are interested.

the first unit i got, i noticed the down arrow button on the remote was
a little low, like it was stuck to the board.
so i didn't even hook it up and just exchanged it.
i know it's a little thing, but that's the type of thing i'd expect to see from
a remote that's a few years old...not on a brand new one.

the second unit, (the one that i did hook up and noticed the choppiness)
the tray was a little lower on the left side than the right,
not a big deal, but it'd still make you feel uncomfortable...
especially when it's right out of the box.

the third unit, (the one i presently have), i noticed when i opened the
tray, it slowed midway when it opened (don't remember if the other unit was like this)
however,when i closed it...it was smooth and fast....
but it's not something you like to see from your brand new toy.

i only mention these things, so people don't get disappointed like me.
i did a lot of research on this player, and even after a few exchanges
it isn't the player that i expected...too bad, physically the player looks nice.

[ZoneRanger]

Fulcilives,

Thanks. I know it's as easy as doing that, but I'd prefer not having to do that at all. My 5960(s) had the same problem with playing packed bitstream Divx (you know, choppy robot like movements), and I just flashed Fweds firmware hack on both and now all files played perfectly. I'd like the same for for the 5982 (which, we'll probably be picking up in a couple of hours (after we chow down at Red Robin -- I'm so excited to try out their new "Blackened Bayou Burger!"). If Phillips won't fix it, though, I'll probably have to do as you've shown.

Wkk, thanks for the link, but I think I may have seen mention of the newest firmware not being packed bitstream compatible. I'll find out, though. I saw somebody mentioned that they fixed it in a previous revision, but then screwed it up again. I thought that, maybe, there was a link to an older version of the firmware. Who knows, though, maybe I'll get lucky and it'll work right off the bat. (I'm not holding my breath, though)

[jagabo]

I saw somebody mentioned that they fixed it in a previous revision, but then screwed it up again.

That might have been me. I know that was the case for the 5960. And I know I saw someone post that a newer firmware fixed the packed bitstream problem on the 5982 soon after it hit the shelves. So I was speculating about it being broken in a newer release. But I have no definitive evidence of it. And I don't know for sure if the person who claimed the update fixed the problem knew what they were talking about.

[enigma-eternal]

Just be careful any of you who do the firmware update. I lost patience with it, and didnt know if it had finished or not, so i unplugged it, and now mine is broken. It takes almost a month to get back from philips, so it sucks. Plus I got a USB drive for it, and i have to wait almost a month just to see if it is compatible

[ZoneRanger]

I'm just posting back that the 5982 my dad bought from Sam's club plays packed bitstream files without any problems. I was actually surprised and, of course, extremely pleased! No firmware update needed, and no need to use Mpeg-4 modifier to unpack the bitream of the files, which is good, because I don't have whatever version of Net Framework that is needed installed. I've got 1.1 installed, but I suspect it probably needs 2.0, which I've already uninstalled because it was screwing with other stuff on my machine (probably because it's an old P3 laptop).

[FulciLives]

I'm just posting back that the 5982 my dad bought from Sam's club plays packed bitstream files without any problems. I was actually surprised and, of course, extremely pleased!

For other people it would be nice if you could post more information. For instance the FIRMWARE version. Maybe also the date and whatever info is on the box (like the serial number etc.) so that other people looking for the same thing can find it.

Reminds me of the old Cyberhome DVD recorders and how serial numbers ended in different letters and that was a way to identify what chipset was being used.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

I'm just posting back that the 5982 my dad bought from Sam's club plays packed bitstream files without any problems.

Note that even the "bad" firmware plays back single b-frame packed bitstream. It's only multiple b-frame packed bitstream that's a problem. Recent versions of GSpot will show you if there is more than one b-frame:

[magicjohnson]

i saw this post and i thought it was the source of my playback problems.
sometimes the video freezes for 1-5 sec. but when i ran gspot i saw
the following:

File Length Correct
OpenDML (AVI v2.0)
Interleave 1 vid frame (42ms) preload=504
Audio frames Aligned on interleaves
Video 624 MB (89.26%)
Audio 67.6MB (9.66%)
AVI Overhead 7.54 MB (1.08%)

PB is not highlighted. Any ideas? I am using AutoGK with basically
all the initial settings.

Also for some USB external hard drives (externally powered) I noticed
at times after the freeze, the player would switch to the DVD saying
that the USB was not available? With the MyBook I did not see this
problem, just the freezes and the recoveries

[FulciLives]

i saw this post and i thought it was the source of my playback problems.
sometimes the video freezes for 1-5 sec. but when i ran gspot i saw
the following:

File Length Correct
OpenDML (AVI v2.0)
Interleave 1 vid frame (42ms) preload=504
Audio frames Aligned on interleaves
Video 624 MB (89.26%)
Audio 67.6MB (9.66%)
AVI Overhead 7.54 MB (1.08%)

PB is not highlighted. Any ideas? I am using AutoGK with basically
all the initial settings.

Also for some USB external hard drives (externally powered) I noticed
at times after the freeze, the player would switch to the DVD saying
that the USB was not available? With the MyBook I did not see this
problem, just the freezes and the recoveries

autoGK has a "hidden" menu that allows you to set STAND ALONE COMPATIBILITY and you have two choices with one of the choices being MTK which is short for MediaTek. The Philips model in question here uses the MediaTek (or MTK) chipset. If you pick that option then you should have no trouble playing the result.

Please note that some AVI files will not play back properly unless you burn them onto a DVD disc. This is due to the fact that the "speed" of reading from a DVD disc is faster than a CD disc and faster than the USB port. Sometimes when the video bitrate is high (among other things) the playback will stutter unless you are playing the AVI from a DVD disc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[magicjohnson]

ok, i will try the enable standalone support option. how to enable
this option in previously encoded files using autogk?

[Ai Haibara]

You'd have to enable the MTK option in AutoGK and then re-encode those files (using AutoGK).

[Gareee]

I just noticed there's a new version posted from that link.. 37.7.32.43

Wonder if it'll fix the pack bitstream playback issues?. (no mention of that acknowledgement of the issue.)


EDIT/UPDATE:

I *think* that it now plays packed files fine. I can't say 100% because I've been in the habit of unpacking everything I've been burning, but I'm fairly sure something I test burned a week ago that did not play smoothly before now does so perfectly.

Possibly good news?

[jagabo]

The files that cause problems have packed bitstream and more than one consecutive b-frame (usually 2). GSpot can tell you if a file has these.

[Gareee]

Oh, I've got MPEG4Modifier, and have been using it to remove the packed issues, but last week I was havign some weird divx playback issues NOT on my standalone, but on my PC! Someone was posting some australian tv shows,and even though I DO have the divx codec on 2 systems here, I couldn;t play them at all.

I figured they also wouldn't play on my standalone, and even though I hadn't unpacked them, I just renamed them to avi to see if the phillips could play them, which it did fine. I do remeber the next day unpacking at least two of them for a final burn for the Phillips, and that's what I tested playback with. All 4 episodes played fine, even though I remember two of them needing to be unpacked for the final disc.

[jagabo]

Since you seemed to be unsure whether you had unpacked the files I was suggesting you check if they are currently packed or not and see if they had multiple consecutive b-frames (packed bitframe with single b-frames isn't a problem). MPEG4Modifier can tell you if the have single or multiple b-frames in its Video Info dialog. This will definitively tell us whether the firmware update fixes the multiple consecutive packed b-frame problem.

[Gareee]

Yep, I can confirm at least here, I can now play packed divx avi files nice n smoothly, without any stutter at all!

Before I'd get a choppiness or stutter when there were things like a pan from left to right.

Gotta luv being able to update a piece of hardware in this day n age!

[RedFarmer]

I have a DVP5980 (same as 5982 but named different in europe i think) and am experiencing this exact problem myself (choppy/jerky XViD playback). It doesn't seem to matter if the movies has packed bitstream or not and no difference from USB and disc.

I had v30 firmware and updated to v33 but same prob. Thinking about returning this unit but it hurts as i really like it besides this crazy XViD prob.

[Gareee]

the most recent update was on October 30th, and the latest firmware revision is 37.7.32.43

What version are you running? You say v33, hoever that number does not match up at all with the numbering system of thier updates.

[RabidDog]

v33 is last three digits of the PAL firmware. Just updated mine from xx.xx.xx.30 to xx.xx.xx.33. Changelog indicates its more to do with hdmi and audio issues, I dont use hdmi.