Philips DVP

[Gunstra]

I have a Philips DVP dvd player I bought a couple years ago. I notice that when I have some movies on my pc they play beautiful and are dvd quality but when I put them in the dvp player they play with distortion around the words and people and colors are off, while others will play just fine on the dvp player.

Is there a way I can tell if a movie is going to play right on the dvp player before wasting a dvd? I have been using gspot to test them and if gspot can read them and they seem ok then I will burn them, but then again not all will play properly, any ideas?

Thx

[Squash]

If it's a Philips DVP642, it sounds like a custom quantization matrix was used when the file was encoded. Easiest way to tell is to open the file with mpeg4modifier, then click on the "Video Info" button. If the "Quant type:" line says "Mpeg Custom" on the screwy files but not on the good ones, then that's your problem.

For more info and a workaround, see the "quant type" part of the "Diagnosing your AVI with MPEG4Modifier" section in Lisa B's guide here:

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

Reencoding would probably be your best bet. That's what I used to do when I had a 642. Newer Philips models like the 5960 and 5982 have Mediatek chipsets and handle custom matrices fine. The 642 used an ESS chipset. AutoGK has an ESS compatibility setting and is good for re-encoding. Avi Recomp is also good.

There are a bunch of old posts here about this problem with the 642. If your player is not a 642, then I don't know what the deal is.

[Gunstra]

If it's a Philips DVP642, it sounds like a custom quantization matrix was used when the file was encoded. Easiest way to tell is to open the file with mpeg4modifier, then click on the "Video Info" button. If the "Quant type:" line says "Mpeg Custom" on the screwy files but not on the good ones, then that's your problem.

For more info and a workaround, see the "quant type" part of the "Diagnosing your AVI with MPEG4Modifier" section in Lisa B's guide here:

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

Reencoding would probably be your best bet. That's what I used to do when I had a 642. Newer Philips models like the 5960 and 5982 have Mediatek chipsets and handle custom matrices fine. The 642 used an ESS chipset. AutoGK has an ESS compatibility setting and is good for re-encoding. Avi Recomp is also good.

There are a bunch of old posts here about this problem with the 642. If your player is not a 642, then I don't know what the deal is.

Ok, the better way to explain to it would be, picture watching a movie and when it's starts out the text is bright and had a neon border around it, the people are distorted, at times its like a glass and neon look. Ever seen this with videos? Yes it is a DVP 642, thx I will try the mpeg4modifier. Is there a list of codecs that the dvp642 does/doesn't support somewhere I can read?

[Squash]

Yes, I've seen it many times, back when I used a DVP642 and tried playing back AVIs that had been encoded with custom matrices. There's nothing wrong with the video file; the poor playback is the result of the player's limitations. That's why the files playback OK on your computer.

Here's a good page which compares the 642 to some newer Philips models. It gives a nice rundown on what the 642 will and will not play:

http://home.wi.rr.com/ntngod/dvp642_vs_dvp5140/

A sample quote from that page: "The DVP-5140 also doesn't suffer from the 642's problems with playing files that use custom quantization matrices (the files that had smearing or 'rainbow' colors, although the 'press the SYSTEM MENU key twice' workaround usually allowed you to watch the file)."

For more info, you can find 429 user comments on the DVP642 by searching in the "DVD Players" link on the left side of this page, which will take you to this link:

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers?DVDname=dvp642&Submit=Search&Search=Search&dvdport...y=Name&hits=50