philips dvdr3370h - divx, exact what kind will it play?

[puzzledman]

Has anyone tried playing divx video files on their philips dvdr3370h (or a smiliar model)? Which specific profile of divx does it support? I'd say it does not support anything divx, because I tried playing some divx and some xvid encoded files and it said "Don't support this format". These divx and xvid files play fine on my computer. And, just to confirm my understanding: I can feed it a data format DVD containing the divx or xvid files, right? I also already read here that packed bit stream type divx files are not supported. So, anything else to pay attention to?

[jman98]

Rather than speak about profiles, it's better to mention that any of the following options could be a problem for Divx playback on any DVD player. A program like GSpot can be useful in determining which of these options apply to your Divx files.

1) Use of GMC (Global Motion Compensation). It's best to avoid it, but 1 warp point MIGHT be supported on some players. 3 warp points is NEVER supported on DVD players. Testing has shown that even devices that claim to support 3 warp points actually only support 1 and most devices won't even support that.
2) Use of QPel (Quarter Pixel).
3) Use of packed bit stream
4) Resolutions greater than 720x576.
5) Video bit rates larger than 2000 Kbps. If your audio is anything other than MP3, you will probably have to reduce the video bit rate, perhaps as low as 1400 or even lower.
6) File sizes above 2 GB won't be supported.

Problem #3 can be fixed by the program MPEG4Modifier, but all the other options require you to re-encode to remove them. Finally, note that we've had reports that the ancient Divx 3 codec is not supported in some DVD players. My 4 year old Philips DVP-642 will play Divx 3 discs, but it uses an old chip for Divx playback that will surely be different for your model. Philips may not support Divx 3 in current models - I don't know.

[jagabo]

Mostly about the Philips DVP 640 but much pertains to many other Divx/DVD players:

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

[jman98]

Thanks for the link, jagabo. I've been looking for that page for a long time, but LisaB's original page is long gone.

[puzzledman]

Thank you folks for such informative replies. I had success of sort playing some divx files with the "packed bit stream" opt turnt off on my said dvdr3370h... But of the 4 files I subjected to the test (all with "packed bit stream" opt turnt off, of course), there was one which played with corrupted scenes (barely viewable, in fact) and one which wouldn't play at all. Thanks to you I now know some more areas to check.

[RabidDog]

IT will support divx "Home theatre" profile. max of 720x576. Will support divx3 4 5 6 (ultra,maybe .divx) reanme your xxxx.divx to xxxx.avi and see if they work?.

[jagabo]

Packed bitstream is usually only a problem when there are two or more consecutive b frames. Gspot shows you the maximum consecutive b frames.