dvp5992 + HD - Is there a way to display files alphabetically on TV?

[yurio12601]

When I am about to play avi files from the external Hard Drive via DVP5992, file names on the TV are not in the alphabetical order?

Is there is a way, perhaps via using some utility, to get them displayed in an alphabetical order on TV?

Interestingly, files are displayed in an alphabetical order when HD is connected to PC.

I would appreciate everybody's input.

Thanks!

[gll99]

Welcome to the site.

Fat32 drives show files by creation date (timestamp).

There is a thread where some posted a couple of sort tools that apparently can re-sort the files but it didn't work for me.

See somewhere on this page:

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic349792-60.html

I tried those on a drive which I haven't yet removed from my computer and not yet placed in an enclosure but the OS (xp) is stopping the program (drivesort) from having exclusive access to the drive. I tried it on a 8gig usb and also an 80gig hdd in an external enclosure via usb and although it looked like it worked when I tried it was still in the old sequence, I also tried the other app (FolderSort) using a bat file (FolderSort DriveLetter) but it does nothing after I select a folder.

Maybe I'm not doing it right but I've had no success.

I do know that you must change the "creation / timestamp" date for each file so that they match the alphabetical sequence for this to work because that is how fat32 reads the files. An NTFS partition would read the files alphabetically but unfortunately we can't use that with this player.

btw) The only other way is for you to transfer them in alphabetical sequence when you put them on the drive in the first place.

I'll be very interested to see what others have to say because I could use this too.

[pcspeak]

I'm guessing that when plugged into a PC the file browser is sorting them, not using strict ASCII sort order, before outputting to the screen.

I think it will be the ASCII sort.
In an ASCII table the order is numeric -> upper case -> lower case.

This is a correct 8 line sort using ASCII.

1 flew over the cuckoo's nest
11 flew over the cuckoo's nest
111 flew over the cuckoo's nest
2 flew over the cuckoo's nest
22 Flew over the cuckoo's nest
ONE flew over the cuckoo's nest
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
one flew over the cuckoo's nest

ASCII info & Chart
http://psacake.com/web/dv.asp

[gll99]

I'm guessing that when plugged into a PC the file browser is sorting them, not using strict ASCII sort order, before outputting to the screen.

I think it will be the ASCII sort.
In an ASCII table the order is numeric -> upper case -> lower case.

This is a correct 8 line sort using ASCII.

1 flew over the cuckoo's nest
11 flew over the cuckoo's nest
111 flew over the cuckoo's nest
2 flew over the cuckoo's nest
22 Flew over the cuckoo's nest
ONE flew over the cuckoo's nest
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
one flew over the cuckoo's nest

ASCII info & Chart
http://psacake.com/web/dv.asp

Although you bring up another good point about file naming, that's not the problem here. It's a fat32 default. Filenames are written in the file allocation table with a creation date/time and the Philips player reads the fat and shows the files in the order they were written to the disc. It makes it more difficult when you want to view files in alphabetical sequence. Windows has no problems because it can sort the files on name and redisplay them in sequence but hardware players like the Philips are more limited in what they can do.

Anyway I retested Drivesort and it still didn't work but I had partial success with FolderSort. I didn't know how long it would take so at first I didn't want to risk a large disc so I tried it on a sub folder and it looked good but I only had a few files in it. I then tried it on a couple of larger folders and then decided to go for the root directory which has the most files (I unchecked "subdirectories") . It sorted the root files in alpha sequence except the first 2 files were not right. When I checked the subdirectories they were not in alpha order???. I guess the next test will be to redo it from the root directory and to tell it to also sort the sub directories instead of doing it backwards like I just did.

btw) I was using an 80gb drive in an enclosure accessed on my pc through a usb port for these tests. If you use this tool (FolderSort) it creates an ini file which contains the id of the last drive that was open. If that is a usb drive and the next time you open the program and the drive isn't there it will fail because the drive is invalid. You may have to edit the ini if this happens. The ini will be in your "Windows directory". I don't know why they didn't just leave it with the exe. Drivesort does the same thing.

[Squash]

DriveSort has worked well for me with USB flash drives connected to my dvp5990. I've never used it on a hard drive, though. You might want to back up your files before you try it. It's at:
http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort.php

I've used it probably a couple of hundred times with good results, except once (see below). Since there aren't any real instructions for its use, here's what I do:
Click Disk->Open
Click on the indented drive identifier (for instance, under "Disk 2", there's an indented line saying "[FAT32] D1.88 GB)".
Click OK.
In the drop-down next to the 3rd icon ("Sort current folder") click on "long name sort" if any of your files have long file names (greater than 8.3) or mixed-case.
Now click that 3rd icon ("sort current folder"). You can see the results of the sort in the window on the right.
If everything looks OK, click the next icon, "Save current folder" and wait until the disc activity is finished before exiting the program.

Shortly after I started using DriveSort I once lost everything on a flash drive after sorting it. I think that the problem was that I didn't wait long enough between "Save current folder" and exiting the program (the flash drive I used didn't have a blinking read/write indicator as most do). I reformatted the drive, copied the files back to it and re-sorted, waited longer before shutting down DriveSort, and everything was OK.

Like I said, I don't know how it would work with a hard drive. A review from bwd77 about half-way down this page:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers/philips-dvp-5990/9370
says that he used DriveSort on a 500GB WD MyBook with no problems.

DriveSort won't open a drive that is in use by another process, so if, for example, you have an Explorer window open on the drive, DriveSort will throw an "access denied" error if you try to open it. Versions prior to 1.222 would forcibly unlock the drive if you so desired, but the author removed that option for safety reasons, in case the drive was being written to. If you can't figure out what is locking the drive you might try Unlocker:
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
(right-click the drive letter in Explorer and choose "Unlocker" from the context menu).

I've also tried FolderSort which worked pretty well until I had some problems with out-of-order files which I figured was related to mixing long and short filenames together and the lack of a long filename option like DriveSort has, so I went back to DriveSort and no problems since.

Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

[gll99]

@yurio12601
The instructions for Drivesort provided by Squash work. I tested them on a small flash drive but I too haven't tried it on a larger hdd yet. Like anything else with computers, sometimes things do go wrong so make sure to back up important files. The likelyhood of any permanent damage is slight. At worse you might have to reformat the drive and reload your data so it's not too dangerous. The benefits are worth it to me and all my video/audio files are also on dvd discs. There's an option to save and restore the mbr. It's available on the disk open menu where you can right click on the selected drive and you will see the option. That might solve most problems this program could cause if it crashed or was forcibly stopped at the wrong time.

@Squash

Thanks a heap. I read the general instructions on the developer's site but they weren't clear to me.
http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort/

I wasn't doing the last step. I set the proper options and then clicked the "sort" icon but didn't realize I also had to click on "save current folder". Somehow the terminology wasn't intuitive to me, it would have been easier to understand if it was labeled "Preview sort (or Preview change)" and then "Apply sort (or Apply change)". Oh well at that price one can't complain too much.

Thanks for the info this will help a lot of other users who own this player or ones like it.

[Squash]

gll99,

You're welcome. I remember when I first started using DriveSort (had a 5960 player then) I just guessed that I was supposed to do that last step, and it worked, so I kept doing it.

I agree about the instructions not being clear. It would also be nice if he put in some indicator that disk activity was completed and it was safe to shut down the program. But, like you, I'm not going to bitch about a good free program over a few quibbles. I'm just glad he wrote it.

[cal_tony]

Drive sort even worked for sorting the audio books on my cell phone.

[HalfAzPVR]

DriveSort has worked well for me with USB flash drives connected to my dvp5990. ..
http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort.php
...
If everything looks OK, click the next icon, "Save current folder"

This works well for my FAT(32) USB Flash drives.

OCZ ATV 16g
Lexar Lightening
Sandisk Cruzer/Titanium
Corsasir Voyager GT




thanks

[jagabo]

Although you bring up another good point about file naming, that's not the problem here. It's a fat32 default. Filenames are written in the file allocation table with a creation date/time and the Philips player reads the fat and shows the files in the order they were written to the disc.

No, the Philips players don't sort the filenames at all. They simply display files in the order they appear in the directory. This can correspond to creation date but it doesn't have to. For example, when you move files from one folder to another Windows maintains the original creation date. Windows Explorer hides the order because it always sorts. But you can see it from a Command Prompt with a simple "dir".

Folder sort programs need exclusive access to a drive in order to rearrange the file names. This is why drives have to be unmounted for them to work.

There is a trick you can use to make files appear in the directory entries in the order you want. It involves moving files from one folder to another. Open the source folder and sort by name (or whatever criteria). Select all the files (Ctrl+A), right click on the top one and select Cut. Open the destination folder, right click and select Paste (or use Ctrl+V). The new directory entries will be created in the order they sorted by. You can now delete the old folder which should be empty.