Philips DVP5990/37 doesn't recognize *.divx extension

[picrade]

I just bought a Philips DVP5990/37 player.
The player doesn't recognize DivX Ultra files with *.divx extension.
It says "Unknown disc".
The manual says the files must have *.avi extension.
If I change the extension to *.avi then the same files play fine.

This is odd, as this is supposed to be a DivX Ultra certified drive.
All DivX Ultra authoring tools generate files with *.divx extension.
Even my old Philips DVP642 recognizes and plays AVI files with *.divx extension.

Can others confirm that this is the same for their drives, or is my drive faulty?
Can this be fixed with a firmware tweak?

I have quite a few DVDs burned with *.divx files.
Hate to have to do them all over again just to change the file extensions.

[jagabo]

I just bought a Philips DVP5990/37 player.
The player doesn't recognize DivX Ultra files with *.divx extension.

It does display files named .divx but...

It says "Unknown disc".

That means the player hasn't even been able to read the disc format yet. Use ISO or ISO/UDF format. Burn in a single session, don't use multisession. If you used multisession make sure the discs are finalized.

[picrade]

I burned the discs with ImgBurn. The format was ISO and UDF. They are single session and finalized.
The same discs work fine on my computer's DVD player and on the old Philips 642.
They both read the discs and disply the files with *.divx extension.
But Philips 5990 won't even display the file list. It just says Unknown disc.

So can I conclude that my particular 5990 drive is faulty?
But then if I burn the same files with extension *.avi it displays the file list.

What else can I try to make sure if the drive is faulty or the discs?

[citanool]

Could it be the 4 letter file extension vs. 3 ?
Tried: New firmware for 5990/37..Thanks to vb6rocod?

[picrade]

There are two separate issues: whether the drive lists the files with *.divx extension and whether it will play them.
In my case it won't even list the files; just says unknown disc.
Others state that it does display file list.

I sent an email to Philips support. They replied that the drive DOES NOT play files with *.divx extension.
Only extensions mp4, mpg and avi will play.
Didn't say anything about displaying files though.

I guess that settles it coming from the horse's mouth.

I may try that firmware if just for the long file name support.

[John-Paul]

Often Divx certified players will only play .divx files on for example +R and/or +RW and/or -R and/or -RW. Check your user manual in case its simply a matter of which DVD to use for .divx.

Edit: I'd be pretty peeved if it was advertised as Divx Ultra Certified but wouldn't play the .divx extension.

[jagabo]

I may try that firmware if just for the long file name support.

I am using one of the mod firmwares. Maybe that's the difference in the .divx support.

I use DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW (formatted like a DVD+R, not pack writer file systems), and USB thumb drives up to 8 GB. All work.

[RabidDog]

put file on usb drive and try to play it from there..fat32 only..even my 5980 will play .divx files... Altho I think mkv is more future proof.. N.b, I only use dvd+rw for avi, divx files.
Also try the official converter, different media,different burner?

[DarrellS]

How big is the file you are trying to view? I tried a few files and none of them would play when I know I had watched .divx files before on this machine. I changed the extension to avi and they still would not play. All these files were lower than 4GB but they were all over 2GB. I found a file under 2GB and it played fine with either the .avi extension or the .divx extension.


The file size limitation is part of divx which explains why I can't get any programs to mux subtitles to .divx files.

[DarrellS]

Well, I just found a handfull of 4GB plus .divx files on my NTFS formatted MyBook with subtitles. I don't know how I was able to create those but now I can't. DivxMux gets to about 98% and then just stops. Every program I have to mux to divx uses DivXMux so I don't have a clue how to get subtitles into a divx container.

[picrade]

After further testing it seems that this drive (or my particular unit) does not recognize .divx extension
on a disc, but curiously it does recognize it when it is on a USB drive!

I made a disc with a combination of files with .avi and .divx extensions. For good measure I threw in a
few other files with other extensions, .pdf, .xls, etc.
The player only lists files with .avi extension.
So the message "Unknown disc" when all files on the disc have .divx extension makes sense.
It is saying that it can't find any playable file (based on extension) on the disc. It is not saying that
the disc is bad or not finalized, etc.

I put the same files on a USB drive and this time it lists all files with .avi AND .divx extension.
But in this case it also doesn't list files with other extensions, .pdf, .xls, etc.

I tried that mod firmware but it did not help for listing files on a disc with .divx extension.

[jagabo]

I tried that mod firmware but it did not help for listing files on a disc with .divx extension.

Works for me. The one I currently have installed is DVP5990_37_vb6_v32_All_Logo.rar. Inside that archive are several variations. I have the one with the Philips logo installed.

[picrade]

I also used v32_Philips but I downloaded as individual file not as part of the All_Logo archive. Should be the same.

Not that I don't trust you but after so many tries and failures I got to see this.
Can you provide a picture of the screen listing files with .divx extension?

And these are on a disc not a USB drive, right?

[jagabo]

A single layer DVD+R with .divx files:



Another with mixed .divx and .avi:



Windows file listing of second disc:



And yes, the player plays them all.

[picrade]

Great. Thanks.

Now I am jealous!
How to get my stupid unit to do the same thing.

I used DVD-R and DVD+RW.

One thing I noticed: Your file names are short, mine are long. Not overly long, about 20-25 chars.
But the mod firmware should support up to 40 chars file name.

I am going to do one more test with short file names and see if that helps.

[DarrellS]

If you just bought the unit, I'd take it back and exchange it for another one. When I bought mine, I did the firmware update from Philips and the unit stopped playing either divx or wmv. I don't remember which but I took it back to Walmart and exchanged it for another one, did the first modded firmware update and haven't had any problems since.

BTW, I just burned a divx file to DVD+RW and it plays fine.

[picrade]

I would exchange it if I could find another one.
I bought it last week at the local Walmart. It was the last one left, new in sealed box. It was only $57 + tax.
They had one other open box demo unit.

I have looked the last few days and everywhere they are out of stock, Walmart, Best Buy, Frys, etc.
Online they seem to have only used/refurbished units. I usually stay away from those.
Even Philips online store is out of stock.

It might be that this model has been discontinued.
Otherwise why this scarcity?

Anyway, I have 90 days to return it to Walmart for exchange/refund.
If I decide that I cannot live with this minor flaw.
The unit is working perfectly in all other aspects.

P.S. I tried short file names; didn't help. :(

[jagabo]

It might be that this model has been discontinued.

I believe that's the case. Spring refresh...

[picrade]

SUCCESS AT LAST!!!

I found out what the problem was. It has to do with what file system(s) you choose to write the disc.
I use ImgBurn for everything including DVD Videos. The default setting for file system is ISO+UDF.
But looking furhter into the options (which I never needed or bothered to do until now) I saw that the
the ISO level selected was Level1, 11 characters (8+3).
That would cause the extension .divx to be truncated to .div on the ISO side, and therefore it is not an
extension recognized by this drive so the file would not even be listed in the player file browser.

I tried as file system UDF only, ISO Level2 only, and UDF + ISO Level2, and the files with extension .divx
finally showed up.
But using ISO has the drawback that the file names will show in all capital letters. Not very aesthetic.
So I recommend using UDF file system only.

The final clue actually came from the pictures posted by jagabo (thanks again!). I noticed in his pictures
that the file extensions were in small letters. My file names (the ones with .avi extension that were being
displayed) were also a mixed case of small and capital letters. But on the player file browser all my
files were being displayed in all capital letters like the good old DOS.
So that gave me the idea of checking the file systems, and the rest is history...

Still the question remains: of the two file systems present on the disc why does this drive look at the more
restrictive one?
This could be a legitimate flaw in this model. Even the old Philips DVP642 will display the files with .divx
extension when the file system is UDF+ISO Level1. It must be looking at the UDF file system.
I wonder if this can be fixed with a firmware tweak, forcing the drive to look at the UDF file system instead of
ISO if both are present.

Time to give that firmware guy a call. Great firmware by the way.

[DarrellS]

I've always used Nero to create data discs. Never had a problem.

[jagabo]

Most of my discs were burned with Nero Burning ROM 6 using ISO+Joliet -- the default in Nero. Joliet allows lower case and longer filenames.

[picrade]

UDF supports long/mixed case file names. I prefer that to Joilet for DVD writing.
My problem was that the drive was reading the ISO file system instead of the UDF, and therefore truncating the file names/extensions.

What ISO level does Nero use?

[T-Fish]

you could just rename the .divx to .avi.
makes no difference unless you have a divx menu.

[Ai Haibara]

picrade's problem was with .divx files already burned to DVD data discs, though. Those are a little more difficult to rename.