MKV to AVI to play in standalone DVD player

[AzzKickr]

After countless weeks of trial and error I finally give up and turn to the experts. For the life of me I simply am not able to succesfully convert a bluray rip in an *.MKV container to an Xvid/Divx *.AVI container and play it in my MPEG4 capable DVD player.

Have tried dozens of softwares, codecs, scripts, settings, source files, followed numerous guides (including the ones here) but nothing seems to play in my DVD player, except for footage downloaded from the internet. What am I doing wrong ?

I'm not going to speak of my previous ventures as they were a disaster but the current one looked promising: I'm using xvid4psp in my latest efforts to get the job done. My source files are *.mkv's with a 6 channel dts track and an ac1 video track (I hope I'm correct in the terminology). The thing that works is the audio: my resulting avi file with dts sound plays wonderfully through the 5.1 system attached to the DVD player, but I have no video. No matter what I do, I cannot get video on the damn thing, although downloaded xvid/divx avi files play fine.

Followed all steps exactly as described in this guide:

http://www.my-guides.net/en/guides/general-video/194-how-to-convert-mkv-video-files-to-avi

except for the audio encoding. I want 6 channel sound so didn't went for MP3 encoding, but left the setting in xvid4psp to "copy" to keep the dts sound, or change to ac3 to recode the dts track to an ac3 one. Both sound great.

Please, can anyone help me ??

[davexnet]

Open a working file in Mediainfo and put it in view/text mode. Do the same for a non-working file and compare the two.
Presumably you're encoding to Xvid; some encoding options such as GMC and perhaps QPEL
often are not supported by the standalone player. Similarly, the file size may be a problem, my own player will not play the file
at all if it is bigger than 2GB.
Provide some more info (such as the MediaInfo output) if you're unable to figure it out.

[AzzKickr]

OK, will do ! Thx for the tip.

I have an update though on the story: yesterday evening I was finally able to get video and audio on the standalone player, although very choppy and stuttering playback. I used the Xvid 1pass 1500k profile in xvid4psp. So I am getting closer to the result I want.

I'll get back with the results of the suggested MediaInfo tool.

[guns1inger]

If you are using Xvid4PSP 5.x then you should use the AVI Hardware format profile. I would also suggest 2-Pass Ultra for better quality

[jman98]

You should tell us the make and model of your DVD player because someone reading the thread might be familiar with it and would know if there are any quirks that you need to be aware of. I really do not understand why new members continue to believe that there is no reason to provide such information in their post.

This sticky talks about Xvid/Divx encoding options that are problematic on some DVD players that support the formats.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/290800-My-DivX-DVD-Player-can-t-play-my-avi-DivX-xvid-video
Note that DTS audio can be a problem with Xvid/Divx playback because some DVD players only support playback of the entire video+audio file if the total bit rate is under a certain amount, perhaps 2000 Kbps. You may have this problem as it seems that you got better results with your recent (presumably) lower video bit rate attempt. I know you don't want to hear this, but the reality for your DVD player may be that DTS is simply at too high a bit rate for you to get it to work with the video unless you drop the video bit rate even lower or unless you switch to AC3 or MP3 audio.

Finally, to be blunt, using DVD and BluRay players as "plays all my stuff" players is now getting pretty outdated. Streaming media players like the various Western Digital players don't require such extreme steps of using only AC3 or MP3 audio or very low video bit rates just to get an Xvid file to play. They'll support HD Xvid playback too. They are small form factor and don't take up much space. I bought my first generation WD media player something like 3 years ago and it is one of the best expenditures I've ever made. If you had such a player you'd be able to play your MKV files as they are with no conversion at all. Or you'd be able to convert to Xvid and get that to work easily.

[AzzKickr]

Your're right on the DVD player model/make but as there's hundreds, if not thousands of models out there it might get a bit too much to keep track of everything. I have a Tangent D-400 and I see there's a thread on this forum ( https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers/tangent-d-400/4317 ) where someone complains and urges people to stay away of this player, I find exactly the opposite. Never had any problems with it, it's 6 or 7 years old now and still works like now and play everything I throw at it with ease, regardless of copy, original, make or brand of the copie discs. So you see reporting the brand/model player you own does bring it's downsides.

Nevertheless I'm happy to report that indeed either the bitrate or the video resolution is the key factor. Lowering them makes my files playable but at a too lousy quality if you're used to good .MKV's.

And the reason I'm not getting one of those media players is the simple fact that my 5.1 sound system has the proper 5.1 analog connection only and none of the media players on the market provides such an audio out.

[luisppk]

Hi, i also have a LG dvd player with Divx capability. At this moment, i've been converting videos from all kinds to be played correctly in it. I can proudly say that i got almost 300 dvd disks, each one with many movies (2,3,4,5) and some anime too.
I have the experience to talk, so i'm giving you the basics to work.

1. all videos in the internet (DD or torrent) with xvid codec have some basic standard to be played in ANY standalone DVD.
Those are: Audio mp3 or AC3 cbr (no VBR). Video 704x400 - 640x480 - 720x480 - 640x400 (some dvd can show higher)
Codec Xvid (some Divx cause trouble), and files under 2gb. Thats all.
2. If you dont know how to use virtualdub or virtualdubmod, you can use 'Format Factory'. Is free and very easy to work.
I recommend 2pass on every video and not less than 1200kbps. With that, you can work pretty fine. Only have to put a good size to subtitles (in case the mkv got any) because the standard en FF is a little to big.
3. If you really want a good semi professional work, use an avisynth script to work thw MKV with virtualdubmod. Once you do that, Vdmod accept the video as an avi. You can do whatever you want with it. REsize, letterbox, modify colors, subtitles, many audios, etc.
This last one is what i use. The only 'trick': You have to use Windows XP and install the codecs inside the 'plugins' directory of VDmod. It must be a VFW coder/decoder.
If you try with Vista or Windows 7... results can be unpredictable.

If you wanna look some of my work, i put here a screenshot of an anime I convert to avi. Is 'Bleach: Fade to black'. 310mb Xvid mp3.



Also, if you wanna more proof, here is the link to download (310mb): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QL6WOU6R

You can do something like this, using correctly the virtualdubmod program with the avisynth script. There are some manuals about it on the net.

Good luck.

L.
PD. By the way... the movie has spanish subs because i'm in Latin America and was made for the children in here.

[AzzKickr]

Thx your all your help everyone. The conclusion is that the resolution was the key factor for my Tangent D-400 dvd player. As this is also for me the most important aspect, I have decided to let go of my attempts and am going to buy my a bluray drive with 5.1 analog outs, one which can also swallow .mkv's and Divx HD's, preferably even with an USB port.

There is simply no substitution for high resolution !

[MilesAhead]

Something that can play what you have may be the simplest solution. I went with WD HDTV for USB. I have Philips 5990 up-converting DVD players but they won't play .avi at higher than 720x576 resolution.

For MKV to AVI that I could play on the DVD player I found
Quick AVI Creator works well in one pass if you give it some bit rate. You do have to resize down by editing the AviSynth script. But you can load the .MKV into FitCD to do the calculations and just paste the resize part of the script it generates into the one displayed by Quick.

When sizing down from a high bitrate video I found one pass to be fine. You can add a one pass mode to the xvid by adding these lines to xvid.presets file:


[One Pass Mode]
xvid_encraw.exe -i "$video_input" -bitrate $video_bitrate -avi "$video_output"


Quick works better on a Quad because on a Dual Core it uses one thread just to read the input, leaving only one core to do the video conversion. Not the fastest, but it gives good results using xvid_encraw.exe. Not a lot of settings to fiddle with. It just comes out nice.