DivxPlus - Play Divx and Mov on the Hollywood Plus card

[Baldrick]

I've been trying out this program a little now, and it is kinda buggy. Some files do not work at all, and some stutters quite alot.

Please share your comments about this program.

BTW. Grab this program here: http://www.vcdhelp.com/tools.htm#players

[fizban]

It is quite interesting... I hope this initiative succeeds and the program gets better and better... Not much information about it in the readme file, anyway...

I have a Creative Dxr3 card (which I have read it is in fact a disguised h+...). I am using the h+ drivers and it works!

The videos I tested were 320x240 and they were shown quite small and centered on the screen of my TV. Some of them were even displayed upside down!

The smoothness was similar to the one I get with GdivX, which makes me believe that the programm uses the h+ card just as an output and all the calculations are performed by the computer's CPU. Probably, the better computer you have, the smoother picture you get. My computer is not high-end: a Winchip2 200MHz with 72MB. A divx movie seems to be too much for my old buddy...

[kitty]

It does work with the Creative Dxr-3 too! I tried it and it played a DivX from archive.org and a simple .mov

It only outputs on the video out, not in VGA overlay so I had to get a composite monitor. The sizing/invert works fine. Frame rate on a P3/733/133MHz bus/256MB machine was fine, no noticable jitter.

Problems noted: Opening a complex .mov generated faults like this:
Windows 98 Version 4.10.2222
DIVXPLUS caused an invalid page fault in
module DIVXPLUS.EXE at 017f:00401b46.

Examples are Phantom Menance Quicktime 480 and Star Trek Insurrection (which I thought was tame).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kitty on 2001-08-02 17:03:04 ]</font>

[thesealord]

I don't have a Hollywood Plus yet, but it was for something like this that I've been waiting to buy one!
I hope it gets better and better.

Regards,
thesealord

[fizban]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-29 11:08:48, kitty wrote:
I have been told before, vaguely, that the Creative DVR-3 shares heritage with the Hollywood +. Is this documented somewhere (nonofficial or otherwise)? I'd like to dump the Creative drivers and install the hollywood drivers if it would add functionality. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I found the trick on http://www.digitalleisure.com/dxr3.html
After what is explained there you can even install the lastest drivers. The basic idea is to install first the older drivers and then keep updating them.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE> Why did I invest in the hardware MPEG when the creative software is so lame? </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, in my case (I live in Spain), it was difficult to find the h+. The dxr3 was everywhere. And both had a similar price, anyway.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE> On second thought does my documentation lie? Micron said it was the DXR-3 with a NEC DV-5500A DVD and the CT7230 PCI decoder card. I have never seen video in, only RCA/SVHS out. But now that I look at the card the VGA is fed in from the VGA card to a SVideo type input and VGA output. If I change the cables around I may get SVideo in & out? Rambling as I read the input appears only to be a VGA in and won't support capture. reading on www.sigma-designs.com (changed from sigmadesigns.com I found)</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I quite do not follow you. As far as I understand, the card uses something called "overlay". I guess that the idea is that the VGA card sends the image of your screen to the dxr3 card (or h+) and it detects an area that has a specific colour and puts the decompressed image in there. According to this, there does not seem to be a possibility to capture anything...

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>But the way I read things the Hollywood software will allow more MPEG playback functions than the creative software...</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
I'm able to watch movies that I could not with the Creative drivers. Besides, Eugene's DVD player is getting better everyday. I encourage its use instead of the default h+ player. The latest version seems to be even region free!

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Gee I sound more like a newbie and less like a pro all the time.

Da Kitty

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kitty on 2001-07-29 11:49:25 ]</font>
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[legman]

I hate to disappoint any of you, but would you please keep the technical discussions on this card to a minimum here. The application was posted on the sigma-designs newsgroup. news://news.sigmadesigns.com/ This message was attached:

To all Hollywood Plus lovers,

Divx can now be played on TV thanks to the attached application and the
perseverance of its creator.

Comments and bugs should be reported ONLY in the newsgroup; thanks for your
understanding.

Enjoy it!!


jedimaster210.


Please subscribe to this news group if you wish to discuss issues that can make the program better. The author cannot travel to all these different boards to get feed back. He also has his email posted on one of the headers there.

Thank you for your professional understanding in this matter. We don't want him to get pissed of and not finish working out the bugs...and he does deserve the added respect for sharing this with all of us.

On a side note concerning the card itself, the vga input is just a pass through.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: legman on 2001-07-29 19:55:13 ]</font>

I own an DXR3 with the H+ but give me an kernel error.

I'll try to tweak it more.

But the future possibility to play the AVIs and MOVs through the AV output is amazing !!!!

keep the good code !!

jorgito

[Necrolyt]

The program works fine but i think there is some quality loss in the video.When i play NTSC titles the picture is not stable as playing original pal titles.Normally when u play DVD in NTSC format converted to PAL u get a clear picture in h+ ,anyway with some development the tool will rock!

[Zabytek]

I now tried with 4 divx movies and i get no video out
to the TV from my H+ card with this program. Audio only.
Had the divx 4 codec installed. Tried with the 3.11a codec
but without results. Black screen.
Am I missing something?

[rakuraku]

Seems to work perfectly fine for me!

No crashes, no stutters, Tried it on half a dozen files so far!

No video problems whatsoever, the only thing Is I have to use the audio-out on my speakers or audio card.

[L_R]

I try to use this software on my H+(ex.DXR3) and it dos'nt work properly. I have installed DiVx 3.11 & H+ v.1.81. I never see AVI movie on TV screen (black). Sound i hear only on computer speekers, but I have AVI files with Dolby Digital soundtrake. Use SP-DIF to out digital data is also is unavialable for my. (

[Baldrick]

rakuraku: What's your CPU?...stutters some on my p3@750.

[danmanx]

I had no trouble running the actual program DivxPlus on my old K6-2 400/48MB system...playback-wise however it seemed to stutter through everything. The videos that seemed to play ok were all very low res. I'm thinking my computer is simply too slow for it. Garbage appears when I first start videos, don't know if anyone else sees that too.

On my friend's 850MHZ Athlon/128MB system the open file popup box would not come up for anything! (Yes, he's got a H+ Decoder) So I was unable to load AVIs or MOVs. Very weird.

I just hope that the author continues his work on this incredible project. I am fascinated!

[wardancer]

WOW!!! this one shows that it IS possible! just some improvements to do.. kewl.. proper FullScreen-Support.. hopefully a nice PAL/NTSC convertion... or a PAL 60 mode .. so is there anything anyone could contribute, or is there a site, where new releases are posted???

[JCPicache]

since a P3 750 stutters, i'm assuming that the H+ card is only used for TV output and no actual hardware decoding is being done (which makes sense because the hardware is for MPEG decoding). it would be nice though if we can take advantage of the hardware decoding that's available on the H+.

anyhow, good work! i have yet to try it but will do so soon!

Cheers!

[dcguy]

Hey, I got a Hollywood Decoder Card, and I run DVD8300 on my PC. Do I just have to run the setup file in the divxplus rar or do i need to do something else? Also a problem I have with DVD8300 in Win2000 that I never experienced in Win98 is that when I close the program off, my computer reboots!?!?! What should I do? Thanks

[El_Mero_Zooter]

workz on my celeron 333A, with the pcdvdrom 12x, and the creative dxr3. slow and choppy but it workz.
dc,
run setup, look for a shortcut on your desktop, click it, open your avi file, hit play, and turn your tv on. Dont know if you can use the creative software to play; dont think so anyway.

ztr

[dcguy]

I opened an avi file, pressed play and i got an error message- 'The instruction at "0x00401b46" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read". Click on OK to terminate the program'

What is wrong? I am running Windows 2000

Thanks

[Baldrick]

dcguy: be sure that you have the divx 3.11a codec installed( http://www.vcdhelp.com/vcdtools.htm#codecs )....I had the new v4 beta and i got the same error msg as you.

[tahngarth]

for you guys who didn't get any video, are you using the svideo to rca adaptor, or using a real svideo cable? I'm using a real svideo cable, and also don't get video....

[rakuraku]

ehehe, I have a p3 750.
Here are some vids Ive tried so far.

Some normal movies like Crying freeman, Leon: the professional, office space, & the mummy, all have played perfectly fine.

Some racing vids from f1 mpeg archive and those ran normal.

Tried some anime and most of them worked normal, although more than a few were encoded badly so those had the jerkiness in them no matter what...although viewing them on the big tv made the jerkiness is ALLOT more noticable.

All the encodes I have done for myself work normal as well.

I don't have many .mov files, but the ones I do have crashed the player.

Im using the svideo->rca adapter & everything I have is for NTSC.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rakuraku on 2001-08-01 19:56:26 ]</font>

[Maguzz]

This is what I have been waiting for BUT I´ve got a problem... Plz, check this thread:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=53013&forum=3&0

Thnx, Maguzz



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Maguzz on 2001-08-02 02:19:01 ]</font>

[Maguzz]

Sorry for spam

Maguzz

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Maguzz on 2001-08-02 02:17:26 ]</font>

[foolio81]

Hello everyone,

I'm using W98SE and a DXR3 from creative and it works perfectly fine with the player for the dxr3!! no need for me to install the h+ drivers and/or player, only the quality could be better

Johan

[vladik_17]

Hi guys!
Look, I've got amd thunderbird 1100mhz, 256mb, h+, sb-live! 5.1, and I can't use this program! What's wrong, when I start it, all I see is 2 buttons - "play"&"pause", when I click on one of them, I receive this "funny" message:
"DIVXPLUS caused an invalid page fault in
module DIVXPLUS.EXE at 015f:00401b46."
Can anyone help me?
Thanks

Digitally Yours,
Vladik

[kitty]

@ Baldrick

See my edited post above. It does work with a Dxr3/P3-733

Features it needs:
1) Open complex Quicktime files or give a "can't handle" message instead of page faults
2) A "Open new file" feature to select a new movie without terminating & restarting the program

Wish: Option to play in overlay mode on the display adapter like the Creative DVD player

Keep up the good work!

Da Kitty

[GoldChain]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-01 07:31:41, El_Mero_Zooter wrote:
workz on my celeron 333A, with the pcdvdrom 12x, and the creative dxr3. slow and choppy but it workz.
dc,
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm by no means trying to start a flame war, but I'm not too impressed with this..... basically this software uses the analog video output on the HW+. That's it... big deal. It's not like it uses the HW+ MPEG hardware to assist in the decoding, as evidenced by this person's post. "slow and choppy but it workz"... if this DIVX or MOV playback was in anyway assisted by the hardware (which is impossible because all the software patches in the world isn't going to all of a sudden change the circuitry of the MPEG chips to make them do DIVX/MOV) there would be NO slow, jerky, sloppy playback.

GoldChain

[legman]

Being as the author is not responding on the sigma newgroups, It hought I would add a few words.

This seems to only work with a revision "B" chip. It's marked. Read it and confirm please.

It is not as efficent in wondows 2000.

I have the H+ in a dual boot 450p2 with 384 ram and a viper 770 vid card. It plays perfectly to the tv in 98, but a bit choppy in 2K. The author says use a 500 or better.

GoldChain,
In answer to your comments, yes, it does not have hardware decoding support, but it is extreamly convienent to use. Before I was unpluging my video out and svga cable to use my scan converter (aitech multipro 1000)for divx and the h+ for mpeg. Now, I don't touch a thing, but turn on the radio shach 2.4 ghz wireless a/v and send the movie to any tv in my house. Perfect quality and ease of use. This application was an answer i really needed.

H+ has new chip, in stock, that will decode mpeg4. They are made for decoder cards, streaming video and stand alone players. Divx4 beta 3, which is suppose to be full MPEG4 compliant, has out done SBC in the quality and ease of use department. The boards for the new chips will be in shortly and the new cards will start shipping in a few months. Yes, with full ISO MPEG4 support. It's a new age. This is just a hold over till the new codec is done and the chips hit the shelves.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: legman on 2001-08-02 19:52:29 ]</font>

[L_R]

The way to see AVI on the TV who early see only black scren:
1. Start DivxPlus player and select AVI file.
2. Push the PLAY button. You have nothing on the TV(black or some haotic line).
3. Push the PAUSE button.
4. Start second copy of DivxPlus player(do not close first copy player!) and select AVI.
5. Push the PLAY button. Viola, you have picture on the TV.
For my TV all AVI(DiVx) films divade(horizontal) on 2 not equal part. Right 1/3 part of films situated on left part of screen and 2/3 remaining part offset to right.

[dcguy]

Nope, still doesnt work, I have installed 3.11 codec and beta 4 codec and it still doesnt work, I only have to run the setup file in each right, it installs the codec itself? I'm still getting the error, wondering if I've installed the codec properly?