What file format does USB sticks be formatted to play on the cheap entry

[oduodui]

What file format does USB sticks be formatted to play on the cheap entry level dvd players that also has USB ports? Do they support mpeg4 asp codec and Avi containers and audio codecs? Thank you

[Case]

There is no standard for it. You will have to read the manual and find out for each model.
The age of the set top player is indicative of what was (thought to be) trendy at that time, for additional capabilities thought the USB port.

[oduodui]

Ok will do

[netmask56]

If the files are under 4GB then you could format FAT32. If the files are over 4GB then the stick will need to be formatted NTFS but the docs on the media player should tell you this.

[andkar]

exFAT handles large files.

[netmask56]

Very few if any "entry level" dvd players handle exFat.

[andkar]

Maybe so, I don't know. Do they handle NTFS?

[johnmeyer]

I've distributed quite a bit of HD material on USB stick. The only format that is 98% guaranteed to play on everything is FAT32. This, of course, means that you have to break up your video into 4 GB chunks, but you can get pretty good quality at about 8-10 GB/hour, so you only have to break the video every 25 minutes, or so. I distribute "The Nutcracker" each year. It is almost two hours long. I simply do a file change at the scene changes.

Most players will auto-play files in alphabetic order, and the hesitation at the file changes is usually less than two seconds (depends on the player).

[netmask56]

Maybe so, I don't know. Do they handle NTFS?

How long is a piece of string? Not being flippant but it varies so much. I have a high end DVD player that will only accept FAT32 and another quite cheap but newer Blu ray player that will do NTFS. There simply isn't a blanket answer. The best way to discover, if the docs don't tell you, is to experiment and find out for ones self.

[Cornucopia]

Some people here, including it seems the OP, are confounding FILE FORMAT (aka mp4, avi, mpeg2, etc) with FILESYSTEM format (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, exFAT, etc).

The former is a crap shoot as far as device compatibility goes (though modern devices are beginning to standardize on things like AVC+AAC-in-MP4, though level/profile/tier is still quite varied). The latter has for a long time been just FAT32, though it has recently been expanding to NTFS or exFAT.

Scott

[johnmeyer]

Some people here, including it seems the OP, are confounding FILE FORMAT (aka mp4, avi, mpeg2, etc) with FILESYSTEM format (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, exFAT, etc).

The former is a crap shoot as far as device compatibility goes (though modern devices are beginning to standardize on things like AVC+AAC-in-MP4, though level/profile/tier is still quite varied). The latter has for a long time been just FAT32, though it has recently been expanding to NTFS or exFAT.

Scott

Maybe he was asking both things. I answered FAT32 for how the USB drive is formatted, and I am pretty confident in that answer.

For the encoding format, when I deliver my videos, I encode to MP4 using h.264. When you do this, you also need to pay attention to total bitrate, because some devices will choke on really high bitrates.

But there's more to the story.

The resolution is important. A few years ago I always delivered in 720p, but I am now delivering in 1080i.

1080i??? Yes, interlaced. Why? Because a LOT of devices still choke on 60p. 720p is the safest choice, but 1080i obviously gives you more detail, and pretty much all playback devices now do a decent job of deinterlacing.

As for other formats beside mp4, I have found that just about any other container format can cause problems, including AVI or MOV. As for the actual encoding format, h.264 is as close to a universal delivery encoding format as anything I can think of (other than MPEG-2).

[Cornucopia]

I agree. You weren't really one of the people I was referring to.

Scott