Philips DVP5960 and USB

[EuphoriaProject]

STUPID QUESTION...

Is it possible that you could have some sort of usb harddrive which is simulataneously visible to the 5960 and readable/writable over a network by a pc? I assume that the answer is no, that it's not possible, but since this thread is visited by geniuses, I have to ask.

New member to these forums and just got my 5960/37 in December. Absolutely in love with it, and have been burning DVDR's like mad.

Anyway, I've got a variation of the above question - QUESTION #1:

For those USB drives that have two USB inputs, has anyone tried connecting one input to the 5960 and the other input to their computer or USB hub? Basically I'm asking if it's possible to access a drive remotely from your computer, while STILL having it plugging into the DVD player?

My situation is - my computer's only about 15 feet away from my DVD player. It seems silly for me to have to constantly shuttle the drive back & forth, it'd make much more sense to have it permanently hooked up to both the DVD player and the computer. (I don't need to access the drive SIMULTANEOUSLY - basically copy a couple movies to the drive, then walk over & power up the DVD, and it instantly recognizes the new files on the drive.) Has anyone tried this?



QUESTION #2:

There seems to be a lot of people who have had NO luck getting their USB drives working here. Can someone out there recommend to me one USB drive that ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY works? No skipping problems, no power issues, etc? I'd love to just have the peace of mind knowing that whatever drive I buy will DEFINITELY work properly for me. I'm looking for anything in the 100-250 gig range.


Thanks!

Mitch =O )

[Wyntre]

The SimpleTech single drive enclosures will definitely work. I have on and other have reported as well. Also, I have a second drive enclosure from Staples which in an I/O Magic USB 2,0 Enclosure that I have used with various WD and Maxtor hard drives (all of those 20gb - 120gb in size).

The key to all of this is to make sure you have formatted your disk to FAT32. You will need to get one of the utilities mentioned earlier in this thread in order to do that from a Windows machine, since Windows can't do large FAT32 drives.

Also, what ever drive you get must have it's own power supply as well (not counting little flash drives, but you asked about large hard drives).

As to the skipping, that has nothing to do with the drive, but instead, it is a matter of Philips using a USB 1.1 port instead of USB 2.0. USB 1.1 simply can not transfer the data fast enough to get smooth playback in certain "nosiy" scenes. "Noisy" being scenes with a lot of small particles, like snow, heay rain, static. (I watched an episode of Medium last night and it stuttered on one shot where the entire screeen was TV static.)

Since these types of scenes are usually very short, its not a big deal. However, that same file will play just fine if put on CD/DVD. Since the player uses a standard DVD drive, the throughput is much faster than the USB port.

Finally, I am not positive about this, but it may be that very large drives (bigger than 500GB) are havving issues. I seem to remeber reading that somewhere. But consider that rumor until someone else can confirm.

There is however a limit on the number of files/folders this player can read. This applies mostly for folks using this for audio files, but apparently directory trees can only go three deep (i.e. folder1/folder2/folder3) and once you hit 10,000 files the player can't index any more.



As to the other question, I have been thinking the same. I did work for a client this weekend and she had a LaCie external drive with 2 firewire and one USB connector. Although I did not have time to try it, I was wonering if I connected the Firewire to my laptop and the USB to the Philips if it would work.

Barring that a USB switching HUB like this one http://www.usbgear.com/US-67.html might work.

[jeeep]

Hi for your first question, I can say that I,ve successfully done it. You can purchase a 2 port USB switch at The Source (Can.) or Radio-Shack in the US (see attached image)...for about 30$. You can Google all these words (2-Port USB 2.0 Manual Switch)

There are two Type B connections (one that is plugged to the PC and the other that is plugged to the External HD) and the connection in the middle is a type A (unless it's the other way around...don't remember my setup).

Anyway, on the touch of a button, you can select where the External HD can be seen (DVD or PC). If the DVD is not powered, you can't switch (the light that shows DVD connection won't lit).

The beauty of this is that you can add/delete files from ExtHD without unplugging before playback on DVP5960 !


...the only thing I don't like is the front location of the USB port on the DVD...

US http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2282891&cp=2032061.2032360.20323...entPage=family

Canada http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Product.aspx?language=EN-CA&catalog=Online&category=...57&swlang=true

STUPID QUESTION...

Is it possible that you could have some sort of usb harddrive which is simulataneously visible to the 5960 and readable/writable over a network by a pc? I assume that the answer is no, that it's not possible, but since this thread is visited by geniuses, I have to ask.

New member to these forums and just got my 5960/37 in December. Absolutely in love with it, and have been burning DVDR's like mad.

Anyway, I've got a variation of the above question - QUESTION #1:

For those USB drives that have two USB inputs, has anyone tried connecting one input to the 5960 and the other input to their computer or USB hub? Basically I'm asking if it's possible to access a drive remotely from your computer, while STILL having it plugging into the DVD player?

My situation is - my computer's only about 15 feet away from my DVD player. It seems silly for me to have to constantly shuttle the drive back & forth, it'd make much more sense to have it permanently hooked up to both the DVD player and the computer. (I don't need to access the drive SIMULTANEOUSLY - basically copy a couple movies to the drive, then walk over & power up the DVD, and it instantly recognizes the new files on the drive.) Has anyone tried this?

Mitch =O )

[jagabo]

The 5960 supports folder depths of more than 3. I just tried a USB thumb drive and a DVD with ten nested folders:

\A\B\C\D\E\F\G\H\I\J\file.mp3

and they worked fine.

[Wyntre]

Thanks for the confirmation that folder names can go past 3 deep jagabo!

[jagabo]

Thanks for the confirmation that folder names can go past 3 deep jagabo!

Since others are having some problems there must be some other limiation. Maybe full path length, number of files/folders in folders, or unusual characters in file/folder names.

I tried a thumb drive with several nested folders with long names and aside from munged names had no problems with at least 5 deep. I also tried a single folder with over 100 characters in its name and that wasn't a problem. I tried folder names with unusual characters like ,~`'[]{}=+-$%#@& and those didn't cause problems (some were replaced with underscore by the 5960).

I have firmware version 37.06.42.29.

[EuphoriaProject]

Thanks to everyone for answering my questions... 'tis gratefully appreciated!

ONE LAST QUESTION (IN FOUR PARTS):

So from everything I've read, the various "hacked" firmware upgrades have improved the file length problems on the main DVD/CD browser and allowed for full length (or at least, extended length) filename viewing.

Is it true from what I've read that none of these upgrades touch on the USB file length limitation? IS IT CONCEIVABLE THAT SOMEONE MAY BE ABLE TO RELEASE ANY FIXES TO THIS PROBLEM IN THE NEAR FUTURE? ...or is this one of those "hard coded" issues that Philips themselves would have to address themselves?

Basically what I'm asking is, when I get my USB HD and begin transferring files to it, and make subdirectories, do ALL THE FILES and ALL THE SUBDIRECTORIES have to be 8 characters or less?

Or can I put long filenames on there and it'll just display the old-Windows98 style of showing THEBE~09 (or some other trucated name) instead of "The Best of the Best" (or something similar)?

Thanks for your help... I LOOOOOOOOVE my 5960/37! Having to watch movies & TV shows on my computer was just agonizing on my 13" CRT... being able to burn everything off and watch it all on my bigscreen is truly heaven.

Thanks again, and much respect!

Mitch =O )

[EuphoriaProject]

As to the skipping, that has nothing to do with the drive, but instead, it is a matter of Philips using a USB 1.1 port instead of USB 2.0. USB 1.1 simply can not transfer the data fast enough to get smooth playback in certain "nosiy" scenes. "Noisy" being scenes with a lot of small particles, like snow, heay rain, static. (I watched an episode of Medium last night and it stuttered on one shot where the entire screeen was TV static.)

I seem to recall reading a reference (whether on here or one of the other similar forums) that using smaller capacity *AND* slower-speed hard drives helped considerably with the skipping problems... I know most drives these days are 7200rpm or faster with EIDE interfaces --- might it improve things to simply purchase a much older 5400rpm "original IDE" hard drive that has slower scan & seek times?

I've used a site called Surplus Computers for many years to buy older equipment and it seems some of their drives might be just the trick for this application...

Perhaps even do a little research and find an older comparison test of hard drives and buy the SLOWEST one that was tested? Seems a little ironic but perhaps deliberately buying a slower drive would help compensate for the throughput problems on the USB 1.1 port?

Just theorizing here...

Thanks,

Mitch =O )

[jagabo]

Basically what I'm asking is, when I get my USB HD and begin transferring files to it, and make subdirectories, do [i]ALL THE FILES and ALL THE SUBDIRECTORIES have to be 8 characters or less?

Or can I put long filenames on there and it'll just display the old-Windows98 style of showing THEBE~09 (or some other trucated name) instead of "The Best of the Best" (or something similar)?

You can use long file and folder names. The DVP 5960 will show you the munged 8 character equivalent. It may be difficult to determine which files are which from the munged filenames so you want to name things appropriately.

[Wyntre]

It mungs them really badly. My experience is that any characters used outside 8.3 rules (-,(,),[,], etc.) will make it tragic, wheter it is a short of long name. Spaces also. I first encountered this when adding a ceratin fighting troops shows on my HD for the kids. I was using the 'official' naming convention.

Example:

Wyntre.S06E14.The.Pubillian.Bite-[YWD][8C102B7C].avi
Wyntre.S06E16.Glimpses.Of.NotLightonda-[YWD][27E76790].avi
Wyntre.S06E17.The.Forresters'.Grand.Journey-[YWD][F8919896].avi
Wyntre.S07E01.Pulsar.Challenge.Part.1-[YWD][EE8E5A01].avi
Wyntre.S07E02.Pulsar.Challenge.Part.2-[YWD][FC0A0321].avi
Wyntre.S07E06.The.Flames.Of.A.Certain.Belted.Const ellation-[YWD][03B4223E].avi

Please note the above are fictional used as an example

Using the example above, what the 5960 showed was

Wy~A6F45
Wy~C91C3
Wy~FA31C
Wy~132CA
Wy~A3D24
Wy~2ADC2

Or something to that effect. Not only were the episoides unreadable, they were not even in the original order. In fact, I was unable to find out any order they could possibly have been in.

Since many files you may be trying to dump on your HD will probably need to be renamed anyway so they are readable, I took the suggestion of another poster in another thread. Set up your shows in short folders, with seasons in sub directories. Then number each ep.

The only problem I could possibly see with that is if you were to try to make those files 'available' somehow to others that are 'expecting' to see the original files names. Then you would have to rename all over again accordingly. But you aren't making any of your personally recorded xvid's 'available' to anyone anyway - right?


As to your theory on the HD speed, that is one thought, but most likely it is due to the limitation of the throughput on the USB connector itself. Although I can not speak with certainty on this I would have to agree with the most common concensus - that the bottleneck is there because throughput is only about 6mbps. Also, since Flash drives don't have RPM's, that theory may not work as well (although they could deliver data at a fast rate). However, if someone has a first generation USB 1.1 flash drive, then perhaps that would be a good test against the same file on a USB 2.0 drive.

[slimon007]

I have a 5960, hooked up to a 80GB Maxtor drive, using DYNEX DX-HDEN10 3.5" HARD DRIVE ENCLOSURE bought real cheap off of eBay.

Used SwissKnife to format to Fat32.....it's working like a charm.

I'll just add that it's strange you can't turn this player on by hitting the open/close button. It's annoying having to hit power, wait for the machine to boot then hit open/close to put a disc in.

I have 3 DVP 642's and hitting that button turns them on.

[dazedyouth]

w0ot! I just ordered mine from ebay and expect to get it in this week. Im super excited after reading this forum and also the idea of the external HD being able to plug in. I had an APEX that died and I have about 700 DivX cd-rs burnt (all with professional cases ) and I am really looking forward to not having to do that anymore. Now I am hunting for an external. Thanks guys!

-dazedyouth

[peomp]

Anyone try using a laptop to.....USB to USB....so u can see ur laptop screen on ur DVP5960 to the TV

[EuphoriaProject]

It mungs them really badly. My experience is that any characters used outside 8.3 rules (-,(,),[,], etc.) will make it tragic, wheter it is a short of long name. Spaces also. I first encountered this when adding a ceratin fighting troops shows on my HD for the kids. I was using the 'official' naming convention.

Example:

Wyntre.S06E14.The.Pubillian.Bite-[YWD][8C102B7C].avi
Wyntre.S06E16.Glimpses.Of.NotLightonda-[YWD][27E76790].avi
Wyntre.S06E17.The.Forresters'.Grand.Journey-[YWD][F8919896].avi
Wyntre.S07E01.Pulsar.Challenge.Part.1-[YWD][EE8E5A01].avi
Wyntre.S07E02.Pulsar.Challenge.Part.2-[YWD][FC0A0321].avi
Wyntre.S07E06.The.Flames.Of.A.Certain.Belted.Const ellation-[YWD][03B4223E].avi

Please note the above are fictional used as an example

Using the example above, what the 5960 showed was

Wy~A6F45
Wy~C91C3
Wy~FA31C
Wy~132CA
Wy~A3D24
Wy~2ADC2

Wow, that's pretty horrific. I just got my USB drive a couple days ago (SimpleTech 250gig), still busy moving files around but what I'm planning on doing is:

1) Have a lot of short-named subdirectories to radically sort the movies by different styles, directors, years, etc...

2) I'm going to keep the long names, but put a 3-5 character "abbreviated" description of the film at the beginning... so instead of being THE.DRAGON.FIRE.2006.XviD I'll have it as DRGFR - The Dragon Fire (2006) XviD.DVD ... so when I view it on my computer I still get the benefit of the FULL filename, but hopefully that way I'll still be able to identify it when attached to the 5960.

3) For TV shows and such, I'll create one subdirectory for each season, then instead of the show being named FLASHFIRE.S09E19.(PENALTIES).WS.XviD there'll be a Flashfire directory under TV, and under that will be an S09 directory, and then I'll have 19 - FLASHFIRE.S09E19.(PENALTIES).WS.XviD (episode 1 will be 01) so each episode will be sorted numerically.

But yeah, you said most of that already anyway


Once I'm done, I'll be posting up a full report on this, and how it all works out.

Worst comes to worst I'll just keep the USB drive hooked to my 'puter and use it for supplementary storage. I've already purchased two 100 DVD+R spindles plus a 3 ring binder and 50 insert pages to hold 400 DVD's, so most likely I'll just end up burning them and keeping everything nicely organized that way.

With the new 37 firmware from Wireless that enabled long filenames AND gave me a nifty new skin - available here in case anyone doesn't have it yet - http://board.softpedia.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=4372&view=findpost&p=23893 - I'm just happy as hell and until someone figures out a way to enable LFN w/USB - doesn't seem likely it'll happen ANYTIME soon - most likely I'll just stick with burning DVD's.

Have a good one!

Mitch =O )

[dakoreanboy]

Does the firmware improve the playback for DivX files?

I was trying to watch some TV eps. from my USB drive (iPod) and the playback gets really bad sometimes. like the picture will stagger and the audio will play smoothly. it gets really annoying even though nothing complicated (like snowing or explosions) is happening.

i bought this DVD player just so i don't have to watch TV on my computer. i might return it if it will keep on doing this.

[Wyntre]

No - the firmware updates do not fix that, and they never will. This issue is caused by the fact that the USB port is only 1.1 not 2.0 so the transfer rate is slower.

That same file will play just fine on the Phillips if you put it on disk. I can tell you that after watching hundreds of hours of video via USB hard drive, that this issue happens at most %.05 of the time. It is a minimal trade off for me.

If you can find another player that does everything this one can for less moeny, then go for it. If not, this is the best there is right now.

[dakoreanboy]

Yeah, guess I'll return it. if I had a DVD burner, I might keep it but I don't so meh.

[deim23]

Been using the player for around 6 months. When set it up was sad that my 300gb seagate was not supported (not formatted FAT32) but that was ok, cause I found my 30gb ipod to work just great! No skipping like the other guy reported but ff and rw was terrible.. but still I could live with that. So today I thought I'd "restore" my ipod and update within iTunes (I don't use iTunes really but instead Anapod Explorer).

So, now I go to watch some divx tv programs and to my dismay I get the "device not supported" message. The ipod is still FAT32. I don't know what this new ipod software update did but now it's not supported and I'm sad. I don't know what to do now....


Any ideas??

[jagabo]

Recentupdates from Apple have broken the iPod's compatability with the Philps DVP-5960. This has been mentioned several times in this thread. Read back through the old posts for more info.

[jb66]

I bought the DVP5960 last week at CC. Also bought a Transcend JetFlash 120 4GB. It came formatted to FAT but I changed to FAT32. Using LG LCD HDTV connected to dvd via HDMI. As with many other people, Videos stutter when playing from USB flashdrive. Region Code Change, 138931, worked.

I really like the player! Somewhere within this thread or another thread about the dvp5960(I can't find the message) Someone wrote about a little trick for Dvix files on CD that are out of sync. Something like Press Pause, then BACK ARROW etc.. Can anyone post this method again? I searched and cannot find it.

[jsevinsk]

If you can find another player that does everything this one can for less moeny, then go for it. If not, this is the best there is right now.

Is there another player that does everything the 5960 does for a little more money? I would pay extra if long file names were supported over USB.

[johncv]

I found a neat utility that sorts the folders in a way that is viewable by the dvd player, via USB.

http://www.jetman.dircon.co.uk/software/foldersort.html

I had played with changing the dates and times on the folders to get them sorted by name with no luck. This utility was mentioned on the review page for a dvd player on the site. It works great, at least I can control how the folders are listed now, instead of just when they were copied to the hdd.

Hope this helps.

[reavs]

Just to add to the pool of information here, I just got this player and found that the Fat32 primary partition can be mixed in with NTFS partitions on the same drive, and it doesn't have to be the first partition. I used a 500GB Seagate 7200.10 in a nGear 3.5in enclosure with its own power source, and my Fat32 partition was a 24GB primary partition sandiched between 3 NTFS primary partitions. I also found that the external hard drive didn't have to be turned on before the DVD player.

[bobsolo]

I found a neat utility that sorts the folders in a way that is viewable by the dvd player, via USB.

Nice one! Does it handle file sorting too? The problem I have is that my files don't appear in alphabetical order either.

[Mazer Rackham]

Nice one! Does it handle file sorting too? The problem I have is that my files don't appear in alphabetical order either.

Yes it does.

Is there a DVD player with USB 2.0 port which can play MPEG-2 files from external HDD without stuttering?

[Neuron]

...Is there a DVD player with USB 2.0 port which can play MPEG-2 files from external HDD without stuttering?

JVC TH-C50 (or any other TH-C models such as 60 or 40). But it is not just a player. It's HTIB system

[Mazer Rackham]

Thanks for the hint.

My 5960/12 stretches all 4:3 MPEG-2 files to 16:9 on my 16:9 tube.

Is this a known bug? (Aspect ratios of AVI files are recognized correctly.)

[MJA]

If you can find another player that does everything this one can for less moeny, then go for it. If not, this is the best there is right now.

Is there another player that does everything the 5960 does for a little more money? I would pay extra if long file names were supported over USB.

OPPO.

http://www.amazon.com/Oppo-DV-981HD-Universal-Player-Up-Converting/dp/B000LU8A7E/sr=1-...&s=electronics

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=oppo%20dvd&tag=musicso0b2568-20&index...&creative=9325

[TBoneit]

Strange, My NTSC model shows MPGs properly but the AVIs require me to hit the fill button on my 16:9 Tv to have the proper aspect ratio.

Did you check your players settings? I'm set to 16:9 and progressive and connected via Component to the TV. Which should be as I understand it 480P.

[mphjunkie]

HI there i just purchased a dvp5960 and hooked up a wd500gb external hd via the usb. Im haveing trouble browseing more than 1 folder deep . How do i solve this problem? I have my music organized by artist then inside is folders for each cd. The player will let me see the cd folders but not play the it shows them as empty folders. But if i put the cd folder as the only folder and open it the player will play all the tracks .