Watching Xvid avi on the D2.

[goldfingerz]

I've been reading and searching these threads, and it's still not clear to me if I need to convert my Xvid avi files to work on a D2.

I'm running a mythtv setup, where I automatically convert with mencoder my MPEG2 recordings to Xvid in an AVI container. Around 900kbps bitrate with a resolution of 640x480 is being used and the audio is 128kbps, mp3.

I'm able to watch these avis on my Archos 605 and I'm trying to figure out if the Cowon D2 would also support that.

Thank you.

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

No, the D2 only supports 320x240 AVI.

[goldfingerz]

So what happens when you try to play an avi higher than 320x240?
Error message, weird images, slow video?

[dfkt]

It simply skips them.

[goldfingerz]

Thanks guys.

[billrhea]

Will play xviid no problem just do them in 320x240 and anything over 200 kbs is a waste

[goldfingerz]

I'll keep that in mind.

[dfkt]

200kbps gives quite bad video quality, in my opinion. I'd use 300 as the minimum (cartoons and other easy to encode material), but usually do artifact-free 500kbps encodes.

[billrhea]

Maybe its just me but on a screen that small 500kbs is over kill. I would sacrifice a little quality at 200kbs for a much smaller files size. If I were you I would play with them and see what fits your needs.

[Plan303e]

After whoring my PSP to death for videos, I'll honestly say the D2 isn't meant for videos. Since you're encoding with xvid, divx, or wmv, it's just not going to look as good as h.264 at the same bitrates.

Even at 512, they're pretty ugly. Even though the PSP supports the same frame rate, if I'm not mistaken, the D2's looks a bit sluggish.

And watching 16:9 videos on it? Yuck.

[samueljesusfreak]

Honestly encoding to simple Mpeg for the Rockbox plugin is simpler and smoother than spending so long perfecting a video conversion for the D2. I've NEVER had a video on the D2 that didn't suffer from A/V lag, so I just moved to Rockbox for my video fix.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by samueljesusfreak

I've NEVER had a video on the D2 that didn't suffer from A/V lag

And I never had a video that DID suffer from A/V lag, no matter if I use D2video, Jetaudio, or SUPER/ffmpeg... seems you're really doing something wrong, or your D2 firmware install has some of the common issues.

[samueljesusfreak]

That's no fair! I've had about 3 different firmwares, used D2video, super, Jet audio, Avidemux, and a couple other programs I can't even remember to name! =[ hmm. What firmware does your D2 run?

[dfkt]

If you have the time and it doesn't annoy you, try this:

• Reset your current firmware to defaults and clear memory (both in the system settings), no matter what FW you run. Make sure to back up your files first.
• Format the internal memory with the Panasonic formatter, fast mode. (Same goes for any SD card you have - again, back up your files first.)
• Install 2.57 or 3.57, whatever you prefer.
• Reset your new firmware to defaults and clear memory - again.
• Reload your files.

There's maybe some redundant and superfluous steps in there - but better safe than sorry. This procedure revived every flaky D2 I ever laid my hands on.

[billrhea]

Originally Posted by Plan303e

After whoring my PSP to death for videos, I'll honestly say the D2 isn't meant for videos. Since you're encoding with xvid, divx, or wmv, it's just not going to look as good as h.264 at the same bitrates.

Even at 512, they're pretty ugly. Even though the PSP supports the same frame rate, if I'm not mistaken, the D2's looks a bit sluggish.

And watching 16:9 videos on it? Yuck.

Man are you nuts? I will put my D2 next to any h.264 player. A lot of my friends have ipods and with a side by side shot of the same video the D2 looks awesome.

[SynergyZ000]

i actually haven't gotten video to work on my D2 yet. I've been using http://www.mediaconverter.org to convert files, but I'm not sure which video codec to use. I thought the D2 was supposed to play WMV files, but it hasn't read any conversions that I've tried (from flv on youtube), including wmv, mpg, and mp4.

I did set the audio codec to mp3 and I got sound but no video. What am I missing? I always set it to a res for 320 x 240...

[Plan303e]

Originally Posted by billrhea

Man are you nuts? I will put my D2 next to any h.264 player. A lot of my friends have ipods and with a side by side shot of the same video the D2 looks awesome.

No, I think you are. You're comparing an iPod to a D2, saying the former's comparable to a PSP's screen. Get out of here if you're going to be rude like that, you obviously haven't seen the quality that comes out of a PSP screen when you only brought up iPods. You don't even understand the basic superiority of h.264 over these older formats.

The PSP's screen is 16:9, larger, and has a higher resolution. And inherently, h.264 is superior to the archaic and overused xvid and dvix encodes. UMDs are made for DVD-quality, which is why a lot of the content is taken out for their tiny 1.8GB disc. With homebrew, it's easy to have videos that are DVD-quality, assuming the source isn't garbage (read: h.264 great, xvid & dvix garbage). Take the same source (DVD or 1080i TV), and use two encodes: h.264 and xvid. The h.624 file will look superior, because of the way it encodes. If I'm not mistaken, h.264 supports lossless, which is a hell of a lot more important to video than audio.

Aside from looking like a portable PS2, video is the one multimedia function the PSP does great, and it stomps most of the competition except for dedicated media players, which are usually devices released after it. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure why h.264 hasn't completely overtaken everything already, seeing how every computer can now run it just fine. At least when I look for shows to archive, it's a lot more prominent due to the advent of HD programming.

[Plan303e]

Originally Posted by SynergyZ000

i actually haven't gotten video to work on my D2 yet. I've been using http://www.mediaconverter.org to convert files, but I'm not sure which video codec to use. I thought the D2 was supposed to play WMV files, but it hasn't read any conversions that I've tried (from flv on youtube), including wmv, mpg, and mp4.

I did set the audio codec to mp3 and I got sound but no video. What am I missing? I always set it to a res for 320 x 240...

Have you downloaded the appropriate codec packs? Like K-Lite Codec Pack?

Make sure you get something that does playback AND encoding, like the Pack I mentioned.