xvid divx & dlna

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › xvid divx & dlna

jiranz

24 posts

Geek

#127391 8-Aug-2013 16:19

... coming from the freeview forum to ask a question here.

I have a full hdmi large screen connected to my ultraplus x-9200hd pvr satellite receiver which also plays all the media files i have in my collection.
It seems OK at what it does now since a warranty repair and firmware upgrade to 2.11.57.

However, i have a lot of AVI files which properties say were encoded with xvid codec. The machine does not play them well and sound can separate from video by 10-30 seconds in an hour. On my PC using Media Player Classic the same files play perfectly. I have come to believe the difference is the machine is linux and the codec is the free version of xvid whereas the pc being Windows OS has the ms commercial divx codec. There may be another explanation but nobody knows what it could be. I even converted on avi to mp4 and then it played perfectly on the machine. That's why i suspect it is the codec. i have too many to want to convert them all. It is current technology and they should be playable as is.

Then someone suggested I should install a DLNA server in my pc so that could play the files whilst using the machine as the client. The expectation I got from this idea was that it would play on the big screen perfectly. So I googled what DLNA was and then found Serviio and it works except all it seems to be is a way to navigate folders on my home network to catalogue media files. But they still play using the same linux codec in the machine with the same unwanted results. Being my first day with this home theatre technology I wondered if I have failed to grasp what DLNA is, and what a DLNA server can do for me.

Does anyone know if it will do what i want?
1) I want to use the satellite receiver as my media centre
2) I want to play avi files using a pc codec in place of the linux one which is not working properly.

Is there any work around solution to this problem or do i just look for a different (non Linux based) freeview receiver that plays bedrock media files better?
In fact, is there such a thing or is this model something really special and ahead of its time?

Any ideas?

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#873988 8-Aug-2013 16:26

for whats its worth doesnt matter what you use, you wont get what you want with a satellite or terrestrial receiver. You either convert all to format that the unit will play or buy something like Western Digital TV live or AC Ryan Playon etc.

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xpd

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#874008 8-Aug-2013 16:51

Try running PS3MediaServer on your PC to act as a media server and see if your PVR can see it and play back - PS3MS has a lot of configuration options to tweak playback with.

I use it mainly for my PS3 but had other devices use it quite happily and never had any playback issues.

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grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#874010 8-Aug-2013 16:54

If you plan to use Serviio you may want to create a custom profile for your device. To do this, details of the supported formats would be needed. There is help for doing this at the Serviio forum.

cgreenwood

201 posts

Master Geek

#874037 8-Aug-2013 17:56

No mater what is the exact root cause of your problem at the end of the day the fact is that your sattelite reciever won't play the files you have in the format they are encoded in, either they are not properly encoded or the sattelite reciever doesnt handle that format well. Whatever may be the case the options are:
1. Re-encode the files, you've already stated you dont want to do that.
2. Change the media playback device, as Gilco2 mentioned western digital TV live does a great job at handling just about any format or codec you can throw at it.
3. Transcode, that is to say re-encode on the fly, that is where serviio and PS3 media server come in they can both be configured to transcode to a format more freindly to your playback device, in your case your sattelite reciever. PS3 media server is much easier to configure in this respect but serviio does just as good a job if you can get the configuration right, grolschie linked to a how to on this above. Transcoding will probably work but is a work around solution, can be processor intensive, and will take a lot of testing, playing around and tweaking to get just right for your circumstances.

farcus

1554 posts

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#874098 8-Aug-2013 18:52

However, i have a lot of AVI files which properties say were encoded with xvid codec. The machine does not play them well and sound can separate from video by 10-30 seconds in an hour. On my PC using Media Player Classic the same files play perfectly. I have come to believe the difference is the machine is linux and the codec is the free version of xvid whereas the pc being Windows OS has the ms commercial divx codec. There may be another explanation but nobody knows what it could be. I even converted on avi to mp4 and then it played perfectly on the machine. That's why i suspect it is the codec. i have too many to want to convert them all. It is current technology and they should be playable as is.

In most instances xvid is better than divx. Try removing divx from your computer and installing xvid - I bet the files still play perfectly.
Linux based would be using either xvid or ffmpeg - both are very mature and would have no problems with playback of xvid/divx files.
The problem would be - as others have suggested - poorly encoded files or the box you are using for playback is just not up to the job.
I'd be pretty surprised if your box plays h264 (avc) files without problem but struggles on xvid. Usually it is the other way round.

jiranz

24 posts

Geek

#874309 9-Aug-2013 00:43

It plays everything else OK except for AVI files which play OK everywhere else.
It works as a DLNA digital media server in its own right but i don't think that helps with this problem.

From what you say, maybe it's not the codec so it may be a fault with the box.
But then it plays 1080P files with no problems. So i don't know.
I would like to know if it's possible to install an alternative codec to see if that solves the problem but I haven't got that far yet.

Thanks to everyone for thinking about it for me.

farcus

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#874312 9-Aug-2013 01:29

you have a small sample file (that exhibits the prob) we could take a look at?
Just upload it to a file sharing website.

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minimoke

750 posts

Ultimate Geek

#874537 9-Aug-2013 12:52

I've been using Serviio to run pretty sucessfully to my Tv via DLNA. Not quite so sucessfully to the blu ray player though.

But I've just returned to Plex which I just couldn't get working last time I tried - but the latest version now streams to the TV no problems at all. Even better is the android App so I can pick up my .avi and music files on my phone. What I do liek about the app is that Plex keeps an offline library catalogue of my files complete with title, rating and description complete with little pictures!

robjg63

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#874542 9-Aug-2013 13:06

If you remove the divx codec from your PC and just use the xvid one, and that works ok then you have proved that xvid is not the problem.
Xvid was always meant to be 100% compatible with divx anyway.
If the above works ok then it would seem like the TV is not decoding properly - you probably cant fix that.

What make/model number TV is it?

Personally I would go with a WDTV box - I have a Playon HD box connected to my TV and stream all sorts of files to my TV (mp4/mkv/avi containers with all sorts of content within) and they play fine. Also seems to upscale pretty nicely as well. The WDTV units seem to have the price/performance advantage these days though.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

robjg63

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#874552 9-Aug-2013 13:34

Just re-read your original post.
I didnt see that playing the files back via the satellite receiver makes them go out of sync and also when streaming via DLNA - The satellite box is being the DLNA client?

I assume the TV doesnt have DLNA built in to it or you would be trying to stream directly to the TV?

Unless its set up to do so serviio wont change the file - it will just serve it up to the device - so that probably explains why it didnt help things - and it looks like you have worked that out.

It certainly sounds like the xvid decoder is not working quite right on the satellite receiver.

As suggested above maybe try uploading a small sample xvid file that you are having issues with?

One thought - cant imagine it would make any difference - but I seem to recall that divx files tend to like the .divx extension on the end. I think the .divx and .avi container are pretty much the same. Just as an experiment - if you rename one of your avi files to have .divx on the end - does it still play and does it still go out of sync?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

robjg63

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#874572 9-Aug-2013 13:57

Hmm - last post from me I promise... Your problem reminds me of something.

I expect the codec in the PVR is playing the video stream faster/slower than the audio stream. Say the xvid file had video at 24 frames per second and the PVR played it at 25 frames the video would possibly get ahead of the audio or vice versa - I recall having issues with video being jerky when playing xvid/avi files on my divx certified DVD player a few years ago. I found a tool called MPEG4 modifier. ( http://moitah.net/ ) its free and a small tool. The toll just lets you tweak some of the settings/flags in the file. In my case you just clicked the "Unpack" checkbox under 'Packed Bitstream' section and saved the file - took a second and fixed the fluid movement issue.

I found this post - not quite the same problem you have - but an audio sync issue:
http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=1768.0;wap2
They suggested that changing some of the 'user data' flags fixed that issue - maybe its worth opening a divx file that plays ok and comparing it to one of the ones that is giving you problems. You could try tweaking some flags and seeing if that 'fixes' the file when playing back on the satellite box. Backup your file first of course.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

jiranz

24 posts

Geek

#875018 10-Aug-2013 11:17

Been out of town and just got back to find so many replies and advice. Thank you so much to you and also everybody!

I call it a satellite box (UltraPlus x-9200hd pvr) but it does a lot more than just that for our simple family needs. Its basically a media centre for us and we don't need a big budget sound system and all that goes with it. it has multiple input connections for other equipments.

At one stage it was suggested the internal HDD in the box might be the cause of the problem.
Here are the results
HDD connected - Playing the file from the hdd the video lags behind the audio.
HDD disconnected and playing same file from a usb flashdrive the situation is reversed and the video leads the audio.
The only difference should be the speed of access? The flashdrive will be faster?
Either case, the same file accessed over my network or directly off the flashdisk plays perfectly on PC

In my mind its all starting to indicate I am stuck with a codec issue in the box.
My "TV" is just a large flatscreen Panasonic Viera display with multiple inputs. it doesn't have a tuner so we use it as a "slave".
I use HDMI 820p settings for most purposes.
i hope that makes sense because I learned much of this in the last couple of weeks.

I will work on putting up a small sample file but right now i have to trailer our milking goat to the neighbors bill.
Life goes on!

farcus

1554 posts

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#875098 10-Aug-2013 15:17

In my mind its all starting to indicate I am stuck with a codec issue in the box.
!

I highly doubt it.
It seems far more likely that it is a file issue (if not a hardware issue).
Computers media players are usually far more forgiving of poorly encoded files than hardware media players.

another way to test would be to download an xvid/divx file from the internet and see how that plays.
You can download some samples from divx.com. They have a .divx containr instead of an .avi container but that shouldn't make any difference - as I said, it is just a container.
http://www.divx.com/en/devices/profiles/video
or there are plenty of other files floating about the internet you could get.

robjg63

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#875380 11-Aug-2013 15:29

I would say that Jiranz is not entirely wrong about codec issues...

The codecs should decode the audio and video and if they are keeping them in time on on other devices and not on the PVR then its a fault in the codec process to some degree.
Most media players tend to have a decoder on a chip that is built to handle the decoding of various media and they pretty much can only handle what they were built for. Maybe there is an inbuilt fault with the XviD DivX codec on this device - so Farcus could be right about what is effectively a hardware fault...

PCs use software and graphics card (GPU) and/or CPU processing. So Farcus is right in that PCs may be more forgiving in that the software can be reasonably easily updated to fix bugs/add new codec support etc.

If you had some sample files that will play ok on both PC and PVR then you would have to check the specs of the files and try and rejig your 'bad' files to match what the PVR supports - but that could be a real pain.

mkv files are becoming pretty common these days - as well as mp4. You could try some sample mkv files on your PVR and see if they are ok - there are some (free) batch conversion tools about:
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/342598-Best-way-to-batch-convert-xvid-avi-files-to-mkv-x264-files

You might also consider hitting up the seller/distributor as it is claimed they support xvid/divx and you have found it wont - so they should fix it?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

jiranz

24 posts

Geek

#875561 12-Aug-2013 01:28

MKV files play OK. I downloaded samples from the divx site and it plays them. It doesn't recognise the .divx extension files. The problem seems to be with AVI files which say they were encoded with xvid. I have converted some of these to FLV and MP4 and then they will play OK. I did not know to convert them to MKV but i have a program which does that just as easily. I think I just have to get stuck in and convert everything. Our family camcorder records in AVI format and that means a lot of videos to convert and it will be ongoing for years to come.

I did not realise that the decoder might be a hardware chip. I have been blaming the linux OS because i had assumed that codecs were downloaded with OS firmware updates like you can download Klite codecs for use with Windows programs. I can see its complicated. If it is hardware related for sure then I would have no problem going back to the suppliers again. I wish I knew how to find out for certain.

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