[gbswales]

I need to find an inexpensive dvd player that will:

• upscale normal DVDs via HDMI
• Has a USB socket that will read a memory stick and if possible a portable hard drive
• Will play divx/avi mpeg and ideally mov files - including those which have been created from an HD movie camera.

I bought a toshiba which does most of the above but whenever it encounters a file which originated as HD it refuses to play it. I have even tried re-converting these files using AVS converter to quite low quality avi's but still the player seems to know they were originally HD recorded - it also wont read portable hard drives

The other alternative is to find some software that will convert these files so that the player knows they are standard definition and not HD but I am not sure what else to try?

[tinytim]

In AVS Video Convertor are you changing the Frame Rate and the Frame Size as these are perhaps what is confusing your player?

As for the HDD issue , the HDD needs to be Fat16 or Fat32 format which should be the same as the USB sticks you're successful with.

[gbswales]

Originally Posted by tinytim

In AVS Video Convertor are you changing the Frame Rate and the Frame Size as these are perhaps what is confusing your player?

As for the HDD issue , the HDD needs to be Fat16 or Fat32 format which should be the same as the USB sticks you're successful with.

Thanks for your comments - on the frame size/rate issue I am never quite sure how to work out the size ratios - file properties tell me it is 1024x576 which presumably is the original as that is what I had set - I dont know for sure which smaller frame size matches with this as AVS list a whole load of sizes.

Frame rate shows as 25 frames a second - should I change this

Sorry to be a pain but I am fairly new to video converting

[Greg Mandel]

Originally Posted by gbswales

Thanks for your comments - on the frame size/rate issue I am never quite sure how to work out the size ratios - file properties tell me it is 1024x576 which presumably is the original as that is what I had set - I dont know for sure which smaller frame size matches with this as AVS list a whole load of sizes.

Frame rate shows as 25 frames a second - should I change this

Sorry to be a pain but I am fairly new to video converting

Most SD players that won't play HD simply look at the image dimensions, and won't play anything over standard SD ie 720x512. You pretty much just need to resize the orgininal move to this size (depending what you are doing with aspect ratio). You shouldn't mess with the frame rate, as this can cause all kinds of issues, particularly with regards to the sync of the audio, which are pretty fiddly to fix.

Some programs like TMPGEnc Express can do all this and the kitchen sink, but if you already have the DivX Pro codec, you can just drop the file into the converter, or if you want more control, use something like VirtualDub (which is free) and allows you to change all the parameters for the conversion.

So in summary, you just need to take your movie and resize the width and height down to SD dimensions, and then I think your player will be able to deal with it.

You may also need to look at the sound on the movie, as most players need to use the sound to sync the video. If you have any exotic sound settings in there, then when you resize the movie you probably want to convert the sound to something else. MP3 CBR is probably the most compatible format.

[gbswales]

Originally Posted by Greg Mandel

Most SD players that won't play HD simply look at the image dimensions, and won't play anything over standard SD ie 720x512. ...........

Thanks changing the frame size seems to have worked for one anyway so I shall try with others - I was worried about proportions but find that AVS converter (part of an excellent, though sometimes quirky suite of programmes) has a visiual screen so that you can crop and adjust as you wish without seemingly having to do any calculations