Offline Help

[Ella]

Here is a link to some info about a similar problem and the use of the VSO convertor read everything here to see if it will help you the info. is older but may help you.

The online manuals I looked at say they didn't play mp-4 and your manual also say's this.If you find that it plays mp4's made using a old non standard codex then that's a bonus but not the norm.

You shouldn't expect it to play and that's my point.I would try converting the files that don't play to something that does play doing so is very fast in most cases.

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-Discussions/Unable-to-Play-MP42-Codec-MP4/td-p/202290

Hope this helps you.

[90312]

According to the log of the one that plays try selecting MPEG4 rather than H264, you can do that see attached:

[Cuddly Squid]

I've been doing some reading...

By MPEG4, I assume DVDfab means H.263 (i.e., MPEG4, part 2). Am I right?

I get the idea that
MPEG2, part 2 video compression = H.262 (aka MPEG2 Video).
MPEG4, part 2 video compression = H.263 (aka MPEG4 Video).
MPEG4, part 10 video compression = H.264 (aka AVC).
(future video compression) = H.265 (aka HEVC).

Since MPEG is also a container, I'll stick to H.xxx for the video compression part. I wish DVDfab had done that too. It would have saved a lot of confusion.

(Sheesh! I can't believe what a mess the video engineers have made of this -- "standards" that are non-standard and have been designed to be implemented piecemeal, and "industry practices" that are actually patented and proprietary.)

Anyway, it's all moot because my time ran out with DVDfab and I couldn't get it to work. I'm not going to buy it just to waste more time trying to get it to work.

BTW, my Panasonic home theater doesn't say it plays MPEG4, but it also doesn't say it doesn't play MPEG4. It says it plays MP3, JPEG, MKV, FLAC, WAV, and MPO. And in fact it also plays most MPEG4s -- not unexpected and not surprising considering it plays Blu-ray discs.

I take it that the smartest thing to do is to convert everything to MKV and be rid of this insanity, eh?

[Cuddly Squid]

Hi:
I noticed from your posted log that your player does play mp-4 if the Codec ID : is mp42

Not true. It plays most of the videos compressed by the mp42 video codec.

This is a old format that was never a standard but used in early development of the current standard.

My understanding is that it's not particularly old. My understanding is that it's from Microsoft and is proprietary to Windows Media Player, but has been reverse engineered and implemented in many non-Microsoft players. It's used a lot because Movie Maker comes with Windows, so Movie Maker gets used by folks who don't know better. So it's become a pseudo-standard. Microsoft does that a lot: appropriates standards, then attempts to turn them into Microsoft proprietary marketing vehicles.

The online manuals I looked at say they didn't play mp-4 and your manual also say's this.

No, my manual doesn't say that.

[Cuddly Squid]

much happier with DVDfab now

Thank you Wilson Wang & signals & Ella & 90312. And thank you for being patient. I have some surprising news.

Since my trail period is over, only the HD Decrypter part of DVDfab now works. So I had to install ImgBurn to actually make the '.iso' image files. The good news is that DVDfab works seamlessly and automatically with ImgBurn.

ImgBurn told me that my previous DVDfab rips were bad: 1, that the DVDfab '.iso' files larger than 5GB had no layer flip points and were therefore unburnable, and 2, that all of the DVDfab '.iso' files violated ISO9660. I reripped my DVDs and encountered no problems.

Apparently the ISO back end of the DVDfab "DVD Copy" function either malfunctions, or it's default settings have been poorly selected. ImgBurn seems to be a much smarter program. Certainly I'm much happier with DVDfab now that it has expired than before it expired.

I will continue to monitor this thread to see if there are any further thoughts, but I seem to have what I need now.

I can now make a collection of '.iso' files and store them on a T-byte drive (with a 2nd T-byte drive as backup), I can select a movie and mount its '.iso' file on a virtual DVD and play it, and I can pipe full 1920x1080 out from my laptop's HDMI output to a home theater.

So what I now have is a portable movie player system of huge capacity that I can carry under one arm and that I can use to watch movies on its screen (the laptop's screen) or pipe out to a full-HD home theater, and I don't need an Internet connection. I don't think vudo Disc-to-Digital comes anywhere close to that.

[signals]

I suspect your previous DVDFab rips would have burned fine. ImgBurn is more picky about layer break position than it really needs to be and its warnings are more dire than they need to be. I think you will be happy with HD Decrypter until you need to rip some discs that it can't decrypt. You will find that if you uncheck the box in DVDFab Common Settings that says "Remove Layer Break" ImgBurn will be happier with the result. DVDFab ISOs are playable and burnable in almost all conditions.

[Cuddly Squid]

...ImgBurn is more picky about layer break position than it really needs to be...

Actually, I quite like it's preview where I can choose where to put the layer break.

...I think you will be happy with HD Decrypter until you need to rip some discs that it can't decrypt...

I suppose so. Considering the death of BluFab in the U.S., I suppose that will be sooner rather than later.

You will find that if you uncheck the box in DVDFab Common Settings that says "Remove Layer Break" ImgBurn will be happier with the result.

Where would I find that box?

DVDFab ISOs are playable and burnable in almost all conditions.

Programs like DVDFab should come with practice files. I have no confidence in it. I don't anticipate that I'll ever burn an actual disc, but in case I do, I don't want an unpleasant surprise at some time in the future. So, when ImgBurn says something is wrong with the rip, I pay attention.

Thanks for your kind help, signals. -- C.S.

[90312]

Find it here: