Rowa & DivX versions

[volotre]

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on what versions of DivX are compatible with the Rowa RDVD104. I have encoded a captured Mpeg2 file with DivX 5.2 using VeeDub, Auto Gordion Knot and Vidomi. The Rowa won't recognize either of the files, telling me "No supported video formats were found". Should i be using an older version of DivX ? Or am I missing something else? I've burnt downloaded Divx's before and it played them with no problems.
And another question, which brought about the problem above. I've been using Nero 6 to capture video as Mpeg2 as I've found that it looks like better quality than other programs I've tried. A 1 hour Moto-GP race comes in at around 4Gig or so, which is fine as I can then burn it to a DVD-RW and watch it in my lounge on the TV. But a 2 1/2 hour AFL match comes in at around 8.5 Gigs which then forces me to recode it into a DivX in order to fit it onto a DVD-RW. How come films can get a couple of hours on a DVD with extras but I can only get an hour of captured video. I've tried to find some where to change the bitrate and so on but it appears Nero has no options for this.
I know I can capture in DivX but the quality of the captures I've done so far has been quite dismal. Even tried re-jig to compress the Mpeg2 further but then Nero kept telling me the audio file contained no video, so I didn't burn it for fear of a mute DVD. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[bac]

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on what versions of DivX are compatible with the Rowa RDVD104. I have encoded a captured Mpeg2 file with DivX 5.2 using VeeDub, Auto Gordion Knot and Vidomi. The Rowa won't recognize either of the files, telling me "No supported video formats were found". Should i be using an older version of DivX ? Or am I missing something else? I've burnt downloaded Divx's before and it played them with no problems.
And another question, which brought about the problem above. I've been using Nero 6 to capture video as Mpeg2 as I've found that it looks like better quality than other programs I've tried. A 1 hour Moto-GP race comes in at around 4Gig or so, which is fine as I can then burn it to a DVD-RW and watch it in my lounge on the TV. But a 2 1/2 hour AFL match comes in at around 8.5 Gigs which then forces me to recode it into a DivX in order to fit it onto a DVD-RW. How come films can get a couple of hours on a DVD with extras but I can only get an hour of captured video. I've tried to find some where to change the bitrate and so on but it appears Nero has no options for this.
I know I can capture in DivX but the quality of the captures I've done so far has been quite dismal. Even tried re-jig to compress the Mpeg2 further but then Nero kept telling me the audio file contained no video, so I didn't burn it for fear of a mute DVD. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Films have 8.5GB to work with on a commercial DVD, so you can see how a 2 hour film plus some extras can be squeezed onto a single disc.

You can also experiment with re-encoding to MPEG2 again, but with a lower bitrate. Anything over 4Mbits/sec should give reasonable results provided you use a decent MPEG2 authoring program like CinemaCraft or TmpgEnc.

[volotre]

Cheers bac...but after some investigation over the weekend I've found out something interesting. It seems the Rowa can now only read authored DVDs. I burnt a test DVD with a whole bunch of video encoded in different codecs and different versions of those codecs as a data DVD. The Rowa couldn't see any of them...including mpeg2's. But when I authored the mpeg2 with titles and what not, it played perfectly. WHAT GIVES? I know data DVDs of DivX files has worked on it before. I've looked into the set-up on the Rowa to see if my 1 year old has changed something accidently (he loves playing with remotes), but I can't find anything that might cause this problem. Music CD's still work fine, burnt or original. I'm going to try a different authoring program to see if it's a Nero fault but I doubt it, as like I said, they've worked on this machine before.
How could the Rowa just stop recognizing data discs like that?

[andw]

It might be that the DVD discs you are using are different, or the manufacturer is using a different dye on the discs (or even nothing has changed on the discs!).
I found the Rowa to be extremely fussy with DVD discs.
I could put 3 DVD discs of data into the player, all burnt with the same burner within the same hour, one worked, one didn't and one partially worked.

[jokiin]

How the data files are put on disc can also have an impact, ISO9660 can give different results to UDF mode for example.

[volotre]

Cheers for the quick replies.

I tried 3 different brands and types (+, - and +RW) of discs without success. The authored disc that worked was of the same brand and type as the data disc.
So there is no settings that could have been accidently changed to bring this on?
I was thinking of taking the discs to Strathfield (where I bought the player) to see if it works on thier display unit. Thought this might prove that my unit was faulty if it played on thiers.
The only thing that is different from when I had success with data discs is that I've now upgraded Nero. Shouldn't affect anything though should it?
Sorry jok11n, but I'm a bit of an illiterate with the technical side of things, can you explain that a bit further. Would Nero give me the option between the two?

Cheers again fellas, it's only 8 months old so I'd like to find out whether it's the unit or the burner/burning software or just ME before the warranty runs out. I've been really pleased with this unit however I'd be a little concerned if it's developed a problem so soon.

[volotre]

I've found that the ones I've burnt are UDF, how or what do i use to burn a ISO disc as I'd like to see if it makes a difference.
Unfortunately Strathfield don't stock them anymore so there goes that idea.

[andw]

Nero, and most (all?) other burning software will allow you to burn as ISO9660.