View Full Version : XMS-888 - Mpeg4 - Firmware?
foultaste
09-02-2004, 10:15 AM
Upon more testing... I noticed my CD-RW media consisting of:
- verbatim (4-12x, 4-10x, 4-24x) 74min
- shintaro (4-10x) 80min
has a LOT less mpeg4 (divx/xvid) disc errors when playing compared to CD-R's.
Just to clarify... all the discs are able to get to the folder list. The 'Disc Error' happens after picking the file to play.
Firstly, Hi all. This is a great and valuable thread and this is my first post.
I believe your issue V205, is the same as everyone else will be gettng. All my discs load to menu but, I then get wildly varying results with trying to get the avi to play. Its not the media, its the encoder struggling to play your content. You are right in saying that VCD's and SVCDS seem to play fine everytime, this also appears true with DVD's for me. My errors are consistently with Divx and Xvid. The problem I have is that there appears no consistency or rhyme or reason to this problem. I have disks that will play first time and then not at all the next time.
My thoughts were that perhaps it could be a heat issue inside the player. As sometimes I will turn the player off, come back an hour later and the disc will play first time, although this could just be a fluke.
I have found the same results as every other poster on this board about which encodes play and which have problems. However, even encodes that are known to work will sometimes simply refuse to play. I do tend to find that VBR MP3 streams quite frequently go out of sync and find myself commonly reencoding audio streams back to CBR in order to get the file to play and play in sync. I also had a few issues with divx being reported as an invalid codec and a reincode to xvid fixed it everytime. My two cents, Xvid, AC3 and CBR MP3 are the most likely to work consistenly although you may have to press play half a dozen times sometimes.
BTW, KVCD's do work sometimes depending on the encoding. KSVCD's I have had a 100% success rate with to date.
Incidentally, I also believe that the encoder chip struggles with high bitrate scenes coupled with AC3, although I have only seen this problem when combining xvid with AC3 to date. Two movies that had this problem were perfect right throughout until I got to points where the scene was very high in action and detail. For instance, a movie about some gentlemen who were most extrodinary, I can't remember its title just now ;) But there is a blizzard snow scene, this scene causes the player to stutter the audio and skip a frame or two until the action dies down. The other example I have noticed is ST Nemesis, when they are in dune buggy thingo's before they find B4, the fast movement coupled with the dust clouds seem to cause the same issues.
And changing the topic to mechanical, has anyone heard the scary 'ca'chunk' noise, when you are trying and trying to get a disc to play. I guess its the laser reaching the extremes of its tracking, NOT, a cool sound :)
**Bring on 1.2** - perhaps they can flash in a 'cachunk' remover!! hehe:)
Cheers,
Foul.
PS. I know this tip is ovbious but something that worked for me with that damn light was too cut a thin strip of silver plumbers ducting tape and stick it over the light. It cuts the lights output by about 60%. The silver seems to blend very well with the casing colour and no warranty issues!
My thoughts were that perhaps it could be a heat issue inside the player. As sometimes I will turn the player off, come back an hour later and the disc will play first time, although this could just be a fluke.
Yes, the player has problems only with DivX content. It can't read divx header fast enough (cheap laser problem) and comes out with the disk error. I had such mutliple problems before with many disks, mainly Ricoh media which people consider to be good. I didn't like the idea that I need to switch off the player to cool it down and play ... I replaced the unit and all problems gone. Don't tell me that it is a firmware issue only because now with a current firmware all my disks play just fine.
Hi FT,
If you have a small fan that you can blow into the right hole (closest hole to the decoder chip) of your xms-888, tell me if that fixes your disc errors. I haven't had a single 'Disc Error' after adequate cooling.
Give it a try and report back.
Firstly, Hi all. This is a great and valuable thread and this is my first post.
I believe your issue V205, is the same as everyone else will be gettng. All my discs load to menu but, I then get wildly varying results with trying to get the avi to play. Its not the media, its the encoder struggling to play your content. You are right in saying that VCD's and SVCDS seem to play fine everytime, this also appears true with DVD's for me. My errors are consistently with Divx and Xvid. The problem I have is that there appears no consistency or rhyme or reason to this problem. I have disks that will play first time and then not at all the next time.
My thoughts were that perhaps it could be a heat issue inside the player. As sometimes I will turn the player off, come back an hour later and the disc will play first time, although this could just be a fluke.
I have found the same results as every other poster on this board about which encodes play and which have problems. However, even encodes that are known to work will sometimes simply refuse to play. I do tend to find that VBR MP3 streams quite frequently go out of sync and find myself commonly reencoding audio streams back to CBR in order to get the file to play and play in sync. I also had a few issues with divx being reported as an invalid codec and a reincode to xvid fixed it everytime. My two cents, Xvid, AC3 and CBR MP3 are the most likely to work consistenly although you may have to press play half a dozen times sometimes.
BTW, KVCD's do work sometimes depending on the encoding. KSVCD's I have had a 100% success rate with to date.
Incidentally, I also believe that the encoder chip struggles with high bitrate scenes coupled with AC3, although I have only seen this problem when combining xvid with AC3 to date. Two movies that had this problem were perfect right throughout until I got to points where the scene was very high in action and detail. For instance, a movie about some gentlemen who were most extrodinary, I can't remember its title just now ;) But there is a blizzard snow scene, this scene causes the player to stutter the audio and skip a frame or two until the action dies down. The other example I have noticed is ST Nemesis, when they are in dune buggy thingo's before they find B4, the fast movement coupled with the dust clouds seem to cause the same issues.
And changing the topic to mechanical, has anyone heard the scary 'ca'chunk' noise, when you are trying and trying to get a disc to play. I guess its the laser reaching the extremes of its tracking, NOT, a cool sound :)
**Bring on 1.2** - perhaps they can flash in a 'cachunk' remover!! hehe:)
Cheers,
Foul.
PS. I know this tip is ovbious but something that worked for me with that damn light was too cut a thin strip of silver plumbers ducting tape and stick it over the light. It cuts the lights output by about 60%. The silver seems to blend very well with the casing colour and no warranty issues!
I don't know what's happening. I am trying now to cut out few samples for jok11n with no sound in the original files. I am using for CBR VirtualDub and for VBR Nandub. The problem is that sound appears in small samples (3-4 Mb) (both video and audio are direct streams). Can it be related to the file header and VirtualDub is replacing it by another one ?
Say, the original file (48Khz, 128kbs ) comes out with "codec not supported" and 30 secs sample out of it is playing fine ... It looks to me like a 'black cat in the dark room' problem. Surely there are low bitrates which don't play.
However, I also have problems with few high bitrates files. Could you advise any other 'exact' cutting tool which could keep the sample unplayable ?
Hi buts, I have only used Virtualdub (1.5.10 build 18160/release) to cut.
I set both Audio & Video to 'direct stream copy', I point to any key frame, and set the start marker, then point to another key frame further on and set the end marker.
Then I use 'File - Save as AVI". This produces an exact 'cut' that doesn't work still. (which is as we want it)
-but, it sounds as though you are doing that already.
When I have had the 'codec not supported' message on mine, it has only been in relation to the Video formats (i.e. 3iVX, WMV), I don't believe it has ever complained about the audio, just not played it.
However, I have had no luck with any VBR audio using this method, the audio is always out somewhat with the video (sometimes by a few seconds).
I will have a go with Nandub for the VBR stuff, and see if that yeilds any results from this end. (although, I don't have any VBR stuff that doesn't play, just that gets out of synch)
Ok, VBR clip on it's way (nandub 1.0rc2 build 1853/release).
Unfortunately, I have not got any that have a 'no-audio' problem, but I do have some that get 'out of synch' (but only sometimes).
So that's all I can provide.
foultaste
09-02-2004, 12:13 PM
Yes, the player has problems only with DivX content. It can't read divx header fast enough (cheap laser problem) and comes out with the disk error. I had such mutliple problems before with many disks, mainly Ricoh media which people consider to be good. I didn't like the idea that I need to switch off the player to cool it down and play ... I replaced the unit and all problems gone. Don't tell me that it is a firmware issue only because now with a current firmware all my disks play just fine.
Hi Buts,
Just so I am clear, you are saying that since you swapped your unit for another one you have not had any problems with Disc errors on xvids and divx at all?
And that you think my laser is faulty or poor in quality and that a swap for another one could likely fix my errors?
Cheers,
Foul.
foultaste
09-02-2004, 12:19 PM
Hi FT,
If you have a small fan that you can blow into the right hole (closest hole to the decoder chip) of your xms-888, tell me if that fixes your disc errors. I haven't had a single 'Disc Error' after adequate cooling.
Give it a try and report back.
Hang on, is the fan something you just added since your last post about disc errors that I just responded too!?
If not, why are you still posting about disc errors if you are saying a fan fixed your woes?
I just need to be sure what people are telling me.
Cheers.
Hi foultaste, a few people throughout this thread have had problems with 'disc errors' that they have found went away after they swapped theirs for another one. (take some discs in and try them on another player).
There is some thought, that perhaps some players main chip or such might be getting hotter than others.
I think V205 is trying to ascertain if the problem is heat related or not.
If your problems go away with a fan blowing on the side, then it would seem to be heat related.
This is still not an acceptable situation of course (having to have a fan blowing on your player to watch something), and if it was me, I would obviously get mine swapped if it needed this extra cooling to keep working.
However, if you try it, and it does work ok, maybe they could look at putting heatsinks or something on the main chip of the next batch.
If it makes no difference, then heat is probably not the issue, and they need to look elsewhere for a solution.
Hi Buts,
Just so I am clear, you are saying that since you swapped your unit for another one you have not had any problems with Disc errors on xvids and divx at all?
And that you think my laser is faulty or poor in quality and that a swap for another one could likely fix my errors?
Cheers,
Foul.
Exactly. I swapped the unit and not a single "Disk error" since then. However, I took all disks with "Disk error" to the shop and played them for 15 mins to be sure that no "Disk error" when the unit warms up. I showed them that
my previous unit refused to play after 15 mins the same disk.
Not that sure about the laser now, maybe it is a chip overheating problem. However, it is definitely a hardware issue. And I don't like the idea to attach a blowing fan to the unit. I agree to update a firmware but making hardware mods, that's too much.
...Not that sure about the laser now, maybe it is a chip overheating problem. However, it is definitely a hardware issue. And I don't like the idea to attach a blowing fan to the unit. I agree to update a firmware but making hardware mods, that's too much.
I agree, firmware updates are one thing, hardware mods are out of the question.
However, it would be interesting to try a fan (standard hosehold type) blowing through it, just to find out if it is heat related.
If it is, maybe we will get heatsinks fitted to ours / next ones.
(mine btw has not had a 'disc read error' come up once yet (no extra cooling))
FT,
Yes, after adequate cooling, my unit that was previously giving lots of 'disc error' and the occasional klack-klack sound when trying to playing mpeg4 files is not longer having a single one of such errors or noise.
So, please try some extra cooling on your unit to see if it fixes the 'disc errors' messages.
Hang on, is the fan something you just added since your last post about disc errors that I just responded too!?
If not, why are you still posting about disc errors if you are saying a fan fixed your woes?
I just need to be sure what people are telling me.
Cheers.
When I have had the 'codec not supported' message on mine, it has only been in relation to the Video formats (i.e. 3iVX, WMV), I don't believe it has ever complained about the audio, just not played it.
The problem is that VirtualDub is replacing the file header (and maybe something else) with direct stream options. You can see that comparing file structures in the beginning. I do have "The Mummy" movie encoded with FlaskMpeg at 160kbs audio bitrate. It produces "Codec not supported" error. Any sample out of it is playing fine (using VirtualDub). I also have VBR movie
with breaking sound at 128kbs. Sample is fine again. Possibly the last version VirtualDub makes something clever with these files. I'll try some other cutting utility tonight.
Andw,
Just out of curiousity, do you mind telling what your XMS-888's serial number is?
I agree, firmware updates are one thing, hardware mods are out of the question.
However, it would be interesting to try a fan (standard hosehold type) blowing through it, just to find out if it is heat related.
If it is, maybe we will get heatsinks fitted to ours / next ones.
(mine btw has not had a 'disc read error' come up once yet (no extra cooling))
jokiin
09-02-2004, 01:50 PM
Xms888 03110503
Purchased 5 days after release (but the second day they were available in W.A.) from the first shipment in case anyone is wondering if it is a different production run. All current stock in the country is from the same production run, but the first shipment was airfrieghted and the remainder of the delivery was in the usual manner.
I noticed that most other DVD player when in standy mode and press eject button, the player would power up and eject the tray.
This is not the case for the XMS-888. I don't like to cold-stop-start (using the main power button) so have to use the remote to bring it to power-up mode first.
After a few days of ownership... the red lights certainly stick out .... and so is the spinning disc on the display panel. :D
Anyone know which of the 2 chipset is better, Vibrato II or Vibrato II MX ?
I believe that the MX chip is slightly newer, and has passed 'DivX' certification. (from ESS's website / press release about it)
So technically I suppose that if my belief is correct, then the 'MX' version would be technically better.
However, I could be wrong.
foultaste
09-02-2004, 02:27 PM
FT,
Yes, after adequate cooling, my unit that was previously giving lots of 'disc error' and the occasional klack-klack sound when trying to playing mpeg4 files is not longer having a single one of such errors or noise.
So, please try some extra cooling on your unit to see if it fixes the 'disc errors' messages.
Okay, I decided to do a bit of testing on the theory that the unit is not adequately cooled.
The closest I had to a control subject was Andw with his non cooled player reporting no disc errors at any time. (Perhaps he lives in a fridge!:))
Heres my parameters for testing:
- 3 problem Xvids were used, all burn on the same media with the same audio stream types but with slightly different encode rates on each one.
- All tests were carried out directly after one another in the same location with the same surrounding temperature.
- After each play press and result, the onscreen error was left to clear before repeating.
- After each ten test cycles the machine was hard booted.
- A standard house fan was blown through the grills on the right side of the player as you look at it.
x - 'disc error' reported
1 - movie played from menu no problems
o - 'cachunk' or 'klak klak' noise heard (same noise but different way of describing).
Test Movie no.1 with Fan applied (twenty cycles)
1xxx1 11111
11111 11111
Note: I put the three errors on start down to not leaving the fan too cool the chipset before starting this cycle.
Test Movie no.2 with Fan applied (10 cycles only)
11111 11111
Test Movie no.3 with Fan applied (10 cycles only)
11111 11111
Now the fan was removed and the player left in an 'on' state for ten minutes
Test Movie no.1 no fan (20 cycles)
11 xx1 1xx1x
xxxxx xxxxx
Test Movie no.2 no fan (10 cycles only)
xxxxx xxxoxx
Test Movie no.3 no fan (10 cycles only)
xxxxox 1x1xx
Okay, Just to check my results were good. I left Movie no.3 in the player and turned the fan back on and waited 3 minutes for the chip to cool.
Test Movie no.3 with fan back on (10 cycles)
11111 11111
As you will probably agree, its pretty definitive from the above that the player is inadequately cooled. Based on Andw's statement that his player is fine. I guess that quality control and Assurance is something yet to hit this particular factory!:) Something so basic as considering where the heat is going to go was missed, or perhaps this player was testing in a non heated factory in the dead of winter in Korea....
I guess, the resolutions to this are:
1. Fit a heat sink to the ESS chipset (warranty issue)
2. Fit a heat sink and a small video card fan (warranty issue)
3. Take the bloody thing back for one that copes better.
4. Ask Jok11n nicely to speak to the factory about a redesign and a recall.
Cheers,
Foul.
errr... thanks V205!? :D
Okay, I decided to do a bit of testing on the theory that the unit is not adequately cooled.
The closest I had to a control subject was Andw with his non cooled player reporting no disc errors at any time. (Perhaps he lives in a fridge!:))
Heres my parameters for testing:
- 3 problem Xvids were used, all burn on the same media with the same audio stream types but with slightly different encode rates on each one.
- All tests were carried out directly after one another in the same location with the same surrounding temperature.
- After each play press and result, the onscreen error was left to clear before repeating.
- After each ten test cycles the machine was hard booted.
- A standard house fan was blown through the grills on the right side of the player as you look at it.
x - 'disc error' reported
1 - movie played from menu no problems
o - 'cachunk' or 'klak klak' noise heard (same noise but different way of describing).
Test Movie no.1 with Fan applied (twenty cycles)
1xxx1 11111
11111 11111
Note: I put the three errors on start down to not leaving the fan too cool the chipset before starting this cycle.
Test Movie no.2 with Fan applied (10 cycles only)
11111 11111
Test Movie no.3 with Fan applied (10 cycles only)
11111 11111
Now the fan was removed and the player left in an 'on' state for ten minutes
Test Movie no.1 no fan (20 cycles)
11 xx1 1xx1x
xxxxx xxxxx
Test Movie no.2 no fan (10 cycles only)
xxxxx xxxoxx
Test Movie no.3 no fan (10 cycles only)
xxxxox 1x1xx
Okay, Just to check my results were good. I left Movie no.3 in the player and turned the fan back on and waited 3 minutes for the chip to cool.
Test Movie no.3 with fan back on (10 cycles)
11111 11111
As you will probably agree, its pretty definitive from the above that the player is inadequately cooled. Based on Andw's statement that his player is fine. I guess that quality control and Assurance is something yet to hit this particular factory!:) Something so basic as considering where the heat is going to go was missed, or perhaps this player was testing in a non heated factory in the dead of winter in Korea....
I guess, the resolutions to this are:
1. Fit a heat sink to the ESS chipset (warranty issue)
2. Fit a heat sink and a small video card fan (warranty issue)
3. Take the bloody thing back for one that copes better.
4. Ask Jok11n nicely to speak to the factory about a redesign and a recall.
Cheers,
Foul.
jokiin
09-02-2004, 02:35 PM
It may not be an issue on all players, but I'm sure time will tell. As andw suggested it may be that some players have greater tolerance and the heat has not presented itself as a problem ( I'm pretty sure that andw doesn't live in a fridge) and I know that the one that I have been testing is sitting on carpet and is covered in junk with no airflow at all and it hasn't been an issue. If it does prove to be an issue then they may get fitted with a heatsink if that is what is deemed appropriate. So far the return rate is has been very low which suggests that not all players have been suffering this issue. I'm sure we would be hearing about it given the weather that we have had lately.
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