AVI container not working on standalone player

[Jack Deth]

hello all,
i have an avi encoded in divx 3.11a.
my LG blu-ray player will play avi off a flash drive, but only xvid (or divx 5+ if i change the 4CC to xvid). also mkv, mp4 and flv.
so, i have been trying to reencode the avi as xvid, but it won't play on the LG, i get an "unsupported resolution" error. it'll play in VLC, though.
i have tried the mpeg-4 asp ff codec, i have set B-frames to 0, i have turned off Qpel, all with no luck.
the kicker is that if i use the mkv muxer instead of the avi muxer, it'll play on the LG... with 2 B-frames, Qpel, and using xvid.
any thoughts as to why the standalone kicks out the avidemux avi container?
thanks.
edit: win7 64 bit, avidemux 2.6.5r8897, xvid 1.3.2-20110601 final

[zakk]

Well if it's a "resolution problem", change the resolution try multiples of 8.
Anyway standalone are bad readers, my guess you'll find your answer on it's forum more likely, to know exactly what it can or can't read.

[AQUAR]

Most likely the player does not have royalty rights to play divx.
Avidemux 2.6.x sets the fourCC to divx when encoding with xvid.
Why not just change the 4CC entry of the avi file to xvid.
Use something like Visual AVI FourCC Changer (there is no need to recode at all).

[Jack Deth]

Well if it's a "resolution problem", change the resolution try multiples of 8.
Anyway standalone are bad readers, my guess you'll find your answer on it's forum more likely, to know exactly what it can or can't read.

the player is fibbing about "unsupported resolution", the same resolution plays fine in the mkv container. i had also tried changing the size to 320 x 240, but no joy.
i hadn't thought about trying the forum on the LG site, thanks for the suggestion.

[Jack Deth]

Most likely the player does not have royalty rights to play divx.
Avidemux 2.6.x sets the fourCC to divx when encoding with xvid.
Why not just change the 4CC entry of the avi file to xvid.
Use something like Visual AVI FourCC Changer (there is no need to recode at all).

i do that now with DX50 fourcc's, that trick works great. problem is that the xvid codec won't decode the old hacked 3.11a codec. thanks for the thought, though.

[zakk]

For DivX, I personally change the used CC to "DIVX", give it a try.

[AQUAR]

Did you not say that the avidemux encoded "xvid in mkv" plays on the LG?
If so then avidemux decodes the "divx3.11" just fine and the LG plays the encoded MPEG-4 ASP raw stream just fine.
Meaning you are more than half way in solving the problem.

Avidemux has some avi muxer options available that you could try.
Maybe one of them better suits the LG.

There are 2 MPEG-4 ASP encoders in avidemux - try the xvid4 one.
And keep the resolution divisible by 16 (or at least 8 as zakk mentioned).

[Jack Deth]

For DivX, I personally change the used CC to "DIVX", give it a try.

the LG player doesn't support divx - probably, as aquar said, because of a  royalty issue. but the LG can decode divx using the xvid codec that it does support. the LG is just too dumb to know that, so i have to change the fourcc to xvid so the file will play.

[Jack Deth]

Did you not say that the avidemux encoded "xvid in mkv" plays on the LG?
If so then avidemux decodes the "divx3.11" just fine and the LG plays the encoded MPEG-4 ASP raw stream just fine.
Meaning you are more than half way in solving the problem.

Avidemux has some avi muxer options available that you could try.
Maybe one of them better suits the LG.

There are 2 MPEG-4 ASP encoders in avidemux - try the xvid4 one.
And keep the resolution divisible by 16 (or at least 8 as zakk mentioned).

correct on both counts.
the LG is just balking at the avi container. i have tried both the xvid4 and the ff encoders, neither will play on the LG in the avi container.
i will have some time tomorrow to mess with it, i'm going to try running it through vdub, see what happens. maybe there is something with my system.

[AQUAR]

Instead of using 2.6.x try 2.5.6.
Avidemux v2.5.6 is a different beast alltogether and on top of that uses a different writing library for xvid
(also sets the 4cc to xvid automatically).

The LG can decode mpeg-4 part 2 streams and really doesn't care if it was created by the xvid or divx codec.
It does looks at the fourcc and simply says NO if it reads divx in that field.

Does this file have a resolution the same as avi files that the LG does play? 
 

[Jack Deth]

Instead of using 2.6.x try 2.5.6.
Avidemux v2.5.6 is a different beast alltogether and on top of that uses a different writing library for xvid
(also sets the 4cc to xvid automatically).

The LG can decode mpeg-4 part 2 streams and really doesn't care if it was created by the xvid or divx codec.
It does looks at the fourcc and simply says NO if it reads divx in that field.

Does this file have a resolution the same as avi files that the LG does play? 

2.5.6 did the trick, thanks aquar!
an interesting aside, vdub wouldn't play the file created by 2.6.5 either, but like the LG, it will play the 2.5.6 file.

[AQUAR]

Ideally it should not matter, but there are so many variables and options that the result isn't always compatible.
For now V2.6.5 is best for AVC and V2.5.6 is a proven product for the older stuff.

Maybe mean can shed a bit of light on the xvid encoders used for the curious minded (like me!).
The xvid library used with V2.5.6 seems to originate from the xvid project, whereas with V2.6.5 it hints at project mayo.
I thought project mayo was the original team that then branched into the divx and xvid projects.
Also thought that xvid4 normally denoted an xvid codec version greater than 1.0.
So, is the xvid4.dll used by V2.6.5 provided by the xvid project, a new xvid-mayo project or another MPEG-4 ASP project?

[AQUAR]

In case others are wondering.
I found at least a partial answer to my own question, after snooping around various "xvid forums".
Seems that xvid identifies by way of its codec version number, or by its bitstream version number, in a data field.
Eg XviD50 (bitstream version) = XviD 1.2.1 (codec version).

Mediainfo reports that avidemux uses XviD64,  which is probably the latest stable codec XviD 1.3.2 (I could not find anywhere if this mapping is true).
The reference to the mayo project is still strange.

[Jack Deth]

Ideally it should not matter, but there are so many variables and options that the result isn't always compatible.
For now V2.6.5 is best for AVC and V2.5.6 is a proven product for the older stuff.

Maybe mean can shed a bit of light on the xvid encoders used for the curious minded (like me!).
The xvid library used with V2.5.6 seems to originate from the xvid project, whereas with V2.6.5 it hints at project mayo.
I thought project mayo was the original team that then branched into the divx and xvid projects.
Also thought that xvid4 normally denoted an xvid codec version greater than 1.0.
So, is the xvid4.dll used by V2.6.5 provided by the xvid project, a new xvid-mayo project or another MPEG-4 ASP project?

also curious - i follow that the xvid codec used by v2.5.6 and 2.6.5 seem to be from different projects, but either one worked in the mkv container, leading me to believe that the problem lies in the avi container. is the avi container sourced from the same projects?

[mean]

Most probably the player is being picky with the way avidemux writes avi headers