Help - Divx Freezes/hangs

[waffleiron]

Hi -

I've had my GP2X for a good 3-4 months, and never used its movie playback capability as I was happy with the games. It runs perfectly, I can play games for hours on end with no issues at all.

However, I recently tried playing some videos (e.g. TV eps downloaded in avi format). Didn't convert or do anything strange to them, but every video I play freezes a few minutes into the show. Sometimes a couple of minutes, sometimes more. But every file I've tried does the same thing - the player just hangs and I have to power it off. While it's playing, it plays perfectly.

Would appreciate if anyone has any ideas, as I'm going on a long flight tomorrow and was thinking of loading it up with DIVX to watch en route and in the hotel at night.

Don't think its the SD card (4GB, Ultra) as I can copy, delete, and play games off it with no issues.

Anyone?

 

[Alex.]

The player has been known to have the occasional glitch, may I suggest reencoding your video with PocketDivX at the GP2X's resolution, just to put less stress on it. I had the same thing sometimes happen with converted video too though, so it's up to you.

- Alex

 

[krosfyah]

Try the modified version in the archive and see if it helps.

http://www.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,6,1679

 

[waffleiron]

Appreciate the help guys. I'll try the modified player.

Cheers. If anyone else has a brainwave, let me know!

 

[waffleiron]

Well, tried the modified player. Froze 3 minutes into the first episode of Prison Break that I tried.

What is the native resolution of the GP2X, for encoding purposes? And if I re-encode everything, surely the resolution will be crappy when I use the TV-out? You mean no one is able to play downloaded divx without re-encoding it?

 

[krosfyah]

The native res is 320x240, but yeah it will look worse with tv out once you do that.

I haven't watched that many videos but the ones I did watch played perfectly and they were never re-encoded.

 

[gnyffel]

waffle: I have the same problem, and as far as I've been able to discern there is no solution but reencoding your vids at the moment. Especially bad for me because video playback was a major selling point for me. Guess I should have done my research better (and not have relied on official specs >_<).

 

[Megagun]

Try using a different SD card if you have one..
Since I had my 2GB SD card (A SanDisk one. I have it since last friday), I haven't had a video freeze on me while using it, while on my 1GB card I used to have, videos often freeze. I haven't done any *real* testing, though, just so you know. So my findings might not be true after all. As soon as a new episode of Prison Break is on the 'net, I'll try it out on both my 1GB and 2GB cards... I do not have a TVout cable, bytheway.

The replacement MPlayer doesn't freeze on any of my cards, but it seems as if it has a lower FPS rate on some videos, which makes me basically not use it at all.

Edit: maybe the new firmware release coming soonish (hopefully!) will fix a few of these crash errors. Let's hope so.

 

[waffleiron]

Thanks for the replies again guys, appreciated!

Looks like I'm stuck with the problem for now; playing videos on the plane/in the hotel room when I travel was one of the main selling points for me too. Shelled out for a 4GB card, and I don't have another one to try.

Guess I'll be going without my videos on this trip then. =/

 

[Alex.]

Hopefully the next firmware will patch this *

- Alex

* This post single-handedly delayed firmware 2.1.0 five more months.

 

[Fishbong]

Erm, why don´t you try downloading this movie from gptheatre and see if it works? If it doesn´t, there is something wrong with your unit and you should send it back.

 

[jimmyslam]

Erm at why don´t you try downloading this movie from gptheatre and see if it works? If it doesn´t, there is something wrong with your unit and you should send it back.

is probably nothing wrong with his gp2x.

the problem is that the sd card and the gp2x cont read fast enough so it freezes. If we could change the cache it would work perfect i think.

Cheers

 

[SmegPlaza]

I've had the same problem. After some messing around I discovered that the problem goes away completely when I use an external mains power supply i.e. the problem appears to be associated with running off battery power.
And I have decent quality 2500mAh batteries too...

Smeg

 

[Vimacs]

Its funny, i have absulutely no problems.
There are two known things that cause the player to ahng, the most common is batterys that cant supply the juice, the mplayer is by far the most power hungry thing on gp2x.
The second is slow/incompatible sd cards.