Got a new player and SMV video files won't play

[NE1WeKnow]

Hi

Got a new player - menu looks exactly like the one shown on this player (Album link). Same colour, same buttons, but the name of the player under the screen is slightly different.

Ok, so I got it on eBay and the seller said it played AMV/MTV/MP4. That was a lie. Player won't even recognise any video files exist if I place .AMV files in the MVIDEO sub-folder. Player came with one .SMV file already in the MVIDEO sub-folder - Britney Spears music video - I got that playing ok before I deleted it (as you would).

I have now used SMV Convert Tool 3.00 to convert one MPEG-1 file and one WMV file to 160x120 resolution. The conversion went through fine, and if I place the created .SMV files in the MVIDEO sub-folder, the player recognises that there are two videos available. However, pressing play just makes the screen briefly flash and nothing happens at all.

One weird thing is that the information on the video player screen shows the length of the file, but I don't know where it's getting the time from. It doesn't change when I flip between the two video files and it's not the correct time for either clip. If I delete the files using the player's menu, I get a message "No video exists" and then the video player screen shows a different time (like 6:01), even though there is no file to play. Sounds a bit buggy to me...

I have turned the player off for a while and then back on which doesn't make any difference (using the on/off switch at the top). The files I created aren't too big. They might be 10 or 20 minutes in length and about 20 to 30Mb each. Player plays MP3s fine and records and plays voice/FM radio fine.

Naturally I'm annoyed that I can't get any videos I've created working, but I'm more annoyed that .AMV files don't seem to be recognised - there seems to be a larger subset of tools available to handle AMV files and SMV doesn't sound too good.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds with any ideas...

[tadad1]

Ne1WeKnow, Iridium is the man you want to talk to as he has just bought a new player that uses SMV format and has been doing a bit of research on the matter. Drop him a Personel Message he has a great deal of knowledge about the players and am sure he would be glad to help.

[NE1WeKnow]

Thanks. I have PM'd Iridium.

[Iridium]

NE1WeKnow,

1st, welcome to this site. I think you'll be amazed at the friendly, and expert advice you'll find here. Having said that I don't know if I have the answer or not. Many times it's simply trial and error.
But let's try a few things:

1 please make sure all codecs are up to date by downloading sld codec pack :
http://www.mympxplayer.com/dload.php...gory&cat_id=12

install then re-test

2 reload one of the vids and try a different resolution IE 128x128.
reconvert and test.
try ticking full screen, not full image.

3 go to quality settings / custom " * " and choose 22k, 40kb/sec, and 15 frames/ sec. reload and test.

If not successfull w/ above;

4 search CD for SMV tool. Install that and test. If there is nothing on CD, download previous version posted in tools section. Test w/ that.

5 if nothing here works, I would notify seller quickly that you may have a defective player, and would like a full refund, or you can say false advertising (not AMV) which ebay takes a dim view of, and seller should pay shipping both ways. If seller gives 3 day return period, I would do this all rather quickly.

Post back....
I

[NE1WeKnow]

Thanks for your quick reply Iridium. From reading around, I have figured that this is a friendly, professional place to learn about these players.

I did consider contacting the seller and challenging him about eBay policies etc. I was going to send him an email but a server error stopped the message being sent and then I lost what I had typed. I want to spend another day trying to get it working I think.

I created lots and lots of different SMV files last night with different attributes i.e. different bitrates, frame rates, sound frequency etc. Nothing works so far...

One extra bit of information I can pass on is that I did delete the original MVIDEO folder when I was trying to get the player working. I am wondering if the attributes of the folder have to be exact for it to work? I tried a folder named VIDEO but this didn't work. There are 5 folders, 2 of which are in capitals - FM and VOICE - both these folders have the exact same creation timestamp and same attributes. I am going to try to create a new MVIDEO folder with the same attributes.

As of right now, the player is refusing to acknowledge that I have any video files at all, so I'm not going to spend time re-encoding files. Previously it would recognise file with the .SMV extension but not play them, but now the video mode just shows "NO VIDEO FILE". Interestingly, I worked out the time length it was showing is actually the length of the last music file I was playing. It also shows MUSIC along the top when I go into the video function. Possibly the player is confused because it can't find the correct video folder?

I'm investigating further...

[NE1WeKnow]

Firstly, once again, thanks for the prompt response guys.

I nutted out the problem. It seems that the player has a limit of 293 music files. It might not be the number of music files exactly - it could be that I've reached a limit in terms of the total allowable folders & files in memory. Anyway, as of right now, if I have more than 293 mp3 files under the music folder, the display won't show more than 293 and if I access the video function (there is 1 SMV file in the MVIDEO folder), it says I have no files. If I remove some mp3s to get under 293, the video shows up.

Also, I thought my player had a 1.8" screen and could do 160x128 resolution, but only the 128x128 SMV file I made displayed correctly.

I'm not too displeased with the video playback. 15fps is mostly smooth, although there were a couple of glitches (I converted a wmv file, so perhaps I should have converted it to avi or something else first).

[NE1WeKnow]

I realise I'm talking to myself now...

Anyway, just to finalise this topic, I deleted a couple of folders and the player doesn't seem to count the folders. So it seems that there is a total file limit of around 293 files. If I have too many in the MVIDEO folder which puts the total over 293, the player doesn't recognise that there are any extra files. Also, the display under the video playback function gets screwed up (shows 884 files or something).

Over and out...

[Iridium]

NE1WeKnow,
You are not talking to yourself as there are many people who will read, and learn from you.
Thanks for posting your success. Sorry i couldn't be of more help to you.
To my knowledge, there is a max of 99 files per folder, and 99 folders total.
It sounds as tho you simply ran out of disk space. You can always check this by going to My Comp/removable drive x/ right click on drive and go to properties to check remaining storage.

Thanks for posting your success!

I.

[NE1WeKnow]

Was only joking about talking to myself :-)

I can safely say that I never ran out of disk space. Always had 100Mb+ free. But you brought up something useful with the 99 files in a folder limit. I have 104 files in one of the folders. The player seems to be ok with that though until I go over the 293 files which I explained before. Will separate out the 104 file folder and see what difference it makes.

Also, I contacted the seller and explained how there were features missing from the player. He has offered to give me a refund - he said "perhaps I sent you the wrong player, but I can't check at the moment" Frankly I think it'll be a risk to send it back and wait for another player to be sent to me or a refund.

Iridium, you seem to know a bit about the SMV format. Aside from the slow conversion factor, is the SMV format significantly worse than AMV or MTV? If you have experienced all formats and consider SMV to not be too bad (the sample file I converted and watched looked ok to me - 15fps and detailed enough to be definitely watchable), I'm not going to get rid of the player I've got. I'm mostly happy with it, and at this price, I don't expect to get an absolutely flawless player that I'm 100% satisfied with.

NE1WeKnow,

Here was a cursory 'review' on highlights:

http://www.mympxplayer.com/viewtopic.php?t=192

Since I have both formats and can compare, I would say only this:
They both have strong and weak points, but neither has what I would say are glaring faults. I would definitely keep your SMV, and in the future, as prices drop, make your next one an AMV. Especially w/shipping costs factored in, sending it back may not be worth it. 15 or 16fps is too negligable to worry with. With all these little players can do, it would be unreasonable to expect that they do everything perfectly as they are still in their infancy.

MTV is not one I have experienced, but I would stay away from this compressionless format. Reason being that file sizes are enormous (no compression) plus MTV seems to add quite a bit of file overhead. IE an original 100 MB file, after converting becomes apprx. 130MB.
Finally, try pocket divx encoder to resize, and rotate 90* then convert. This will give you full screen resolution.