Please Help: DivX Playback choppy on certain movies

Ok get my specs out of the way:

OS: Windows XP Media Center Edition
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2400 MHz
Video/Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series (512 MB)
Memory: 2048 MB (DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM)
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c
Storage: 465.8 GB (43.5 GB free)

My problem is playing a few DivX movies (roughly 2 gig sized files) i get skipping/chopping only when there is a lot of movement. At least it appears that way, there are moments 20 second intervals of flawless smooth movment and then when something big happens where movment is all over the screen, it starts chopping.

I've done everything imaginable to stop it. Killed all processes and apps except for my movie, updated DivX and video card drivers, nerfed settings in my Graphics card software (killed anti-alias, reduced other features) and finally I tried changing my screen resolution to the lowest possible 800 x 600 - none of it worked. Still get intermittent skipping chopping in these DivX movies. This happens in all players I've tried so far. VLC, DivX Player, Core Media Player, and K-Media Player.

I should note that some DivX movies roughly the same size don;t have this problem.

Any ideas? What can I do?

My best guess is poorly encoded video, with too low a bitrate for the action sequences. Gspot video utility will tell you whether the video is constant or variable bitrate, and what the figure is, but I don't really have a solution for you if this is the case.

Your hardware seems more than capable of playing Divx video, even HD resolution.

Are the files on the hard drive or on a dvd? If they are on a disk, you might just be seeing effects of poor media, but I sincerely doubt it since the problems only occur in action sequences. Do you have a stand alone player that can play divx? If so, you might try it there.

Ok I downloaded that and ran it but have no idea what it's saying. Does this pic help at all?




On a side note: I'm not playing off of a disc, it's just a file.

Its a regular Divx file as far as I can tell...720 x 480 resolution is not high def and shouldn't give your hardware any problems. 1524 kbps is the framerate, and while not as high as I normally make my Xvid files, it isn't bad. It is a "packed-bitstream" avi, but I believe those occasionally cause problems with stand alone players rather than software in computers.

I think I was wrong about Gspot showing cbr or vbr video though. It does show that the audio is cbr MP3, which is fine.

Sorry I don't have a solution for you, but it is good that you uploaded the picture from Gspot. We have other people around who might be better able to diagnose your problems.

If the file was captured poorly, with dropped frames in the action sequences, that may account for your problems, or it may be as I first guessed, a poor conversion.

Thanks for your feedback. I think it's as you say, because other files from the same author in the same format at roughly the same size don't have this problem. I wonder what went wrong with this one.

It seems most of his encodes are 1.3 to 1.4 Gig range, but this one that had issues was 1.77 Gig. He must have experimented on the fly and never checked his work, or was too lazy to re-encode.

In any case I'll be trying what he's doing soon enough myself, so need to beware the same pitfalls. Hopefully hanging around here can help me as I wander through the dark.

Bit of a weird file; having NTSC resolution but PAL framerate.

As Kerry says, packed bitstream can give problems on older MTK chip-based standalones, but not usually PC playback. You could always run the file through MPEG Modifier to remove PB and see if it makes a difference.

K I've downloaded Mpeg Modifier* Just don't know what to change before running it on file in question. PB is Packed Bitstream? I should tick the Unpacked box and run it?

And are there many ways to salvage a bad encode exhibiting these issues?

Yes: unpack and run. It doesn't re-encode and is pretty quick.

Not many ways of salvaging other people's encoding, other than a lossy and complete re-encode.

Yeah I just ran that with Unpack checked and the file it produced had the same problem. It was worth a shot anyways.

Thx for the help.

Just in case someone can better diagnose through detailed report. Someone on another board told me to hit Ctrl + Tab in K-Multimedia Player and post the report. Here's that report on this file:
---
[Primary Filtergraph]
0) - The One-Armed Swordsman.divx
1) - AVI Splitter
2) - KMP Video Codec
3) - KMP Audio Codec
4) - KMP Audio Codec
5) - KMP Video Transform
6) - KMP Stream Switcher(Copy Transform)
7) - OverlayMixer
8) - KMP Audio Transform(Copy)
9) - Video Renderer
10) - Default DirectSound Device

[Video Info]
Decoder - (DX50) KMP Video Codec(DivX5-libcodec.dll)
Format - Major Type: Video - Sub Type: YUY2
VideoInfo: YUY2 720X480, 16 bits
Format - Major Type: Video - Sub Type: YV12
VideoInfo: YV12 1024X-480, 12 bits

[Audio Info]
Decoder - (0x55) KMP Audio Codec(MP3 Audio-libmad.dll)
Format - Major Type: Audio - Sub Type: PCM
WaveFormatEx: PCM(0x1), 48000 Hz, 16 Bits, 2 Ch

[Basic Video DSP]
Internal brightness: 170%
+Median Vert Filter

[Advanced Video DSP]
+Video Plugin

[Audio DSP]
+Pre amplification: Main: (100%)
+Auto Volume Control
+Audio Plugin

[Subtitle Settings]
+Draw Mode(Selected): Image
+Draw Mode(In use): On Overlay
+Text Rendering Method: Rasterizer
+Support HTML Tags(SMI)

[KMPlayer]
+Version: 2.9.3.1430(1,899,520, 03/04/08 1:36:48 AM)
+libcodec.dll: Exist(4,459,520, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+libmplay.dll: Exist(438,784, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+PProcDLL.dll: Exist(1,769,472, 02/24/08 11:07:04 PM)
+LibDTS.dll: Exist(144,384, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+liba52.dll: Exist(56,320, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+libfaad2.dll: Exist(212,480, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+libmad.dll: Exist(92,672, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+libmpeg2.dll: Exist(126,464, 02/24/08 11:06:28 PM)
+theora.dll: Exist(196,608, 02/24/08 11:07:48 PM)
+OggVorbis.dll: Exist(1,165,312, 02/24/08 11:07:00 PM)
+xviddll.dll: Exist(655,872, 02/24/08 11:08:14 PM)
+Old_QUARTZ.DLL: Exist(770,048, 02/24/08 11:07:00 PM)
+AboutDll.dll: Exist(105,472, 02/24/08 11:03:38 PM)
+DTView.dll: Exist(104,448, 02/24/08 11:04:36 PM)
+MPlayer.dll: Missed
+ImLoader.dll: Exist(856,064, 02/24/08 11:05:22 PM)


--------------------
[File Info]
--------------------
C:\Program Files\Kung Fu Flix\The One-Armed Swordsman\The One-Armed Swordsman.divx
General
Complete name : C:\Program Files\Kung Fu Flix\The One-Armed Swordsman\The One-Armed Swordsman.divx
Format : DivX
Format/Info : Hack of AVI
Format/Family : RIFF
File size : 1.77 GiB
PlayTime : 1h 56mn
Bit rate : 2176 Kbps
Video #0
Codec : DivX 5
Codec/Family : MPEG-4
Codec settings/PacketBitStream : No
Codec settings/BVOP : Yes
Codec settings/QPel : No
Codec settings/GMC : 0
Codec settings/Matrix : Default
PlayTime : 1h 56mn
Bit rate : 1523 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4.615
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : NTSC
Resolution : 8 bits
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.175
StreamSize : 1.23 GiB
Title : Video
Audio #1
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3
PlayTime : 1h 56mn
Bit rate : 318 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 264 MiB
Title : Audio
Writing library : Xing (new)
Audio #2
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3
PlayTime : 1h 56mn
Bit rate : 318 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 264 MiB
Title : Audio
Writing library : Xing (new)
Text #3
Codec : DivX.com Subtitle
Codec/Url : http://www.divx.com
Width : 640
Height : 480
Title : Subtitle
Codec/CC : DXSB
Resolution : 4
Text #4
Codec : DivX.com Subtitle
Codec/Url : http://www.divx.com
Width : 640
Height : 480
Title : Subtitle
Codec/CC : DXSB
Resolution : 4


--------------------
[System Info]
--------------------
CPU 0: 2404MHz, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz, x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6
CPU 1: 2404MHz, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz, x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6
OS: Windows XP Professional(Version 5.1 Build 2600) Service Pack 2
Video: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series

DirectX: 9.0c(4.09.00.0904)
Memory: All: 2,096,172 KB, Available: 1,262,068 KB, Used: 30%
CodePage: 1252, Charset:1
Instruction: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2 SSE3 64Bits

You have created that avi movies exactly HOW?

Maybe turn off post-processing in the divx/xvid filter & see what happens?

The file is bad.

Thx for the feedback though all.