Portable Hardrive – 260 days old

[flyboy]

Hi
I converted a film which was 1.32gb in size but would not play because of wrong codec, I used Avi Video Converter from Freestudio and thought I would convert it to the highest possible definition the resulting file then became just over 5gb the portable harddrive reports that there is 427gb of free space yet when I tried to put it on the harddrive I got an error message "not enough freespace " don't understand

[MSUredux]

Are you sure it says 427 GB free? Maybe it's only 427 MB.

[Grogan]

If your portable hard drive is formatted as FAT32, there is a file size limit just under 4 Gb. You would simply not be able to store a 5 Gb file on a FAT32 filesystem. (It's probably formatted with NTFS if it's a 500 Gb partition, though, but I thought I'd mention that just in case someone did that. It can be done with third party format utilities)

By the way, once you (or your recording device) have already done the encoding, you can't just go and add more "quality" back during a conversion (re-encoding). You will only inflate the file size.

[flyboy]

Thanks Grogan, the portable harddrive is formatted as FAT32 so that my portable tv will recognise it, did not know the harddrive had a limit as to the size of files it would accept.
If the conversion software has as what you said only inflated the file size and not increased the quality then when I convert files keep them as original and if the original size is over 5gb then unless I reduce the quality they will not go onto the harddrive.

A thousand thank you's

[Grogan]

Ahh, yes, not many devices support NTFS and you have to use FAT32. Therefore, you'll have to keep your file sizes smaller than 4 Gb. (4 Gb minus 1 byte)

If you go with normal compression settings when you encode using modern codecs like XVID you likely wouldn't come close to that size anyway, though.

[flyboy]

AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
used the conversion software the resulting film now has the correct codec but still wont play, I don't suppose the resolution matters does it?

[Grogan]

Your previous thread got lost (we had database corruption and had to restore from a backup). Anticipating this, I actually gave you a link with a list of things that might cause players to be unable to play an XVID file.

Yep, resolution was among them and could well be your problem. Your TV may not support resolutions higher than 720x576 for the playback.

Any of the following Divx encoding options might cause DVD players to have problems.
1) Use of QPel (Quarter Pixel).
2) Use of GMC (Global Motion Compensation).
3) Resolutions greater than 720x576.
4) Files larger than 2 GB in size.
5) Video bit rates higher than 2000 Kbps.
6) If you use AC3, LPCM or DTS audio, the video bit rate may have to be a lot lower than 2000, perhaps as low as 1200 for successful playback.
7) Packed bit stream (MPEG4Modifier can remove this).

See the thread, there are links to utilities for reconversion:

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/2...ivX-xvid-video

[flyboy]

Cracked it, it was a combination of resolution and bit rate, you learn something every day, I thought computers were supposed to make things easier at this rate most people will need a degree to operate one.I would have thought an AVI was an AVI was an AVI if the internal parameters were different then why not call then something else would make things alot easier.
Thanks Grogan for your valuable help

[Grogan]

I'm glad you got it sorted... video encoding can be tricky because devices not only don't support all codecs, but they don't support all the features and parameters of the ones they do. Things like Xboxes can be a pain in the ass to encode for as well. It took me some trial and error to get DVD rips to work on my friend's Xbox 360.