how to know if a video file can be played on a dvd player

Question

Is there an application that can emulate a dvd player? I've converted a .mp4 video using allok video converter. And choose the output format to be xVid(.avi)<--that is exactly what is written on the application. I don't want to waste a blank dvd and try if it really can be played. So if you have tried this before please tell me if it works. And I have tried burning .avi files and it works because they are genuine avi files which I did not convert

Answer 1

The only true way to tell (other than just trying it) is to know full details of the encoding options and the DVD player in question, but there are a few common rules/checks:

1. Players that claim to play DivX files will play files with video streams encoded by DivX and XviD encoders, in an AVI wrapper.
2. They generally expect audio streams to be either in mp3 format or one of the formats common on DVDs (mp2, ac3, ...). The vast majority won't play vorbis or flacc encoded audio, to give two negative examples.
3. Some advanced encoding options such as "sub pixel quantization" are often not supported by set-top box players (such as DVD players) - so check the options your encoder is using.
4. DVD players that support DivX/XviD are usually limited to their "natural" frame-buffer dimensions so can not play video streams with frames wider than 720 pixels or higher than 576 pixels which is the maximum resolution found in DVD compliant content. As non-DVD DivX playing equipment (such as those that play from internal hard drives or USB devices) that does not explicitly claim HD support tends to use the same (or at least very similar) chipsets and software as their DVD cousins, they often have the same frame dimension limitations.

This may be a silly question, but if blank DVDs are precious enough that using a few just to test your encoding results would be too much have you not considered having one or two rewritable discs around for testing? These can be used many times (100s of times or more is usually claimed) and most DVD players that can happily read DVD+R/DVD-R media (all in my experience) can also read RW media.

Answer 2

If you want it to play in any player you should stick to the standard format, which is an MPEG2 stream in a VOB container, not xVid in an AVI container.

Answer 3

I usually use a DVD+RW disc to test out the image. DVD+RW / DVD+R are more likely to be supported by your DVD player than DVD-R / DVD-RW, if you have a choice. The dash-R versions are designed more for PC, and the plus+R versions for DVD players.

Answer 4

There were some more useful answers to this similar question: DVD-Player “Simulation”.