Divx player doing weird things

chabsey

I have a recently bought Powerpoint Divx/DVD player (50 euros in Powercity) player that I am having some problems with.

I set it up today on my parents TV, which has an NTL digital set-top box. The DVD player's SCART goes from the DVD player, into the NTL box and there's another SCART cable going from the NTL box into the TV.

So I turn on the DVD player and the channel works but the default DVD screen is black and white instead of blue. I'm thinking it's a SCART issue but I try a Divx in it anyway: it plays perfectly, in colour. I exit from the Divx back to the inital screen and the menu is now in colour as well, so I'm thinking it's solved the weird B&W issue.

So I try another Divx and it plays in B&W, exit from it and the player's menu is back in B&W. So I think maybe the second Divx is coded weirdly, but then I try a normal DVD in the player, plays fine, full colour. Try the previous Divx disc again straight afterwards and it suddenly plays fine, full colour!

So I'm confused, this machine seems to selectively choose whether to play in B&W or in colour with some discs, while other discs play in colour all the time.

Another issue is the volume, I can hear a tinny TV channel's noise coming through on the DVD player's screen, a constant annoyance and very strange.

I've tried removing the NTL box from the equation, no joy, same problem.

Any ideas? This is the second such Divx/DVD player I've got, previously bought the exact same machine and it worked no problem. Got this one on the strength of the previous one working well.

mossym

chabsey wrote:

I have a recently bought Powerpoint Divx/DVD player (50 euros in Powercity) player that I am having some problems with.

I set it up today on my parents TV, which has an NTL digital set-top box. The DVD player's SCART goes from the DVD player, into the NTL box and there's another SCART cable going from the NTL box into the TV.

So I turn on the DVD player and the channel works but the default DVD screen is black and white instead of blue. I'm thinking it's a SCART issue but I try a Divx in it anyway: it plays perfectly, in colour. I exit from the Divx back to the inital screen and the menu is now in colour as well, so I'm thinking it's solved the weird B&W issue.

So I try another Divx and it plays in B&W, exit from it and the player's menu is back in B&W. So I think maybe the second Divx is coded weirdly, but then I try a normal DVD in the player, plays fine, full colour. Try the previous Divx disc again straight afterwards and it suddenly plays fine, full colour!

So I'm confused, this machine seems to selectively choose whether to play in B&W or in colour with some discs, while other discs play in colour all the time.

Another issue is the volume, I can hear a tinny TV channel's noise coming through on the DVD player's screen, a constant annoyance and very strange.

I've tried removing the NTL box from the equation, no joy, same problem.

Any ideas? This is the second such Divx/DVD player I've got, previously bought the exact same machine and it worked no problem. Got this one on the strength of the previous one working well.

i'd say you have a loose video connection..try wiggling the cable while it is on and see if the color flickers, if it does take it back

chabsey

mossym wrote:

i'd say you have a loose video connection..try wiggling the cable while it is on and see if the color flickers, if it does take it back

I'll try that, but it's what I initially thought too. I didn't try wiggly the connection cause everytime I played a DVD the colour was fine, and everytime I played the Divx it went black and white, but if I played the Divx after the DVD, then full colour!

Weird. I'll try the wiggle thing though.

dillon_the_rabb

Hiya Chabsey.

This to me sounds like you are trying to play an NTSC disc on a player that is outputting to a PAL tv.

This can be a fairly common problem with divx/xvid players. All you need to do is to go into the menu and find the bit that asks about the TV you are using. There should be three types, PAL, NTSC and Auto detect or something like that.

Select the Auto detect, and the disc should play fine. If that doesn't help, it could be that you have selected the wrong signal output on the player. Make sure it is set to RGB if you are using Scart. If it is set to S-VHS or S-Video it can cause the same problem whereby the image is all B&W.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Matt

mossym

if that was the case, the disc wouldn't have played in color the second time.

chabsey

Well it gets weirder and weirder. I took the Divx player back to my place to test it properly, hooked it up to a 14" portable I have, and it worked perfectly. All discs played in full colour.

So I assumed it was a cable problem, so I took that same cable from the 14" back to the other house and tried again, no joy, still B&W. Final straw, so I decided to try it on the TV in the other room, newer TV so was hoping it'd be fine. Exactly the same problem again, sometimes colour, sometimes B&W!

As it stands now, I haven't returned it as It looks like it's a TV problem rather than the Divx player being broken. At the moment if I put a disc it, it plays B&W be default, but if I press stop on the remote the menu is full colour, press play again and the disc plays in colour!

I'm baffled. Will try the RGB thing though, might fix it.


EDIT: RGB was the problem....set it in the Divx player, problems resolved.