Philips DVP3040 Tweaks

Having in previous postings expounded about the greatness of my Philips DVP3040 DVD player, I thought it a good idea to reveal some of the problems I have had with the player after a month or so of use. The main problem has been jittery or jerky video playback on various DivX or XviD files. Some files worked, others were unwatchable. Turns out the player does not like the encoding on specific files. The issue is video that uses a “packed bitstream.” There is, thankfully, an fairly easy solution. There is a small, free piece of software called MPEG4 Modifier that can analyze a video file, and re-save it with an “unpacked bitstream.” The re-saved files are actually a tad smaller than the packed ones and work perfectly in the DVD player. The application is tiny, does not require an install, and very easy to use.