Has anyone gotten a video to play from a USB drive? Supposedly it plays, h264, mp4 and wmv. So far I've tried:
720x480: h264
640x480: mp4 (ipod, zune) and wmv
Then, reading the specs suggesting 320x240 (welcome to 1997 
) I tried wmv in 480x360 and 320x240.
Nothing plays.
OK, got one to play: 320x240 mp4 basic at a very low bitrate.
320x240 h264 does not play.
Now I'll try ramping up the size and bitrate using mp4.
Between the USB max files limitation and this (which Kenwood at least gets right), you have to wonder what Pioneer is doing.
Now I tested a version of the same video that worked, but at 512 x 384 instead of 320 x 240, 1000kbps instead of 64kbps and 30fps instead of 15fps. It would play, but totally choked on it--stuttering, audio dropouts, etc.
Unless anyone has a better explanation, this thing just doesn't have the processing power to render video from USB.
Next I'll start testing various video formats and sizes burned on DVDs and SD cards.
Now, on to SD. Better results here. The 512 x 384 mp4 played fine from an SD card, with no stuttering. Then I tried a larger version, 640x480 and 1480kbps, and it also played fine. That one wouldn't even load from USB.
Still, none of the WMVs played at all.
So now it looks like maybe a bandwidth problem with USB, rather than processing power?
Wow that is kinda lame... but it sounds like people are happy with the iPod video playback and if that is true would that make it a SW issue because the iPod and usb use the same port? Or am i missing something here.
I'm assuming vid from USB is buggered atm and will be compromising by using a large iPod + 16GB SD card. Will post more results here once I get mine installed in the 06 Lincoln LSE.
So no one has any luck with a USB powered Hard Drive. I want to put my kids video collection on a Passport and go at it. But No one has posted any type of hard drive that works. Ipod 160gb is way too expensive to use just for its hard drive capabilities. My unit will be installed next week.
Looking for a hard drive which will work even though there is a 2500 file limitation.
I have been having trouble with this as well. After reading the manual, on page 197 it says that DivX video files can only be played via CD or DVD. The USB/SD supports video play back, but only on low resolution (320x240) .mpg, .avi (non-divx ones) and .wmv.
So, yeah. We can't play downloaded/ripped tv shows from a USB hard drive, cause most of them are encoded with DivX. The only way is to burn them on DVD with a max resolution of 720x576.
You can use a hard drive to play video files as long as it is receiving enough power from the vehicle. Most people have had to provide an external power supply sense there will not be enough power provided from the USB on the unit. As far as the type of files playable, I dont know as I dont use this type of setup. My guess is you would have to convert you video files to something the unit support from a mass storage unit. Just so you will know, mpg 4 files from the ipod look great on the screen so I dont think there would be a problem getting good quality video from a mass storage drive using mpg 4 format. Just keep in mind there is the 2500 file limit from a mass storage drive.
I'm using following on 16 gb usb flash drive and it works flawless.I use Any video converter to convert files.
Frame Size: 624*272 (640*480 worked but video was cinescope)
Video Bit rate: 768 (I think this is critical for divx video to work from usb or sd)
Audio: mp3
Audio BitRate: 128
I have been having trouble with this as well. After reading the manual, on page 197 it says that DivX video files can only be played via CD or DVD. The USB/SD supports video play back, but only on low resolution (320x240) .mpg, .avi (non-divx ones) and .wmv.
So, yeah. We can't play downloaded/ripped tv shows from a USB hard drive, cause most of them are encoded with DivX. The only way is to burn them on DVD with a max resolution of 720x576.
I did get a Divx avi to play via SD card. It was 528 X 288 & the bitrate was 117 kbps.