How to get DVD player to display files alphabetically?

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quizzymodo
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25 Jun 2022, 12:14 pm

I have lots of mp4 video files on an external SSD hard drive. Often I will plug the hard drive into my DVD player's USB port and watch mp4s on my TV.

I prefer to do this than to watch mp4s on my laptop (or to connect my laptop to my TV with an HDMI cable) since, for one thing, when I watch mp4s through my DVD player, I can use my remote control.

But (and this might sound petty) the annoying thing is that my DVD player does not display my mp4 files in alphabetical order. Is there some way I can get it to do this? It's a Panasonic, if that is of any relevance. It seems to display the files according to which were most recently modified. So perhaps the best thing to do is to somehow get the 'date modified' order of the files to match the 'alphabetical order' of the files?

It would also be good if my DVD player could display a little description for each mp4 video as I am scrolling through them (as if I were scrolling through Netflix or something), but perhaps that is too much to ask?



r00tb33r
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25 Jun 2022, 2:17 pm

If the order isn't alphabetical, what is it?
A case-sensitive alphabetical sort might put all lowercase filenames before upper case ones, resulting in "w" appearing before "A" in the list.

Yes, a description is too much to ask. You are asking a fairly simple digital system to interpret and summarize a piece of video content. This would require knowledge and ability to recognize things, concepts, language, etc.


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quizzymodo
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25 Jun 2022, 2:42 pm

The order my DVD player displays the files in seems to be the date order the files we saved or modified, with the oldest files displayed first.

With the descriptions thing, I am not expecting my DVD player to figure anything out for itself. I just wondered if I could get the DVD player to display the mp4 metadata for each file. If so, then I would add a description to the metadata of each mp4 file myself.



r00tb33r
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25 Jun 2022, 3:32 pm

quizzymodo wrote:
The order my DVD player displays the files in seems to be the date order the files we saved or modified, with the oldest files displayed first.

With the descriptions thing, I am not expecting my DVD player to figure anything out for itself. I just wondered if I could get the DVD player to display the mp4 metadata for each file. If so, then I would add a description to the metadata of each mp4 file myself.

Devices I've used had sort switching on the remote.

As for reading of the metadata... Right now the file browser does not read the files themselves, it just reads the allocation record from the FAT. What you want would require opening and parsing each file, which is very slow. Video files are large.
By all means, you can modify the firmware to make the device do this operation... Could be a fun project. :wink:

I have not seen any player front-ends that use the metadata. I've seen internet-connected devices pull data from IMDb for movies though.


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DanielW
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25 Jun 2022, 3:42 pm

Mine will sort alphabetically (ascending or descending) by file name, so it is possible for DVD players to do that. Yours may also depending on model and the software version its using. You might check your users manual or google for more specific information for your specific device.



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07 Jul 2022, 7:29 pm

What is your DVD player's manufacturer and model number?


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quizzymodo
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27 Jul 2022, 12:16 pm

Fenn wrote:
What is your DVD player's manufacturer and model number?


It's a Panasonic DMP BD84. It was pretty cheap.