whats the trick with getting video from a usb to play on this thing???i can't even see it in the folders. does it have to be in a certin format??

 

I have the previous model to yours(AVH-P4000DVD). I have tried all kinds of different video formats and can't seem to get any of them to work from the USB.

In looking through the manual, I can't find anything that says that you CAN play video from the USB port. I sent an email to Pioneer support about this issue but I have not yet received a reply. I will probably call their support number next week and see if I can talk with someone that has some knowledge of these units. Maybe then I can get an answer as to whether the USB port supports video playback. I'll ask about the 4100 when I talk with them.

I have been able to play video from an IPOD connected with the CD-I200 IPOD cable.

 

do these units read dual layer dvd's??

 

Why not just burn the video to a DVD and skip the thumb drive.

 

ive got a 500 gig portable harddrive that has about 80 movies on it and 2500 songs. I just didn't feel like burning them all if i could use them from the HDD. it takes about 45 seconds for it to populate a list for all those songs, but it works pretty well.

 

Interesting idea. Maybe I will have to come up with one of those. Is your HDD powered by USB only or you you have an inverter for it.

 

its usb powered, if you look for one, portable most of the time means that its usb powered. also they are refered to as 2.5" drives also. the wall powered external drives are 3.5" drives

it works pretty well, as i said it takes a bit to populate a list, but more importantly u would need to make sure that your songs are labled well.

 

I also plugged in a USB hard drive on my 4000. I had the same thought as you, movies and music on the same hdd.

The 4000 supports USB memory up to 250gb, up to 15,000 files and up to 500 folders. The 500 folders is where the problem occurs.

I have my music collection pretty well organized on my desktop PC. One folder per artist and all albums from that artist in that folder. When I first got the hard drive, I just copied my entire music collection to it (about 82gb at the time). I was real disappointed when I plugged it in to the Pioneer and it only found the first 500 folders and ignored the rest.

Now I am thinking about trying to find a used 160gb IPOD. There seems to be no such folder limit on the IPOD interface and I know the Pioneer will play videos from the IPOD. Plus the Pioneer supports IPOD's album shuffle, which is another plus. There doesn't seem to be a way to shuffle by album with the USB interface.

 

this does differ with the 4100. you ARE able to shuffle with it. the only thing ive noticed with using shuffle is that if your fiance dosen't like a song that your listening to, and she hits the next button. they you cant hit back to hear the previous song. you'd have to go back and search for it. and with 2500 songs.....that takes awhile.

i did burn some .avi files on a double layer dvd today and it didn't work. im not sure if it was the file type or if the HU dosent support DL. ill have to look in my manual and see what it supports

 

have you tried Divx ?

 

im no tech dummy, i undstand most file type problems, but im not sure exactly what divx is.....i know that the HU supports it. So please enlighten me. is it just a file type i have to convert to or what???

 

Yes there is converter program to convert movies to divx..google it I beieve there are some free ones out there..

 

The 4000 does shuffle (or random play) by the song title, but it will not shuffle play by folder. I have my IPOD set to shuffle by album. It randomly selects an album and then plays all of the songs on that album. When the album has palyed through, the IPOD randomly selects the next album.

Does the 4100 allow for random play by folder from the USB? That would be a nice feature.

Also, what are the file, folder and GB limits on the 4100's USB port?

 

i have all of my music in a "music" folder. thier are also some sub folders inside my music folder. i hit play on my music folder and it randome plays every mp3 and mp3's in the sub folders. im not sure about the file,folder and gb limits

 

I did a little more research on the 4100:
Up to 250gb
65,535 files
6,000 folders in up to 8 tiers

Much better than what is supported on the 4000.