You're right, it's 1 byte less than 4GB on FAT32. I was thinking of really old FAT16, which certainly isn't applicable. I've hit the 4GB limit a bunch of times when using FAT32 formatted FireWire drives (I regularly transfer around 20-60GB DV-encoded video files at work), and it annoyed me. I just mixed up the size...
Now all my external drives are formatted to HFS+ and I use MacDrive on my Windows machines. It works very well!
I just finished testing it on my Windows machine at work, and wasn't able to get any MPEG-2 file to play in MC (over or under 2GB). The separate AIFF audio tracks played just fine, but not the video. The video files play fine in WiMP and WinDVD on this machine, and G-Spot reports that they render using: "(S) --> MPEG-2 Splitter --> InterVideo Video Decoder --> (R)" as the Rendering path. The files also won't import into the MC database... I'm posting the logs:
Import attempt:
4:57:43 PM: Import: Process: Starting import (JRiver Media Center 11.0.305 (registered))
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetSearchFolderList: Start
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetSearchFolderList: Include: C:\library\video\
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetSearchFolderList: Exclude: C:\Documents and Settings\emr\Application Data\J River\Media Center 11\Thumbnails\{0238E1B4-67FA-4363-8DF3-C1F0CE6D1E3B}\
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetSearchFolderList: Finish (93 ms)
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetNewFiles: Start
4:57:43 PM: Import: AddFile: Found: C:\library\video\05_06_23-final.aiff
4:57:43 PM: Import: AddFile: Found: C:\library\video\05_06_23-final.m2v
4:57:43 PM: Import: AddFile: Found: C:\library\video\2005-03-31_Drill-final.aiff
4:57:43 PM: Import: AddFile: Found: C:\library\video\75th_Anniversary-Menu Clip.aiff
4:57:43 PM: Import: AddFile: Found: C:\library\video\75th_Anniversary-Menu Clip.m2v
4:57:43 PM: Import: GetNewFiles: Finish (0 ms)
4:57:43 PM: Import: MakeLibraryBackup: Start
4:57:44 PM: Import: MakeLibraryBackup: Finish (1438 ms)
4:57:44 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Start
4:57:44 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: C:\library\video\05_06_23-final.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: New File: C:\library\video\05_06_23-final.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: C:\library\video\05_06_23-final.m2v
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Failed to analyze / add
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: C:\library\video\2005-03-31_Drill-final.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: New File: C:\library\video\2005-03-31_Drill-final.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: C:\library\video\75th_Anniversary-Menu Clip.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: New File: C:\library\video\75th_Anniversary-Menu Clip.aiff
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Adding: C:\library\video\75th_Anniversary-Menu Clip.m2v
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Failed to analyze / add
4:57:45 PM: Import: ImportNewFiles: Finish (609 ms)
4:57:45 PM: Import: BuildThumbnails: Start
4:57:52 PM: Import: BuildThumbnails: Finish (6953 ms)
4:57:52 PM: Import: Process: Finish (9156 ms)
Playback attempt (drag and drop to Playing Now window and choose "Play" from popup, or going to File-->Open Media File):
5:05:00 PM: General: Log Reset: Logging reset
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Start
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Checking for not loaded playback engine
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Checking for time-shifting
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Firing stop to playback engine
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Updating playback state
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Clearing display info
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Updating statistics
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Updating UI
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Applying database changes
5:05:05 PM: Playback: CPlayerZone::Stop: Finish (16 ms)
And I get a "Select File to Play" error. Now, I do seem to recall getting MC to play MPEG2 files at home required me to install another MPEG-2 software decoder package. It wasn't great quality though, and I don't have that software here at work. If another decoder is needed, why? And why can WiMP and WinDVD play it fine (and GSpot render it)?