DVD panel accepts Divx 55
Richard Silver writes "Looks like Circuit City threw enough money at Divx. The sales were good enough this fall to get them a spot on the DVD panel at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. Check out the article on Network Computing They even refer to DVD as "Open DVD" "
Not so fast (Score:1)
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Jason Eric Pierce
Divx... bwahahaha! (Score:1)
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www.divx.com has feedback form... (Score:1)
My feedback:
I'm writing to express my extreme displeasure at your misleading website, www.divx.com.
Nearly everything on the main "about" page is either misleading, or an outright lie. (http://www.divx.com/about_divx_divxtechnology.ht
First, divx, while it might have its benefits, is NOT a DVD "enhancement" - at most, it is a modification. It should be labeled as such. More realistically, divx is a DVD bastardization, although I highly doubt you'll be putting that on your site any time soon.
Next, on the same page, you spend a few paragraphs lauding DVD technology. Everything you say there is true, but you neglect one IMPORTANT fact: the features you mention are NOT standard on divx discs, and in most cases, aren't available at all! I'm specifically looking at the following:
"Letterbox, widescreen or standard viewing" - show me a divx disc that allows you to pick which way you want to watch the movie, and I'll eat the damn thing. This is a benefit of DVD, and DVD _ONLY_ - divx doesn't support it.
"DVD can display multiple languages!" - same situation. once again, show me a divx movie that allows me to watch with my choice of 5 languages, and I'll eat it too. Another misleading paragraph.
"You want to see that cool scene from a different angle? No problem!" - This isn't yet standard on DVD, let alone divx!!! Where do you people get your information?!? DVD's allow you to see outtakes, and occasionally select alternate cameras. This is NOT a "choose your own adventure" book.
One more concern of mine: Old movies. With the divx "rent but don't return" model, once the stock of movies is gone, it's GONE. Unless of course, you plan on pressing discs forever, which I doubt. My concern: today, I can walk into a blockbuster, and find a copy of whatever obscure movie I want, or I can have them order it for me next day. If I was dealing with divx, this obscure movie wouldn't have BEEN returned to them, hence, they wouldn't have a copy to give me. DVD and VHS both allow scarce movies to still be rented/viewed. Divx does not. You convieniently forget to mention this anywhere on your web site. Then again, what was I expecting. You forgot about the BIG catch that you can't play your own Gold disc on another player (IE: friend's house). Or stop the movie halfway, and continue later. Or rewatch that favorite scene. That is, unless you're willing to pay a rental fee each and every time...
Sorry folks, but 3/4 of your "about divx" page is a push for DVD technology - which divx DOES NOT SUPPORT! I realize you're looking to get the Joe Schmoe audience here, and understand that technology-savvy persons would never buy into such a scam, but the fact is, one of these days, Joe is gonna get a bit pissed off and hit you with a misleading advertising suit, which I truely hope goes class action. I'd suggest putting a BIG fat disclaimer at the bottom of that page, saying that divx doesn't support any of these wonderful features of DVD
Here's wishing a quick demise to a shoddy product.
-Dave
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What if? (Score:1)
A. There would be a huge load of DIVX disks in the landfills for the next few centuries.
But they can't do this anyway. The manufacturing cost of DIVX movies is higher than that of open DVD; each DIVX disk has to be serialized with a different serial number so that its usage can be tracked. Also, part of the scheme is that they hope profit margins on DIVX disks is high enough so supermarkets and drug stores will sell them (which none have agreed to do yet, and none will, IMO).
Also, never in a million billion years would they give away a DIVX of a film that's in current release. They put a bastardization into DVD players as it is, called regional encoding, so that international consumers couldn't buy DVDs from America of films in international release.
DIVX is different from renting in many ways. For one thing, it's intentionally monopolistic: you can only rent DIVX from DIVX. If DIVX decides they don't like you, your player will stop playing DIVX.
And regardless of what they think of you, they WILL sell your address to anyone who asks, along with a list of genres of movies you watch and the times when you watch them. (Including DVDs you watch.)
DIVX won't catch on... one big reason is that because of the DES encryption, players can't be exported. Finally a reason to celebrate the crappy encryption export regulation!
$12k.... (Score:1)
is a turn-off for me.
I'll probably just have to take a page out of the
Hamas handbook and pack a $200 car full of
explosives. I can lodge a brick on top of the gas
and make a run for it before the explosion hits.
The question is: what kind of explosives should I
be looking to use? The feds are looking at big
fertilizer purchases, C4 is hard to get and
expensive...
Maybe a fuel-air bomb. Anyone got schematics?
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Why does divx suck? (Score:1)
Um, actually, that's exactly what they are. Add to that things like the fact that you unlock a player's ability to play a disc, not the disc itself; so even if you pay for unlimited play, you can't play it on any other player. I'm not sure how upgrading your player is handled; I would think they wouldn't force you to throw out your whole movie collection, but this thing is such an obvious money grab I wouldn't put it past 'em.
If I may borrow a line from Nancy Reagan - Just Say No!
Why does divx suck? (Score:1)
Y'know, the more I think about this the more I think Rick Sharp needs a good ass whippin'.
Misinformed consumers ... (Score:1)
I'm glad the DVD player I ordered doesn't do DIVX. I like to own what I buy, thanks.
Divx Sales figures are a lie. (Score:1)
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DaBuzz.net [dabuzz.net]
Misinformed consumers ... (mincing words) (Score:1)
When I buy dinner, I do own the food -- they let me take it out of their restaurant with me (or in me). And you don't pay for charity, you give to charity. Payment implies services or goods rendered, so a charity isn't payment. And besides, he said he *likes* to own what he buys. The few exceptions are rather unfortunate, and everyone I know would avoid them if it was possible.
DVDs are encoded in 480P.. (Score:1)
Actually DVDs are encoded using 480p
-Ex-Nt-User
The Spawn of the Devil (Score:1)
Toodles - remember buy and own not buy and rent
Absolutely! (Score:1)
I used to not think highly of copying music, art, etc. Things have changed, and corporate America is sueing baseball camps for singing songs - freedom of speech.
It's time freedom of speech outlawed the copyright altogether.
Competition for AOL (Score:1)
Do you think Circuit shitty can overcome them?
(Pretty good aliases, eh?)
Noone would buy a book that reported its usage (Score:1)
I can take or leave the technology behind DIVX; there's nothing inherently good or bad about a technology, only in its application. DIVX is a crummy idea because it disregards the consumer's desire for (a) control of something they pay for, and (b) privacy.
Maybe, though, this isn't a product of marketing ignorance, but a ploy to refine targeted marketing using your viewing habits. In that case, DIVX is a direct assault on individual privacy, just as if Barnes & Noble was able to place a transceiver in each book you buy, and base their marketing on your recorded reading habits. Noone would buy a book that reported its usage; why would you buy a media player that did so?
Jon
Divx is evil (Score:1)
I have a DVD player and personally choose not to purchase anything at circuit city because they endorse divx. Seriously, divx is evil stuff concocted by lawyers.
DiVX commercial (Score:1)
Even if CC could sell DivX to everyone going into their store looking for a DVD-like player, DVD would still be more popular because all the other stores are still selling DVD, and DVD can be used in computers.
I think DivX is being sold to two market segments: the uninformed (and that will change as DVD becomes the standard) and those who are hedging their bets by getting the dual-use players (I haven't compared quality, so I can't judge, but if quality is an issue, then the more informed will stop going this way).
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Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Will a DIVX player play DVDs without a phone line? (Score:1)
My question is, if someone gave me a free DIVX player could I use it as a DVD player without hooking it up to a phone line?
Misinformed consumers ... (mincing words) (Score:1)
Um, I realize this is playing with words a bit but if one is renting an apartment one does not also need to mortgage a home. :)
Seriously, though, if you mortgage your house, you own however much you've paid back on your loan. You *are* buying it. Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars laying around to buy a house outright? Well, if so, fabulous! But for the rest of us, we have to borrow money to buy things.
So yes, every penny (except of course for the damned interest :) spent on a mortgage is *buying* something.
I didn't lease my vehicle, but I do have a loan on it. I just didn't have $25,000 laying around screaming "buy a truck with me!". However, every month when I make a payment on that loan, that money goes to work for *me* ... not someone else. Later I can sell the thing if I want and keep the difference between what I get on it and what I owe on it.
Renting an apartment sucks. I do that now. I hate it. I'm saving up for a down payment on a mortgage for a house, though, and when I get that mortgage, I *will* own that house. Granted, I'll own less than 1% of it at first, but whatever I've paid into it is *mine*.
I don't donate to charities. And when you buy dinner, I'm pretty sure you then own the food you've put into your body. I somehow doubt anybody would dispute ownership of something that's being digested or excreted :)
I, too, insist on owning things I pay for. Renting an apartment is counter-productive in that regard; I intend to fix it :P (keep in mind I'm 20 years old here, folks, so I don't have any major stashes of money laying around :P)
I will never buy Divx. I never do pay-per-view. I dislike seeing movies in theatres. And I *really* despise paying late fees (on anything: credit card bills, rent, phone bills, etc.), so I avoid doing so. Anything I buy should be something that works for *me* ... not someone else.
When I was arguing with a monkey at Circus City (hehehe:) about Divx, he and the other three guys who ganged up on me to force my mind to change in Divx's favor finally admitted that Divx is just a way for the movie studios to make more money. Now if you're satisfied with renting your apartment, where the rent money you pay never does anything good for you again, then perhaps Divx *is* good for you. However, *I* don't care about lining a movie studio's pockets. I want to watch good movies over and over again, *wherever* I am.
DiVX commercial (Score:1)
Heh, he would look more in place about 40 years ago selling some vacuum for Hoover.
As for DiVX, this is about the worst idea yet. Sounds like "smoking some good stuff" is still going strong in the R&D dept.
based on the article... (Score:1)
We're just gonna have to deal with 2 formats from now on. At least for 10 years or so.
M
What if? (Score:1)
Encourage swapping? (Score:1)
This way, one person pays for the title, and then you trade it to someone who has not seen that movie on that player, so they can play it once.
Since the disks are mass produced, the serial numbers are probably the same for each title.
If divix has to pay for each time a movie is watched, then it can't make any money since the movie has been paid for once.
So who's starting the divix disk exchange. Pay 50 cents, swap a movie.
How Divx Players can be Hacked (Score:1)
(The actual command sequence for two players players follows the quoted text)
12/29/98
OK, here's what appears to be the skinny on that Divx "player hack" everyone's been talking about recently. There is a way to "decommission" a Divx player, effectively wiping its memory clean of billing and account information. This can likely be done on all Divx players, and instructions for doing so on the RCA RC-52303 and Zenith Inteq 2100 have been posted widely around the Net (check this Anti-Divx site for the instructions, under the section appropriately labeled "Little Black Boxes"). So great, right? A Divx-killer? Not exactly.
Here's the problem: while decommissioning your player will prevent the billing information (for say, several movies you just watched) from being sent to the Divx host computer, it also kills your billing account registration data. And your player requires the registration data in order to function. So you'll have to keep registering your player over and over again. Which will likely tip Divx off to what you're doing. So while it may work once or twice, you might regret doing it in the end, especially if Divx decides to start charging a penalty fee for repeated re-registration.
All in all, I certainly can't recommend this procedure. Then again, if you're willing to take the risk, be sure to let me know what happens. As they say, inquiring minds want to know...!
Command Sequences:
Decommissioning a Zenith DIVX player: To decommission a Zenith DIVX player: **Make sure there is no disc in the machine then power the machine on and then off--- while the machine is off press the following keys in the exact order (STOP-STOP-REVERSE-STOP-FORWARD-FORWARD-REVERSE)*
Decommissioning a RCA DIVX player: To decommission a RCA DIVX player. **Make sure there is no disc in the machine then power the machine on and then off--- while the machine is off press the following keys in the exact order while holding down the POWER key at the same time.
(STOP-STOP-FOWARD-FOWARD)** The process takes a minute or so. The letters DEC should appear on the screen and your player is decommissioned.
Who would want a DIVX Disc? (Score:1)
Ok, even if you could crack your divx player so that you would never get charged, who would want to pay 4.50 for a pan and scan disc with no extra features? I certainly wouldn't. DIVX is just shit.