Aug 28, 2008 19:00

LG to Launch First DivX Certified(R) DVD Player from a Major Manufacturer Capable of Playing HD Video

Innovative "Floating" Player Lets Consumers Enjoy HD Content on Standard DVD Device
SAN DIEGO & SEOUL, Korea —(Business Wire)— Aug. 28, 2008 DivX, Inc. (NASDAQ: DIVX), a digital media company, and LG Electronics, Inc. today announced the DivX Certification(TM) of a new DVD player from LG capable of playing high-definition DivX(R) video.

Incorporating a stylish and sleek design capable of being mounted on a wall, LG's new DivX Certified(R) DVD player, the DVS450H, allows consumers to play their personal libraries of high-definition digital content. With this device, consumers can enjoy high-definition DivX videos burned to DVD's or stored on USB flash drives. Typical HD video requires a considerable amount of digital storage space, but DivX HD video provides a superior media experience by maintaining the highest visual quality while significantly reducing the digital file size of the video. Using DivX technology, a full-length high-definition movie is able to fit onto a standard DVD.

"The demand for products that play DivX video has continually driven us to produce solutions that maximize this high-quality experience across a range of product categories," said Dan D.H. Koh, Head of Marketing Strategy Team in LG Electronics' Digital Media Company. "Incorporating support for high-definition DivX video on this DVD player illustrates this in a significant way. We are committed to bringing our customers the very best entertainment solutions and are pleased that working with DivX fulfills this vision."

"Bringing high-definition video to LG's newest DVD player illustrates our mission of enabling a high-quality media experience across any device," said Kevin Hell, Chief Executive Officer, DivX, Inc. "This new player from LG simplifies the consumer transition to HD entertainment by providing a high-definition experience on a familiar DVD platform. We are delighted to work with LG in bringing consumers a premium solution for their digital content."

Products that bear the DivX Certified(R) logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure a high-quality DivX media experience, including reliable video playback, interoperability with other DivX Certified devices and the visual quality that users expect from DivX.

LG is a major manufacturer across consumer electronics product categories who has embraced DivX Certification within a variety of different platforms, including mobile phones, digital televisions, and in-car media players.

Flexplay, a company that's been peddling self-destructing DVDs for five years or so, teaming up with the office supply store to start selling the coasters for $4.99 each later this month. It's pretty much exactly like the deal between DIVX and Circuit City that tanked so badly back around the turn of the century, but now they're doing it at a time when downloads are becoming more popular, Netflix is ubiquitous and there's a newer disc format out there competing with DVD. Boy, I don't see how this can fail! [PC World]

Key Features: - Play most video formats (DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB + more) - Play DVD files WITHOUT converting them - Sync, organize and watch non-iTunes video files - Browse the web with a Safari based web browser - Rent & watch Hi-Def movies from Jaman.com - Stream media from UPnP(v1) media servers - View local weather forecasts - View RSS Feeds - Enable SSH access - All original Apple TV features remain intact - And much, much more...

Panasonic to Release DivX Certified Blu-ray DVD Player Next Generation DVD Player to be Available in Europe and Russia DivX, Inc., a digital media company, announced the DivX® Certification of Panasonic's Blu-ray Disc (BD) Player The Panasonic Blu-ray Disc player, which joins a number of existing DivX Certified products from Panasonic, is scheduled to be released beginning in March and is expected to be the first DivX Certified® Blu-ray Disc Player available in Europe and Russia. Like Panasonic's existing DivX Certified DVD players, the latest DivX Certified Panasonic Blu-ray disc player enables users to enjoy high-quality DivX video playback. "In order to give our users access to the extremely popular, high-quality DivX format, we have introduced the first DivX-Certified Blu-ray Disc Player for Europe and Russia," said Yuki Kusumi, Group Manager of Product Technology, Video Business Unit, Network Business Group, Panasonic AVC Networks Company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. "The timely launch of this strategic product is a direct response to the strong demand for DivX playback among consumers. We are very confident this product will be very popular in the European and Russian markets." "The DivX Certified Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Player is a great device from a leader in next generation DVD technology, and marks an important strategic milestone in our growth into new product categories," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. "DivX has already become a de-facto standard on existing DVD players and we are well-positioned to repeat that success in the Blu-ray category. We're pleased Panasonic continues to recognize DivX technology as an important feature on next-generation devices." Products that bear the DivX Certified logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure a high quality DivX media experience that includes reliable video playback, excellent visual quality, and interoperability with other DivX Certified digital devices. The DivX logo has become a powerful symbol for a high-quality digital video experience across any device. About DivX, Inc. DivX, Inc. is a digital media company that enables consumers to enjoy a high-quality video experience across any kind of device. DivX creates, distributes and licenses digital video technologies that span the "three screens" comprising today's consumer media environment—the PC, the television and mobile devices. Over 100 million DivX Certified devices have shipped into the market from leading consumer electronics manufacturers. DivX also offers content providers and publishers a complete solution for the distribution of secure, high-quality digital video content. Driven by a globally recognized brand and a passionate community of hundreds of millions of consumers, DivX is simplifying the video experience to enable the digital home.

Update: A reader points out that DivX was saying Stage 6 is successful, but consumed too much of their attention and resources, so the only options they had were to spin it off, sell it, or shut it down. We're not one to argue about varying levels of being "successful", but if it really were as "successful" in terms of being "profitable", we're not sure why DivX couldn't hire some more employees to man the site. Having a dedicated site to provide content in the correct format would have been a good asset to have as the DivX "platform" is growing.

The Price: $299

The Performance: Fantastic. We were able to stream live 1080i over-the-air (OTA) HDTV with no glitches for the most part, and whatever glitches we did see were due to the fact that OTA reception in our area isn't great and we had a small antenna. But when we watched pre-recorded content in both 720p and 1080p, there were zero glitches or dropouts. We tested this both with the wired internet and the Wireless 802.11N network via Linksys's WRT600N Router, and it was super smooth even over Wi-Fi.

Its DVD playback was fine, and is convenient if you want to use this in a spare guest room or a bedroom to stream HDTV off off without hooking up HDTV connections or getting another DVR. The DVD is just a bonus. Also, this extender handles XviD files (but not DivX), meaning you can grab TV shows you missed off of BitTorrent and watch them as well, without having to transcode anything.

The Verdict: Did the extender do everything it promised to do and do it well? Definitely. Streaming perfect HD over 802.11n Wi-Fi isn't a small feat, and doing so when supporting XviD and DVD playback is impressive as well. But is it worth $299 when you can get an Xbox 360 that does pretty much the same thing for the same price? Yes, if you want 802.11n Wi-Fi streaming and XviD playback inside the Media Center interface. If not, then you're better off getting an Xbox 360 and getting gaming out of the deal as well.

We got a hands-on with it earlier in the week and were pretty impressed. Some scenarios that we can think of are:

• Streaming HD from your DVR in your living room to your Slingcatcher in your bedroom.
• Dumping a bunch of BitTorrented DivX/XviD files onto a USB drive, taking it to the Slingcatcher, plugging it in and watching.
• Opening up ABC HD, turning on last night's Lost, and watching it on the TV instead of the computer.

Convenient! [Slingbox]

Update: The 2200 looks like it's not shipping quite yet (1-2 weeks), but the 2100 is.

Update 2: Turns out the Linksys systems only support XviD and not DivX. [2100 via 2200]

The best alternative to get "streaming" to work with Windows Media Player 11 is to first locate the file you want to watch over the network, then press the triangle button and copy it to your PS3. The same file that couldn't play back a minute ago will happily render itself when viewed off the PlayStation 3's hard drive.

It seems to us that the fault may either lie with the way that WMP11 streams files or the way that the PS3 plays back streamed files over the network—we're not sure. If the PS3 supported SMB networking, this problem might be eliminated. We'll have to check back in the future if and when they do add this feature.

Sorry for the confusion everybody! When I got DivX, and not XviD, to stream correctly, I assumed that XviD does not work. I should have tested it on an external drive as well. But hurray, XviD works fine on PS3. Thanks for checking up on us.

Update: I just did another test, and EyeConnect on Macs seem to stream DivX and XviD just fine for me. So it looks like a WMP11 problem. Has anyone else gotten it to support streaming w/ WMP11? TVersity seems to stream alright on PCs too, according to some users.

Update 2: Just re-confirmed that TVersity works for me, but the same files that work in TVersity don't work streaming over WMP11. Very strange.

Update: We've found that XviD playback does work, but only on burned DVDs and external hard drives. See here for an update and a workaround.

DivX and WMV play back fine. Just as they claimed, the PS3 now can play back DivX files and WMV files. No problemo.

XviD does not work. Again, no XviD support at all. You'd be surprised how many of your files are actually XviD and not DivX, especially if you've been "obtaining" TV shows and movies over the years. Often times the files aren't labeled with the codec type in the name, so you'll have to try and play it back to know whether or not it's supported. If it's not, the file name will change to "Unsupported Data." [Some readers are reporting that XviD support works. Others have written us saying that some files work, others don't. Jason has tried this with a few XviD files and none of them worked. -JD]

Streaming only works off of Windows Media Player 11 shares, not Windows Media Connect or SMB (regular Windows folder sharing). This one could be a biggie. The PlayStation 3 doesn't actually support SMB network shares, which is the default Windows folder sharing network protocol that both Linux and OS X understand. This means you're going to have to install Windows Media Player 11 (or something similar, like Orb) in order to stream video from your home computer. Windows Media Connect, which sits on our Windows Home Server that housed most of our video files, didn't work. WMP11 did.

You can play files off a burned CD/DVD. If your PlayStation 3 isn't connected to a network, or if it's hooked up to a Wi-Fi network that's too slow to stream big files without dropping out, you can burn your flicks to a DVD. This is a hassle, but ensures that your movie experience won't be interrupted by someone microwaving popcorn.

The quality is pretty good. When we got the network streaming to work and found a compatible DivX file out of all our XviDs, playback was smooth and (for the most part) artifact free.

Video dimensions stretch well. The PS3 knows exactly what aspect ratio your files are and stretches them to fit your screen without distortion. The 360 couldn't quite handle that without a little coaxing.

The first time you play back a WMV file, you need to activate WMA playback first. Not a huge deal, but kind of a pain that you have to go to the System Settings screen and activate WMA playback before you can watch any WMV file that uses the codec.

Playback controls are gimpy. This isn't the fault of the new DivX support, but of the way the PS3 handles all video playback. It's usable, but it's not as polished as the Xbox's (which wasn't all that great to begin with.) UI isn't Sony's strong suit.

It's not all bad news though, as the PS3 is actually entirely DivX certified—unlike the Xbox 360. This means that the console natively supports the codec, so games can play back DivX files as their in-game cut scene movies. However, this fact doesn't help out the rabid downloader that's expecting it to play back most of his media files—like the Xbox 360 does. If you're looking for a machine to replace that aging Xbox Media Center (XBMC), the 360 is the current winner.

As far as upgrade details go, the PS3 is DivX-certified, meaning not only is playback guaranteed to function properly, but game developers can also use the compression format for in-game cutscenes In comparison, the Xbox 360 merely supports playback of DivX-encoded videos [DivX]

The Price: $599 for 60GB, $549 for 40GB

The Performance: Since the Cowon has so many features, any combination of which could be the deciding point for you, we'll go through each one in bullet point form.

• Movie playback: Fantastic. The screen is bright and crisp, and played back all the DivX/XviD files we threw at it. No stutter, no lag, no problem. It handles all aspect ratios just fine, expanding it to fit the generous 5-inch screen. Its built-in speakers are pretty good for watching stuff without headphones as well.

• Audio playback: It supports a laundry list of audio formats, and has a playback screen that's slightly too complex for a normal PMP. On the other hand, this isn't a normal PMP that's meant to be used with one finger. You definitely need the stylus.

• FM Radio: It does the job, but you need to have the headphones plugged in to hear anything, much like the first Sirius Stilettos.

• GPS Navigation: Fantastic. Just plug the unit into the dock, plug the dock into the cigarette adapter, and you're ready to go. The dock even has an FM transmitter so you can broadcast GPS sound, music, or movie (audio) over your car's speakers. The actual navigation is great too, with a pleasing female narrator and airplane-esque ding noise. The icons are large enough that you can hit with your finger instead of the stylus, and the UI has a 2D, 3D, and 2D/3D view. You can even listen to your on-board music while you're navigating as well.

• Photo Browser: It's a pretty decent photo browser, but where it really excels is its ability to read RAW files from various camera manufacturers. It ate up our Canon RAW files and displayed them at just about the same speed as the JPG files from our Samsung point and shoot. Good times. Very useful for photogs on the go.

• Internet connectivity: Because the whole device runs on Windows CE, you get Internet Explorer and MSN Messenger as part of the deal. As long as you're connected to Wi-Fi, you chat and browse with the onscreen keyboard just fine.

• Flaws: Although the Q5 is fast when you're inside an app (such as video or audio), getting around the device is kind of sluggish. You also have to make sure the task bar is unhidden in order to bring up the on-screen keyboard, something we had to get help on. The Wi-Fi antenna is also kind of flimsy, and you pretty much need to use the stylus for everything. Other than that, the only major flaw is that it's running on Windows CE, which is fine for some but may infuriate others.

The Verdict: The Q5W is super rich in features and plays back loads of video and audio files. It's fast, but kind of heavy, and is on the borderline of being pocketable (assuming you don't wear Bruce Springsteen jeans circa 1985). The GPS features are awesome for a PMP, and should make this a definite keeper in the car. If you're looking for a device that plays just about every file you have on the plane, on the train, or to work, you can do a whole lot worse than the Cowon Q5W. [Cowon]

You can play files off of a CD/DVD. This feature wasn't listed on the Xbox Team's website as one of the supported locations for playing back content, but this is fantastic for homes that have wireless networks (or no network at all). In fact, reading off a disc is probably the best way to ensure your movie won't cut out in the middle due to network congestion (unlikely) or someone turning off the computer accidentally (fairly likely).

It supports almost all files. It played back all TV shows we threw at it, including My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, and The Venture Bros.. Most of these, and most TV downloaded TV shows, are encoded in XviD format. As for DivX, that's supported back to version 5.0, but it's unlikely that you're going to find any DivX 3 or DivX 4 online, unless you're talking about old files you've saved for a couple years.

AC3 Audio is supported. Nice! AC3 support was added in the Spring Update, but it's nice to see it working with DivX/XviD. Too bad it's not 5.1 though. 5.1 is supported!

It supports Windows Home Server as well. Along with USB drives and WMP11 streaming, you can also stream DivX/XviD from Windows Home Server too. It makes sense to store all your videos on here, since videos are big and WHS has a lot of room. QED.

Video Stretching is kind of weird. The Xbox will try and auto-fit your video to the screen when it starts playing, but it gets confused easily with different video dimensions. You'll want to manually change the playback mode to either letterbox or stretched, depending on what kind of content (widescreen, fullscreen, PAL) you're playing back.

You can skip through a video with the bumpers. RB and LB let you skip forward and back through the movie, but might not be granular enough to get to the place you want to be. You'll have to use the trigger buttons to FF or RW.

It's fast. If your network connection is fast enough (my network is Gigabit Ethernet enabled, which isn't a huge deal since the 360 is only 10/100), the video should play back without a hitch. It's quite nice to be able to play back stuff on your 360, in HD, without having to transcode it into WMV first.

It doesn't work in Windows Media Center Extender. You're going to have to kick out of WMC and back to the dashboard in order to play your videos. Annoying for people who like to switch between live TV and downloaded content.

It's not entirely perfect. It's 90% of the way there, but 5.1 AC3 support, improved handling of different video dimensions, better playback controls and Windows Media Center Extender support will make this the perfect DivX/Xvid implementation.

It's got Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 600MHz processor, 5-inch touchscreen LCD, 40-60GB of storage, flash-player, wireless remote, FM radio, voice recorder, stereo speakers, component/composite/S-Video TV out, RAW support for various cameras, super video codec support (DivX, XviD, MPEG4, WMV7/8/9) at 720x480, super audio support MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, WAV, FLAC, APE, MPC), and a battery life of 13 hours (audio) and seven hours (video). Best of all it's only $549 for the 40GB version and $599 for the 60GB version. Even better? There's an optional car mount in order to either use all its multimedia capabilities on, OR, use it as a GPS! Stick around for a hands-on of this in the next couple of days. [Cowon]

**15. What types of AVI files are supported?

The Xbox 360 supports files encoded using MPEG-4 Part 2, Simple and Advanced Simple Profile. These files are often referred to as Xvid or DivX® video files. Many common PC DVD authoring tools, cameras, and camcorders are capable of encoding files using MPEG-4. Note that some files authored for DivX devices may also contain additional functionality(menus, subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc). The Xbox 360 will attempt to play these files, but does not support any of the additional functionality and in some cases will be unable to play the file.

16. Why don't some of my older versions of DivX® files play?

Since we only support Mpeg-4 compatible codec implementations, we will not be able to play video files older than DivX® 5.0.

Original post, before we knew about DivX:

We thought that the previously released details of Xbox 360's Fall Update were kinda lame, and hoped the rest of the yet-to-be-released features would make up for the fact that seeing your friends' friends, parental timers, and downloadable Xbox 1 games are so-so at best. No such luck. Microsoft's just dropped the rest of the details, and they're not so great either.

The new features are Xbox LIVE Arcade Hits (a plan to discount older XBLA games permanently), Inside Xbox (a news stream from Xbox.com to your Dashboard), an enhanced online profile (you can enter in more details about yourself), full-screen movie previews, and slightly changed navigation. Here's the full release:

MORE DOWNLOAD OPTIONS:
Xbox Originals - With this new service, announced on Nov. 13, consumers can download-to-own full original Xbox games that were previously only available at retail. The digital shelves will always be stocked with classic titles, such as "Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex," "Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge," "Halo," "Fable," "Fuzion Frenzy," "Psychonauts," and more as the catalogue grows over time, at 1200 Microsoft Points per game.

· Xbox LIVE Arcade Hits - On Xbox LIVE Arcade, the Arcade Hits program kicks off where some of the best sellers will become available at permanently reduced prices, making it easier than ever for everyone to build a library of downloadable games! The first games to become Arcade Hits will be "Bankshot Billiards 2" and "Lumines LIVE," which will be available for 800 Microsoft Points each, and "Marble Blast Ultra," "Small Arms" and "Zuma Deluxe," which will be available for 400 Microsoft Points each. With free trial downloads for every game and over 100 games to choose from, Xbox LIVE Arcade offers something for every member of the family.

NEW WAYS TO KEEP UP TO DATE AND CONNECTED:
· Inside Xbox - A new direct feed brings current news straight from Xbox.com into the Xbox LIVE Dashboard providing members an easy, predictable entry point where they can discover what's new in: game releases, events, and Xbox LIVE Marketplace offers.

· Enhanced online profile - Members interested in sharing a few more details about themselves will have the option to go beyond their motto and further personalize their profile with an expanded bio. The extended bios will be visible to "Friends Only" or the entire Xbox LIVE community.

· Expanded Friends List access - A quick and easy way for gamers to expand their personal community on Xbox LIVE, members will be able to see the Friends Lists of other Xbox LIVE members, boosting their social networking experience on the service.

ENHANCED OVERALL EXPERIENCE AND CONTROL:
Enhanced Parental Controls - Family Timer, a strong and flexible new addition to the Xbox 360 Family Settings, enables parents to set the amount of time their Xbox 360 can be used on a per-day or per-week basis by their children or other members of the household.

New video features - The convenience of full-screen movie previews and enhanced video codec support further expand the options when it comes to the Xbox 360 entertainment experience.

· Easy-to-use navigation features - With several noteworthy changes in the Xbox LIVE Dashboard, from the new Game Store button to the Video Store button to enhanced visuals and descriptions in the video library, Xbox LIVE members can find what they want, when they want it.

Details are scant, but interested PS3 owners will first have to upgrade to the recently released firmware 2.00 before downloading the still unreleased DivX decoder itself. DivX gets a major bump in living room support, while Sony continues to blur the lines of entertainment console and multimedia PC. Once again, we wonder why Sony didn't do this sooner. But once again, we're happy nonetheless. [infosyncworld]

[Ziova]

It's a funny little system, consisting of a video-capable USB flash drive, a dock with S-video, AV composite connectors and a power cord, and a remote that the flash drive can hug when not in use. You dock the USB drive to a Windows PC to load videos from the Fanfare service, but you can also dock it in any computer, Mac or PC, and load DivX, xVid and MPEG-4 videos onto it as a mass storage drive.Fanfare setup is extremely straightforward: you sign up for a free Fanfare account, download the Windows-only client software, browse the collections from CBS, Showtime and others (slated for heavy growth in the content-partner area, says SanDisk), and click the "plus" sign when you see something you like. If the TakeTV is plugged in, the video will begin loading. If not, you will be prompted to insert it.At the moment you can't download to hard drive, and need a TakeTV. In the future, SanDisk promises that other flash devices using the TrustedFlash DRM technology would be compatible with Fanfare downloads.

Downloads are encoded in DivX, and an hour of programming takes up just under 1GB of memory. Download time can be slow if your connection isn't up to it, but the experience wasn't unusually sluggish. A 4GB TakeTV can hold up to 5 hours of 720x480 programming.

Once your TakeTV is filled with good stuff—for now, most of it is free—you take it to your TV (like the name implies) and place it in the dock, which you connect to your TV via S-Video or composite, plus stereo audio.Immediately a rudimentary menu pops up, and shows you your content:You select a video and after a potentially long "loading..." period, it starts to play. I'm not going to lie, the video doesn't look great on a big 1080p TV. I know that's being harsh, since it's just 480i, but the Vudu box with 480p upscaled content looked damn fine, and SanDisk's Fanfare content is nowhere near that quality. Shows look blurry (as you can plainly see in the shot below), though the sound (128 Kbps) is just fine.
I had a bit of trouble with a few of the videos downloaded, but let me say that since this is a beta, I'm willing to let that slide. Of course the content on the site was sparse, and I'm willing to let that go for now, too, because I fully expect SanDisk to keep its promise of expanding options.

The beef I have now is with the hardware: the remote sucked—it was non-responsive and not terribly intuitive, and fastforwarding and rewinding were exercises in frustration. While I like the simple USB-drive technique for loading video, either with Fanfare or on your own, I think that the collection of pieces is a bit of a mess: despite the fact that the drive fits snugly in both the dock and the remote, there's no real clear way to hold all of it together in a tidy package. And if you lose the remote or leave the dock at home when you're at a friend's, you are screwed.

I branded this with a "wait and see" verdict because there's so much promise, but not enough delivered yet for a full-on gavel-banging judgment. My advice to you is to join Fanfare as a lurker, before you buy the TakeTV. If you start seeing content you want, you may consider TakeTV as it is currently the only way to make use of Fanfare video. Also, if you have loads of DivX vids and are constantly yearning for a way to shuttle them to your living room, here's your chance. But my early sense is, you'll have to put up with some growing pains before TakeTV is a mature, worthwhile product. [SanDisk's TakeTV Site]

If you go a little glazed over when you hear people talk about media streaming, that's okay: most, I've found, are not convenient enough for regular use with large numbers of music or video files. But one hopes that DivX knows this, and will work hard to make the experience enjoyable. For people in UK, France and Germany, that is, where it will launch at first. [Press release and site]

•You can download videos from Stage 6, and since the box doesn't have storage, it actually is queuing the server PC to download the file directly. Download screen shows the speed of the DL and the ETA.
•But over a Wireless G connection 1080p and even 720p HD content will not be playable without stutter.
•Over Wifi G, the menu lags at times; With Ethernet, the UI is quick and works very well (We think the thumbnails don't cache).
•The remote feels cheap but highly functional with dedicated music / photo / video / stage6 buttons, and a mysterious and currently unused internet button.
•The box is a pretty thin client, doing basic openGL graphics for the UI and doing much of the processing of content on the PC. The client software (beta) uses 150 MBs of RAM and put the CPU at about 5-20% on a modern notebook while playing back 1080p video. Not bad.

Here's the interesting thing that keeps costs down — decoding of, say a HD DivX video stream is done on your PC and the decompressed (or partially decompressed) video is sent to the box. That keeps the cost of the box down, and although DivX wouldn't say how much the boxes would be when the launched in a couple of months, I'd guess that they'd be below $200.

Minimum requirements for the box are a P4 1.6Ghz CPU, with half a gig of RAM. More as we play with this thing.