So much in love with shiny new toys, it's unnatural.
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We've reviewed both the Cowon A3 and the Q5W and found them to be fantastic media players with a pretty damn wide range of video and audio format support. Cowon's just bumped up both players to 80GB, which is great since you're probably going to be loading both with lots of video files. We're still waiting for it to go up to 160GB like the iPod classics though. [Cowon]
IOGEAR's portable media player, actually named Portable Media Player, may look as generic as its name on the outside, but actually has some good features on the inside (but no screen). There's the most unique one, the ability to upscale video files to 720P for display on an HDTV, but there's also XviD, DivX, MPEG1/2, and full DVD menu support as well as a bunch of audio support. With a 120GB drive on board, the $349.95 price tag doesn't seem all that steep, but there's probably little to no chance that most people will have the use of playing back 720P video on the go, on other people's screens. Maybe if you traveled a lot and wanted to watch your own movies in hotel rooms? [IOGEAR]
NMT's Popcorn Hour network streamer looks great on paper (YouTube/Google Streaming, DVD Image playback, XviD, MPEG4, and even BitTorrent client support), but how does it actually perform? Quite well, says Networking Audio Video dot com, but with a few very annoying bugs.
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The Gadget: Linksys' slightly fancier Windows Media Center Extender, which streams the Windows Vista/XP Media Center interface over the network so you can watch live or recorded TV and downloaded files on TV in HD.
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Not only can you use this to play back streamed HD content from the Slingbox Pro HD on your HDTV, the Slingcatcher acts as a file dump for tons of file formats as well (DivX, XviD). The third and most innovative feature of the Slingcatcher is its ability to take video from your PC (either a portion of a screen or a specific window) and stream that to the Slingcatcher. It lets you watch YouTube video, ABC HD video, or anything you can play back on your computer—but on your living room HDTV.
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home entertainment
As dapreview points out, this just-announced Cowon N3 looks quite like the Cowon Q5W we reviewed a few weeks ago. The most noticeable difference comes from the fact that this has a 7-inch screen as opposed to the Q5's 5-incher. Other than that, there's no internal memory—you have to use one of two SDHC slots to add storage—and GPS and DMB (portable TV) support. The good news is that this does support DivX/XviD and all the other video and audio codecs the Q5W does, meaning that you'll never have to go a second without entertainment. Ever. [Dapreview]
Huzzah! I've discovered why XviD files didn't work in the PlayStation DivX Playback test. Apparently, streaming over Windows Media Player 11 does not work for any XviD files and most DivX files, but it does work fine if you load the files onto an external USB drive or burn it to a DVD. But there's a workaround, kind of.
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The PlayStation 3 2.10 update is here, bringing with it not only Blu-ray Profile 1.1 support (which adds picture in picture among other things), but DivX and WMV playback as well. Unfortunately, DivX support means DivX support, and doesn't include XviD as some of us hoped according to readers includes XviD support, but the files we have tested don't work at all. We threw our normal battery of files at our PS3, and came to the conclusion that it's not quite as good as the Xbox 360 implementation. Here are our notes.
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.
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3:01 AM on Tue Dec 18 2007
By Jason Chen
75,629 views,
83 comments
Latest by n/a: Hi :) I'm new in this PS3 WiFi streaming, I wonder if it is possible to get the DivX/XviD movie with subtitles on PS3? Subtitles would be in MicroDVD, Substation Alpha or other popular TXT-subtitle format... Does somebody know how to get more »
Remember Connect360, the app that let you stream music and video from your Mac to your Xbox 360? It's just been updated to support XviD and DivX functionality to match the fall upgrade you installed earlier this week. It still costs $20 if you haven't purchased it before, but you can try it for free to see if it works for you. If this were the policy for everything, we'd have a lot of half-eaten bananas at the supermarket, along with much cleanup needed in the diaper aisle. [Nullriver]
The Gadget: The Cowon Q5W PMP that has a feature list as long as my leg, which (and this is abbreviated) supports a bunch of video formats such as DivX and XviD, along with various nerd-friendly audio formats like OGG and FLAC. It's also got an optional GPS mount as well, in addition to 60GB of storage and a 800x480 display.
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5:09 PM on Wed Dec 5 2007
By Jason Chen
30,338 views,
51 comments
The Xbox 360 supports DivX and XviD as of today, which may make some of you with big file collections (like us) as giddy as a kid in store with puppies made of candy. We threw our entire collection of movies, TV shows and random clips at it and found that the 360 can play back pretty much anything. Here are some notes.
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1:00 PM on Tue Dec 4 2007
By Jason Chen
178,771 views,
98 comments
The Cowon Q5W could be one of the most feature-rich PMPs we've seen yet, even beating out Archos's big boys in terms of how much stuff you can cram into a music and video player. Oh, and it's not nearly as un-carriable as the Archos devices either, which is fantastic.
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hotness
Good news, downloadable porn DivX fans! DivX has announced today that they are currently testing the PlayStation 3 before adding their final certified stamp of approval to the device. While we'd seen rumors last week, now it's confirmed that DivX is coming to the PlayStation 3.
We've seen and tested a few streamers before, including ones that play DivX and XviD, but this Pinnacle solution looks like it's going to hit the sweet spot for price/performance. The thing can handle 1080i playback of Windows Media Video 9, WMV-DRM, MPEG1, MPEG2, MEPG4 AVI, DivX, XviD, as well as high definition files like WMV 9, DivX HD and MPEG-4 HD. The 250HD works with Vista and XP PCs that have Windows Media Player 11 or Windows Media Connect (not Windows Media Center), and can grab files through Ethernet or 802.11g. All this for a price of $200 means DivX and XviD fanatics have something to look forward to this Christmas. [Pinnacle via Uber Review]
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DivX's brand new CEO, Kevin Hell, accidentally leaked some juicy info about their Xbox 360 plans when questioned at a JP Morgan conference. An analyst questioned Hell about the new media center extenders that have DivX and Xvid compatibility and whether the same functionality was coming to Xbox. Kevin replied, "Yes! that, uh, we're in discussions with Microsoft on that at this point in time, so I can't go into any great detail on that. Um, that is not a certified, that is not a certified or licensed product at this time." The sweet sounds of backpedaling are like Chopin for our DivX-starved ears. [SeekingAlpha]
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