Best Divx/Xvid DVD Player!!!

[SIRCOOKS]

What is the best divx/xvid dvd player, or dvd player i can buy out there to handle all the video formats. Also, how do i play them, 1) burn onto disc, or 2) internaal hd in dvd player. If there are ones with internal hd's please send url. Holla Back.

[PuzZLeR]

Greetings,

Can't say which is best, maybe the next post will do so...

However, I will say, from experience and from being a regular at divx.com, avoid Philips players. They apparently make great shavers though, which tells you something.

I have two Philips players now collecting dust. One is near the litterbox of my cats and looks real fitting there. Seek problems, slow navigation, sticky playback, bad decoding and even crashes - yes crashes. I'm not the only one with this problem either apparently...

I have a Toshiba which plays great now, but I'm sure there's other good ones too.

Look into a player that has a USB link to a hard drive. There are several available now, do a search. (Don't have one yet though so not sure.) This type of storage is becoming the norm in the market nowadays instead of the, now tiny, storage on discs (until of course BD or HD-DvD matures).

As well, if disc playback on stand-alone devices is an option, you only need to burn the DivX/Xvid video as data. Make sure all files are in the root directory - no folders, and make sure the disc is finalized otherwise some players may complain.

As far as the "Ultra" certified devices for DivX are concerned, as of today, the promised features such as menus, subtitles, and other DvD-like features for DivX video are still problematic. Software for it is slow, weak and buggy, and even re-encodes video unnecessarily. Sometimes you will need over 15 hours to make one stupid disc. Geez.

As of today, when using DivX, just stick with data files. Otherwise, if you need menus, etc, then make a conventional DvD instead.

And if you want players that play many formats, then if you want to wait a bit more, there will soon be players that will playback H.264, the latest video standard that has better compression and quality. I will assume that these players, at least at the beginning, will also play DivX/Xvid as well.

[SIRCOOKS]

Can you provide a link or recomend somewhere i can purchase one from...also what do think about these..ebay Item number: 230162691176...check those out

[redwudz]

Oppo seems to be popular. http://www.oppodigital.com/

[MJA]

I agree wit him about the shitty quality of the philips .my 642 model didn't last 6 months.sadly Philips dvd players are very popular because are cheap.


if you going to buy the Philips get the service plan with it

if you care about quality and money isn't a big issue get the Oppo

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv980h/default.asp

[PuzZLeR]

This Oppo looks real smooth. Currently my Toshiba's doing fine, but if I was in the market for a DivX/Xvid DvD player I'd certainly love one.

Keep in mind the market is going through a transition though. DivX/Xivd is now "old". If you're looking for several playback formats, new stand-alones that will also play H.264 are coming out. I'm personally not buying another player until these are out.

If you don't care about H.264, then this Oppo is pretty much as good as it gets, especially for that price.

If you do care about H.264, you can wait just a bit longer.

But if you want H.264, but can't wait and need DivX/Xvid playback now and have a low budget, then you can grab a dirt-cheap Philips player for now that will last you about 3-6 months until it dies on you. At least it will serve its purpose inexpensively until the new format players are out.

MJA does make a good point about Philips being cheap which is why they suck. I guess Philips players serve a need for the market where you need a quickie and cheapie to playback DivX/Xvid for the short term.

It's funny. I bought my second Philips player because I was hosting a Christmas party and needed a DivX player for a couple of video files that I did not have time to convert to DvD. My last one died and I needed a new one quick. Like the first, the second Philips was cheap. Yes the second one died as well a few months later but at least it saved my party for a few bucks and wasn't a big deal.

Depends what you're looking for...

[DarrellS]

I've had my Philips 642 for about 4 years and my 5140 for 2 years and they're both working fine today.

That said, If I was buying a new player, I'd want one that could play all the HD formats. I don't think I'll be buying any Blueray or HD DVD and IMO, working with AVCHD sucks unless you have a high dollar PC with high dollar software to create this format. Normal H264/AVC seems to work OK. All of the HD DivX that I've seen looks and works great on a PC running Windows 2000 with a 3.2GB HT P4 as does all of the WMVHD that I've seen.

To be honest, I don't see any reason for the Blueray, HD-DVD and AVC-HD craze except to make millions of dollars off of the few people who can afford these formats.

When someone starts selling a DVD player that will play both HD-DivX and HD-WMV files for under $200, they'll own the market. The best looking videos that I've seen are in these two formats since I can't watch most AVCHD on my PC.

Here is the player that I would get if I could afford it...

http://www.divx.com/products/hw/detail.php?p=217

Here are some WMV-HD files if you want to check them out...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

EDIT: Oh and you don't need to buy any special Blueray HD DVD burners to create these HD discs. The DVD burner that you already use to burn DVDs will work just fine. No special high dollar software either. Free codecs and free software like Virtualdub will do the trick.

[Krispy Kritter]

I've been extremely happy with my Oppo 971H. Both as a DVD player (one of the highest rated video quality players available) and as a Divx player.

And for all the Philips haters, I have 2 of the original version 642 players, both over 4 years old now and both working fine.

[MJA]

And for all the Philips haters, .

and I'm proud of it. I will never support any company produce garbage .

check the old review s at amazon.com. tons of bad reviews like "dead after 6 months" "dead after 8 months". I'm not sure if the 5960,and 5982 are the same like 642 I bought few years ago

[jman98]

Sigh. Here we go again about Philips. While I admit that there are some serious quality issues with Philips, my DVP-642 has been working fine for over THREE years now. Why? One reason is that I keep it in an extremely well ventilated area. Some people like MJA may simply have gotten bad models. It does happen. Then again, what some people won't tell you is that they stored their player in a tightly enclosed area with no air circulation and piled crap on top of it and then get surprised when the player burns out because it overheats. Again, I cannot tell you whether or not MJA did this, but SOME people do this and then blame the manufacturer. If you have one of those "thin line" or whatever they call them players that are really thin, you MUST keep it in a well ventilated area or it won't last. There certainly are better options than Philips players but they are cheap and in properly ventilated areas work well for a lot of people.

For best results with any DVD player that plays Divx, you should either avoid the following or at least confirm that your player supports it before using:
1) QPel (Quarter Pixel)
2) GMC
3) Packed bit stream
4) Video bit rates higher than 2000 Kbps
5) Resolutions higher than 720x576
It depends on the player and some or none or all of these may be problems for playback on certain players. I can tell you that if you avoid all of them, you shouldn't have playback problems.

[RabidDog]

I dont think you will find a dvd\divx player with an internal hard disc.
Divx/Xvid is now "mature". I am, so far, happy with my philips 5982 which is far better than my previous yamada, my previous toshiba was also good. I doubt that any non hidef player will handle any resolution over 576x720. Many people report good experience with usb attached hard drives, even tho phillips do not support this use of the usb port. AVC is still very early, and requires a very meaty processor, for not much gain in compression(over divx/xvid)

There SHALL be donuts for tea!