Ned a new dvd player mostly for divx..

[sumik]

Hey guys, I'm lookin for somethin new for divx movies and there's soooo many dvd players now that I don't even know where to start. I'm looking for something not expensive around $100 maybe with divx support and I read somewhere that some dvd players have usb connection now ? That would b soo helpfull and easy for hooking up usb with maybe external HDD and don't worry about burnin anymore. Anyway can u recommend somethin ? Also are teher any new gadgets in dvds or any new major changes that one should look at other than divs support ?

[redwudz]

In our 'DVD Player' page to the left, if you check the 'Divx/Xvid' and 'USB' boxes, it returns about 50 players. You can also sort for popularity and read some of the comments for specific players. If you look to the top of that page, there is also a link to 'Divx certified' players, though most of the ones listed should be.

I'll let other recommend specific players.

And welcome to our forums.

[FulciLives]

I would go with one of the DVD players made by Philips. Why? Well one they are mostly inexpensive and most importantly they can be easily "hacked" via the supplied remote control to be made region free and do PAL to NTSC conversion. Very handy when it comes to DVD imports. On top of that they also do DivX and XviD very well. Oh and some have a USB input so you can connect an external USB HDD and play DivX and XviD files off of it (although some people have trouble doing this and apparently the type of external USB HDD makes a big difference).

The newest top-of-the-line Philips is the DVP5982/37 ... often just called the DVP5982 ... and this model is available in the USA and Canada. Not sure how much it goes for in Canada but here in the USA it goes for well below $100 US Dollars.

This model does all of the above (including a USB input) as well as being able to upscale in 720p, 1080i and 1080p. It also does standard 480i and 480p as well.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Here is a link to the info page on the Canadian Philips website for the DVP5982/37: CLICK HERE

[surfmonkee]

make sure it plays xvid as well. not all divx players will.
xvid is more common that divx imo

[jman98]

surfmonkee's warning is not correct. I've never seen a player that supports Divx that won't play Xvid. However, there are various recording options that are more common to Xvid that may cause players not to play the file, but it's not a problem per se with Xvid over Dixv.

Any of the following Divx/Xvid options may or may not be a problem for playback on any standalone DVD player that supports Divx.
1) GMC (Global Motion Compensation) with warp points greater than 1. It's generally best to avoid GMC, but 1 warp point MAY be supported. Tests have shown that any player that says it supports 3 warp points is lying.
2) QPel (Quarter Pixel)
3) Packed Bitstream (can be removed without re-encoding with MPEG4Modifier)
4) Resolutions greater than 720x576 probably won't work
5) Video bit rates greater than 2000 Kbps. Note that on some players, if your audio is anything other than MP3, you may have to drop the video bit rate as low as 1200 Kbps or you will audio problems.
6) File sizes greater than 2 GB probably will never work.
Any player may additionally have weird requirements like file names must be no more than 8.3 characters, 44.1 KHz audio is not supported, and so on. VBR MP3 audio is VERY problematic and audio sync problems are common.

I agree with FulciLives that Philips are generally the best choice for cheaper Divx players. They will play Xvid fine, but again, note my warnings above. Any of these features may keep your files from playing. Packed bitstream, GMC and QPel are very popular in Xvid encodes. If you have any of the features I warned about in your videos and they won't play, the only solution is to re-encode them without those features. Note that Packed Bitstream can be removed without re-encoding, but nothing else can.

[FulciLives]

Another option would be a media player such as the one at this link: CLICK HERE

Granted this device is $179.00 US Dollars but it can play many more formats than a DivX capable DVD player can play plus it has some really nice features such as streaming media from your PC as well as being able to accommodate 1 internal ATA HDD as well as working with external HDD units. Also it supports Matroska (aka MKV files) which is really nice as that format can be a real PITA to demux and work with outside of the MKV container.

I'm simply pointing out that their are other solutions out there if you need something that handles more (most if not all) formats.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman