Why hasn't DivX really made it big?

[vitualis]

As per celtic_druid.

No hardware MPEG-2 decoder (e.g.) can decode everything possible under MPEG-2.

As such, no hardware MPEG-4 decoder can decode everything possible under MPEG-4.

DivX Network's certification program was actually a really good development as it set out a number of encoding limitations that will be supported by a certified player. Although most players aren't certified, the vast majority will play DivX (and other MPEG-4 ASP codecs) encoded to those specifications perfectly.

Regards.

[Alan69]

so why aren't cd's good enough anymore? everything is going to 'mp3 player'. (why have 1 cd when you can have 10 cd's on 1). that's all i'm saying - if we started seeing 'portable divx' players and such, you could have 3-4 movies on 1 dvd (while maintaining acceptable quality).

MP3 player holds many many CDs worth of songs, without having to change anything. It also doesn't skip on the move. It's also reasonably cheap, since the capacities needed are realtively cheap now.

ONLY 3-4 movies per DVD is a hell of a lot of extra hassle for very VERY little gain. It has strong neagives, like still having to change DVDs with only 4, and having a harder time keeping up with which 4 movies are on which DVD, and needing way too much capacity to simply get rid of the DVD itself and go all flash. For the average consumer, it is BETTER to have each movie on a seperate DVD and have full quality and extras and have a simple pic and know which movie is on what DVD.

Why won't you spend millions to make 5 sales? Especially considering the people most likely to want the 3-4 movies per DVD are also the least likely to give you a reasonable $300 for your special DVD player?


As is almost always the case, the market is right where it should be, with a small but growing selection of players for the small part of the market that needs this. If it wasn't, there would be a huge rush of DIVX/XVID players because there would be tons of money to be made. There is some money to make from this, but there's simply not that much market potential for it.

Hopefully you won't have any apples and oranges identification tests you need to pass tomorrow if you're even seeing MP3 and DIVX players as being in the same ballpark of reasonableness..

Alan

[TooLFooL]

i don't necessarily want to stuff 3-4 movies on 1 dvd, i was thinking more along the lines of in-home media networking. i thought it would be neat to have my entire movie collection on a server along with my music, but that would take up too much hdd space in dvd format. DivX on the other hand would save a lot. also, if more hardware supported it (like media receivers) it would make playback throughout the house more convenient. (that's kinda what i had in mind when i started this thread!) mp3 is such a great 'portable' format, but there really doesn't seem to be one for video yet, but i do believe a market exists - perhaps just not as big.

[yoda313]

so why aren't cd's good enough anymore?

I still prefer a cd to only having a digital download (legit or otherwise).

Sure an aac from itunes sounds good. But I like having all the tracks of an album in their original order and at TRUE CD QUALITY format. Then I can rip it to any digital format I want.

I'm doing both cd and mp3. I finally got a RIO flash mp3 player (s11 model). I love it. It supports up to a 1gb sd card. The thing is perfect. But do I want to dump my cd collection?? Heck no!

[CaptainVideo]

but there really doesn't seem to be one for video yet, but i do believe a market exists - perhaps just not as big.

What are you talking about? There are plenty of hardware DivX devices to choose from. There is a whole list right HERE

There are network capable devices and portable ones.

[wwjd]

CaptainVideo I think you should take a real close look at that list! Most of the DVD players on the list are NOT available in the USA. Yes there are a few but NOT plenty.

Plenty would be when you can walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and find a sales person who knows what DivX is and when all but 1 or 2 of the DVD players is NOT DivX capable.

[CaptainVideo]

There are 34 DVD/Network players available in the US on that list. A couple are of the portable DVD variety.

One handheld DVD disc playing device

Four portable DAP's and that list is smaller than reality. It doesn't list any of the Archos devices available as well as the new Creative Zen Vision.

And some of these are by well known major electronics companies such as Denon, JVC, Onkyo, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony, Thompson, Toshiba, and Yamaha.

Sure, it's not overwhelming, but to say there is little available goes against the facts.

[TooLFooL]

compared to mp3 suppport, that's nothing!...
'34' players, '4' portables...?
there's more than 34 car manufacturers putting mp3-compatible radios in new cars, you know what i mean?
i'm talking thousands! practically every video player with built-in support. this is the kind of support mp3 has achieved.

i personally would NEVER ditch my cd or dvd collection either, but i do have my entire cd collection ripped to mp3 for networking and portability reasons, and i would like to do the same for my dvds too.
there needs to be a 'standard', universally accepted, portable format that offers a substantial decrease in file size with little noticable reduction in quality (like mp3). seemed to me divx would be the best choice, maybe not. the demand for 'portable' video probably just isn't quite there yet, but i believe it will be soon. (either way, i'm not trying to start an argument!) you folks are the best!

[CaptainVideo]

You're looking for thousands? Most things don't get that kind of support. First off the MP3 file format has been available for consumers since 1997, that's 8 years. And it's only been in the last 4 years of those 8 that it has taken off in portable devices (2001 iPoo launch) DivX has been around (V.4.0) only 5 years. But the tech to put into hardware has only been around 3 years.

And to compare with DVD's, that tech has been available for 9 years. It's taken 9 years for DVD to get where it is today in terms of consumer penetration and that was the most successful product introduction in consumer electronics history! So I'm not understanding why you think it's a problem that there isn't a more widespread adoption of DivX, when I think there is a pretty good adoption of it.

Not everyone has a car stereo capable of playing MP3's. I don't. And I have a brand new car. So the car analogy doesn't really work, besides you'll never have the mass availability of video in the car. It's just not an appropriate place for it except maybe in the back seat of a Minivan.

You want to network your DivX files, there are products on the market that do it. Not thousands, because thousands aren't needed. Plus some of these devices are codec agnostic.

[TooLFooL]

well yeah, thats kind of what i'm saying... it's a newer thing and i feel it will gain more popularity in the near future. the car may not be an appropriate place for video, but for some reason i see a lot of vehicles on the road with more tv's in it than seats! go figure! when you have iPod adapters, or built-in HDD radios for mp3 support, i feel the next logical step is more video support.

[wwjd]

Captain Video I will say it again, take a closer look at that list! Many of the mainstream companies that have a DivX player on the list do not in fact sell that player in the US.

Maintstream (plenty) would be as I said, you can walk up to a sales person in Best Buy or Circuit City or Fry's and they will even know what DivX is AND 14 of the 16 DVD models on display are DivX certified. That is just not the case.

[TooLFooL]

right?!

[wwjd]

I just finished browsing DVD players on Best Buy's website and to my surprise there are a fair number of DVD players, quite a few more than when I checked 3-4 months ago, that play DivX files. So I will eat some crow but I still do not think DivX is mainstream yet. I am also not going to make any predictions.

I had a similar goal to that of ToolFool, I wanted to put my store bought movie collection and my family home videos on HDD and stream it over to my 50" LCD TV. I was going to use the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2 to do the streaming but decided to abandon the idea for now. The main reason for not going this route was that it takes 5-7hours to convert a 2hr movie to DivX with minimal quality loss. I have around 500 movies so that would be around 3000 hrs of encoding time or 125 days of continuous encoding.

Another reason was that if you reduce the file by more than about 3X then quality starts to fall off rather quickly(remember, I am viewing this on a 50" LCD). So lets say the average movie is around 5G then the same file size in DivX with nearly the same quality is around 1.7G. My goal to was have around 1000 movies, hence I would still need around 1,700GB of HDD storage!. Too expensive and what happens if one of the HDD dies?

What I am hoping will come out soon is a DVD Recorder that records directly to DivX or a GOOD hardware encoder device that will go directly to DivX. The problem though is that DivX seems to be a work in progress.

For now I will stick with popping in a DVD when I want to watch a movie or family video.

[CaptainVideo]

No I agree DivX is not mainstream but it never will be. Consumers have settled on DVD and in about another 5 years, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

DivX has to compete with Microsoft for the portable market and so far it's winning. The PMC has failed miserably because they only support WMV. Creative learned from that mistake and their new device now supports DivX in addition to WMV. Why did they do this? Because no one would buy their useless PMC because everyone's movies are either in DivX or XviD. So the market is taking care of this problem fine.

I wouldn't be worried, DivX is basically the standard for ripping DVD's and putting them on portable players or on computer hard drives and the market is forcing electronics makers to include DivX/XviD support in their DVD players.

And Plextor makes a hardware DivX encoder for a MSRP of $159. That would cut the encode time down to the length of the movie.

[junkmalle]

And Plextor makes a hardware DivX encoder for a MSRP of $159. That would cut the encode time down to the length of the movie.

Plextor's Convertx always applies a blend deinterlace when it captures in MPEG4. Terrible for movies for NTSC users.

[Alan69]

Ah no need there's a seperate thread a few down..

[TooLFooL]

hmm interesting. i just wonder if there will be some type of 'mp3 for video' that will be very portable some day?
just with all the new crap coming out (video on your cell phones, portable video players, video on your psp, video in the trunk of your car!, etc...) wonder if it will become easier or do we forever need to re-encode everything everytime we wanna do something different?! y'know?

[junkmalle]

hmm interesting. i just wonder if there will be some type of 'mp3 for video' that will be very portable some day?

Yes, it's called MPEG 2.

[TooLFooL]

lol, i guess!