Dynex dx-pdvd9 divx hack

[gslrider]

Hi, wondering if there was a hack or firmware for the Dynex dx-pdvd9 portable dvd player, that will allow it to play divx/avi files.

Thanks.

[Ai Haibara]

If the player doesn't do it, already, it's probably highly unlikely. DivX/Xvid support in DVD players is done with additional hardware, and portables are less likely to have that support (it would also tend to increase the cost of the portables, which are usually intended to be cheaper, I believe).

[jman98]

Ai Haibara is correct. To put it another way, if Dynex paid the money to have a chip in the player that supported Divx (and it costs extra to have such a chip), why on earth would they not make it available? So the only way a firmware change or hack will turn on Divx playback is if they have a chip that supports it but for some reason turned it off. I have heard of a few weird DVD players that can have VCD support turned on with a hack, but these are highly unusual. And note that VCD does not require a specialized chip like Divx does. All DVD decoding chips should be capable of VCD playback if they adhere to DVD standards as MPEG-1 video is a possibility in DVD. The only reason some DVD players don't support VCD is manufacturer laziness in writing firmware.

Basically the players essentially support everything they can by the manufacturer and it's a 1 in 1000 shot that a hack or firmware change will actually turn on something that's not already supported out of the box.

[gslrider]

Thanks for the reply guys. Never thought divx is hardware based. So it's safe to assume that DVD Roms in computers already have that chip installed. Because it only requires a codec to be able to view divx files. That's why I asked, because I've always thought that the portable DVD players are just these DVD Roms (most likely what you would have installed in a laptop) installed in a casing with a mini monitor. Hence why they are so affordable. And that adding a codec by way of firmware, will enable it to view divx files, or VCD for that matter.

You learn something new everyday.

Cheers.

[Ai Haibara]

In a computer, DivX is decoded by software (the codec, usually, or a software player with a decoder). It doesn't depend on any hardware within the CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray/etc. drives - you can test this out by removing all the optical (CD, DVD, etc.) drives from your system and then attempting to play a DivX-encoded file. The optical drives themselves don't contain hardware to decode DivX.

[jman98]

Computers are not the same as DVD players. There's no disk storage in DVD players (some recorders do have disk drives, but those aren't used to hold software programs), so that's why you need special decoder chips and firmware to play video. There is no way to add codecs to a DVD player. Either the player already has the chip it needs or it doesn't. And I explained why hacks almost never work. To work they require the manufacturer to have deliberately turned something off that they paid to support. Such manufacturer insanity is rare.