How do i play circuit city divx disc on pc?

[firebaby26]

I purchased the now dead circuit city divx discs over ebay and wondered if there is any way to play them on my PC . I have a DVD rom. Surely the hacker community has provided some solution in the form of software. It would really rub it in the face of Circuit city. A circuit city software player is what is needed perhaps 8) . Anyone able to help?

[puertorican138]

Make sure you have the DivX codecs installed on your PC or the Circuit City DivX disks won't play. You can also purchase the Kiss DP-450 as this DVD Player plays DivX disks.



Hope That Helps!!! :P

[kitty]

Last time I read a thread on this is the answer is YOU CAN'T. The divx that was the DVD rental pscheme at Circuit City is different from the divx encoded video of today.

The CC Divx players phoned into a server to work. Now that it is defunct no server to phone into even if you had a HW player.

I have not heard of anyone hacking into the discs - anyone?

[puertorican138]

Last time I read a thread on this is the answer is YOU CAN'T. The divx that was the DVD rental pscheme at Circuit City is different from the divx encoded video of today.

The CC Divx players phoned into a server to work. Now that it is defunct no server to phone into even if you had a HW player.

I have not heard of anyone hacking into the discs - anyone?

Oh yeah, I remember that thread. Thanks for correcting me, kitty. :P

[BJ_M]

yes there are a couple of hacks ... but i understand it depends on what happened to your Divx player during the big circuit city turn off ..

best bet is to purchase one of the 10-15,000 UNLOCKED players which were made and sold to Circuit city employees and friends of employees and divx employees and were also given to a few other people (reviewers and press mostly) ..

the disks in no way will play on a pc or normal dvd player ..

All Divx discs have a Divx title, and they apparently have a series of deliberate errors that Divx-compatible players use to identify the format as Divx-format. There is a small file on the disc in standard format, while the Divx format uses a different CRC algorithm that makes regular players and computers think that the data is all corrupted or just trash. DVD players (including personal computers) will run the stub file instead, which displays a screen informing the user that the disc must be used in a Divx-compatible player.


It's possible to "unlock" a Divx player for play past the decommission date, but Circuit City decided not to provide this feature to Divx owners. Unlocked Divx players were made available only to certain high-ranking Divx and Circuit City employees.


A patent lawyer advised me that anyone producing a software player might be subject to prosecution under the federal DMCA legislation.


I've heard of a semi-hack for players. It involved disabling the player timer, except for the first few seconds of a disc starting up. However, it can not be used indefinitely, as the player's memory will eventually fill up. Also, the semi-hack had to have been performed prior to the expiration of all Divx accounts on July 7, 2001.