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DivX gets physical

Video codec spreads to hardware

Matthew Miller, Special Projects Editor -- CommVerge, 3/26/2003


A worldwide user community with a population of 75 million can't be wrong. That fact explains why consumer-electronics vendors are sitting up and taking notice of the DivX video codec. Although the format, which compresses video seven to 10 times tighter than MPEG-2, got its start as a piece of PC software, chip-level support and a certification program initiated by DivXNetworks are now driving it into more hardware products.

Like MP3 before it, DivX caught fire on the Internet because it allowed a heretofore unwieldy form of entertainment to be transmitted easily via email and downloads. As a result, the format has inspired fevered trading of video clips--both legal and pirated--as well as new content creation.

But for all its popularity, the format has been confined more or less to PC applications. Some PC video cards can decode DivX video and then output it to a television for living-room enjoyment. A hard-disk-based handheld product, the Archos Jukebox Multimedia (left), allows DivX fans to tote their favorite clips around and view them on either a tiny LCD or (via an output port) a TV screen. And one software product, BroadQ's QCast Tuner, sends PC-based DivX clips to televisions by routing them via Ethernet through Sony PlayStation 2 video-game consoles that are equipped with a $50 add-on network adapter.

However, it now appears that DivX access is about to get a lot more convenient in the living room and elsewhere. For starters, DivXNetworks has begun a testing program that, according to the company, will lead to DivX-certified portable video players, DVD players, video and still cameras, set-top boxes, media gateways, and even high-definition products.

Participants in the program include consumer-electronics companies, makers of embedded software, and chip vendors. Companies building DivX capabilities into silicon include Texas Instruments, Philips, Equator Technologies, and--as of today--Cirrus Logic. The latter company announced today that it will incorporate DivX decoding into its DVD player chips, a move it expects will result in DivX-enabled DVD players that retail for less than $149 by late this year.

Consumers in some markets don't have to wait that long to enjoy some fruit from the certification program. European consumer-electronics maker KISS Technologies recently introduced two DivX-enabled DVD players powered by DivX-certified chipsets from Sigma Designs. Both players can decode DivX video stored on CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW discs, and the higher-end of the two models (pictured at the top of this article) also features an Ethernet port that presumably allows it to access DivX video from a networked PC or the Internet.

The spread of DivX to DVD players and other hardware products carries with it a tasty bit of irony. Followers of the DVD arena may recall an earlier technology with a similar name, "Divx." Championed a few years back by retailer Circuit City, a few consumer-electronics manufacturers, and the Hollywood studios, Divx was essentially a pay-per-view scheme using DVDs as a distribution mechanism. Divx DVDs retailed for far less than normal DVDs, but users were expected to pay $3 to $5 for additional viewings beyond an initial 48-hour period (a Divx player required a phoneline connection so it could report to central servers). Consumers resoundingly (and rightly) rejected this intrusive scheme in favor of full ownership of their favorite movies.

Anyway, the original developers of DivX (the video codec) apparently chose the name as an amusing jab at Divx (the pay-per-view plan). Today, one wonders how the advocates of the original Divx--who lost big money when the effort crashed and burned--will feel when they once again see a "DivX" logo adorning a DVD player.