What Happened To Intervideo's Linux DVD Player?

A singular node from the Anonymous Coward Collective asks: "Several months ago when the storm first blew up about the cracked DVD code enabling Linux users to view DVDs on their chosen platform, Intervideo rode a wave of publicity drawing geeks worldwide to their site by announcing their upcoming 'legal' DVD player for Linux to be available in the second quarter 2000. June came and went and I contacted their sales people who informed me that it would be available at the end of July. It wasn't. I contacted their PR people and was told that it would be available at the end of August. No show. In the meantime, thousands of geeks have gone to their site to be entertained by the wonderful awards they have won for their Windows software. No mention of Linux. The press release has disappeared from their home page as well. Did this software really exist, or was it all just a pathetic publicity stunt? Does anyone out there know the answer?" I'd think quite a few uf us would like to know the answer to this one. What happened, Intervideo?

Comments

Time to use that Money Machine!

[Accipiter]

Come on, Slashdot Staff! You've got clout! Instead of posting an "Ask Slashdot" article (Which, most of the answers would be speculation anyway...), why not call up Intervideo and ask them directly?

Or ask for an interview! Get one of the high-ranking officials on the horn, and field some questions! If you call them up, and they say "A representative from Slashdot is on the phone", I doubt they'll blow you off. If they do, that adds fuel to our side of the argument. "They keep delaying the release, they pulled information from their pages, and they refused an interview." That would say a lot right there.

On the other hand, if they ACCEPT the interview, we'd get some answers as to what's going on.

I'm sorry, but posting this as an "Ask Slashdot" piece seems like a lazy way out. We'd get no answers to the question that can be held as proof - merely speculation as to what "Might have happened." (Unless an Interview Employee replies, but that's not very interactive/informative.)

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

Legality

[Eric Seppanen]

I think that despite the recent ruling for the MPAA in New York, it would be inappropriate to call reverse-engineered, open-source DVD code "illegal". The MPAA and DVD-CCA would absolutely love it if everyone started calling this code "illegal" because they are fighting as much of a publicity battle as they are a legal battle.

Please, consider calling such code "unlicensed" instead. The distinction is that all other DVD player software has a CSS license from DVD-CCA.
--

The press release

[spyrral]

Ok, I just went to the Intervideo site and checked their press releases. The LinDVD anouncement is still there. I guess this makes me look like a bit of a prick. Still, it makes the entire article rather irrelevant. all we have here is late software.

Disappearing press release? NOT!

[StenD]

The press release has disappeared from their home page as well.

Did you bother to look on the Press Releases link? The press release is here.

It's real, and it's nearly finished.

[Twilight1]

Yup, we've seen it. We were interested in co-developing the hardware decoding for our laptops... however, they are not interested in bringing in any outside developers.

The version we saw running on a Dell Inspiron 5000 was nearly fully functional. It was feature complete, and they had just added the ability to use the mouse cursor to control the on-screen DVD extra cool things.

We should be getting a beta version soon to test with our laptops. In the meantime, the rest of you will just have to wait.

Aparrently, it will be a software only player. However, they are investigating a plugin type API to allow third parties to write drivers for hardware decoders.

Anyway... just wanted to say that it is DEFINITELY not vapourware... though I still want an open source player to come to fruit. :-)

THE PRESS RELEASE IS STILL THERE!

[abe_kabakoff]

Check it out: http://intervideo.com/news/ 28/InterVideoLinDVDFinal.htm
Geez, check these things out for yourselves. (it is only 2 clicks off the front page!)

Re:"It" has BEEN finished for months

[Ralph Wiggam]

I know what you're trying to say and I agree with you in principle, but I want to call you out for this line...

The judge and MPAA can say a dog has 5 legs all they want, but the dog still has only 4, DeCSS is not a violation of any law.

The MPAA can say the sky is orange and we can all ignore them. But when the old folks in the robes say something, even stupid things, it matters. In America we have a long and complicated process to review legal rulings so that no one judge or even one court can decide something by themselves. But a judges job description basically say, "given these laws and this constitution and these case facts, decide what's legal and what's not." If we don't agree with that ruling, we have options like writing/calling/stalking our congrespeople. And after that, civil disobedience is in the arsenal if you have the guts. But ignoring a ruling and deciding something is legal because you believe it won't fly.

-B

Re:Are these the same people...?

[Azog]

Sigma Designs has a DVD player for Linux that is available right now. You can get it at:

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/d ownload_ns2000_linux.htm.

The FAQ is at http://www.sigmadesigns.com/faq_linux.htm .

However, this driver only works for the NetStream 2000 card, not their popular Hollywood Plus card (which is very similar to the Creative Labs DXR3). Also, it is pretty much a command-line thing at the moment, but I'm sure somebody could make nice graphical wrappers for it.

The important bits are closed source, because of the CSS issue, but they include sample code for interfacing with the MPEG2 driver and some other useful things.


Torrey Hoffman (Azog)