Tom's Hardware Reviews First Player for DivX Video

Idimmu Xul writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of the DP-450: the first player for DivX video in Hi-Fi format! Until now, movies in space-saving DivX (MPEG-4) format could only be viewed on a PC. The KiSS DVD player is the first standalone device for TVs and projectors." Very cool, although it will render my stacks of VCDs obsolete.

Comments

you know it's gonna happen

[deadsaijinx*]

something tells me that the bighead in the entertainment industry are not gonna like this. They alredy claim that divx piracy is killing them as it is, and now there is an option for those not into computers. I also have to wonder what they are gonna do about it. If they can make it illegal to post information that would allow one to crack ceratin securities, could they ban a set-top divx player?

Re:Too little - too late.

[zsazsa]

The Xbox has two things working against it: the cooling fan and the hard drive. I can hardly stand to use any of the modern game consoles due to the racket that they make. This device is totally fanless and hard driveless. The only moving parts are in the DVD/CD transport.

This is actually bad.

[tempfile]

Products like this continue to discourage the creation of and adherance to standards. If it is possible to just slap a .avi file on the disc and have it (hopefully) (somehow) played on the standalone, and other manufacturers stard implementing this (and they will), everything will lead to a horrendous chaos of incompatibilites.

It will be the same as with mp3 discs: Does player X support mp3s in subdirectories? Yes, but only without id3 tags, while player Y understands Joliet but no subdirectories and no filename may be longer than 12 characters, etc.

The implementation of "playing .avi files somehow slapped on a disc" is a BAD THING. They didn't even bother to create some sort of standard. This could have been implemented with glorified SVCDs.

Linux Media Center.

[jfisherwa]

As has been pointed out, this thing does run Linux.. It also has a REALmagic EM8500 onboard.

And that the DVD-ROM is connected via the IDE port?

I would put my money that the set of pins on the side of the board are for a standard PC/104 riser card (i.e. ethernet) -- not to mention the serial port that is internal to the box.

*THIS* is a perfect starting point for the "Linux Media Center." Why not add ethernet.. and another HD?

Unless it does this already (I didn't read the review, I hate Tom. I just look at pretty pictures.) - This thing is just waiting for transcode and some other software to be scripted together--stick a normal DVD in the drive, press a button on your remote control--bingo. DVD -> DIVX, stored on the internal HD, accessible via the network.

I would love a box like this with a HD added, connected to a P2P network. Search, download, right to the box. Oh, and replace DVD-ROM with DVD-RW; all of my friends will want copies of the movies I've stolen--or purchased if the MPAA gets their shit together. :P

After much thought, I dropped it

[KlausBreuer]

Well, in November 2002 I wanted to buy one of these things for my parents. Thus I spent a lot of time finding data on this KISS player.

After a lot of back and forth, I decided not to buy it for the following reasons:

* Price. In Germany, this thing costs about $400. That's harsh, especially compared to the bone-standard DVD player I bought in the end for $88.

* It doesn't play Advanced DivX (Quarter Pixel, GMC). While I can do without GMC (it looks weird in places), I use QP all the time.

* The FAQ clearly stated that you will never, ever, be able to disable the region code and the Macrovision 'protection'. I can live with the region code limitation (while grinding my teeth), but my parents TV cannot handle this Macrovision nonsense (and no, we won't buy a new TV just for DVDs).
While I can buy a hardware scrubber for the Macrovision, it would have put be back another $60.

* The button design on the box itself is simply lousy. All buttons are in a neat row and look quite identical. Good luck using it in the half-dark.

I'm now fiddling with putting together a Linux PC in a tiny case, which will play whatever I put into the DVD drive. I'm still looking for a *quiet* case, though...

Ciao,
Klaus