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

hehehe

[SnAzBaZ]

Very cool, although it will render my stacks of VCDs obsolete.

I hope that's your stack of legal VCDs ;]

Re:hehehe

[stratjakt]

Of course he could have RTFA and realized it plays VCDs as well.

Great!

[Omkar]

This is a step forward for DivX. I don't think most normal people know much about DivX though - perhaps this will help. Did any of you know there's even a DivX dev kit for the GameCube?

This is useless.

[Krapangor]

A average TV-Set has a dot matrix with 0.12 inches dot distance. That means that it has a very bad resolution. It's one of the reasons why you should watch TV only from a larger distance 2 meters or so (the other is of course gamma radiation). However this implies that you really can't see the very little details. But the point about DivX compression is in fact these details. All older compression schemes used to delete these due to lossy compression.
So, a DivX player with a normal TV set is useless. You should connect it either to your computer screen or get one of these new plasma or LCD TV-sets.

Re:This is useless.

[specialized_sworks]

I'll differ with you on this...
With *the same data rates* the divx encoding will provide better video. It's a more efficient compression scheme which allows *more* detail to be encoded.

The issue is that many people encode at abismal data rates so the quality is bad. The file size is 1/2 of the MPEG2 but the quality is worse. Given the same file size in MPEG2 or DIVX and the DIVX will look better.

-Dubya

DVD player info page

[mr.henry]

This page has a huge database of players and tells you how well they play VCD, SVCD, XSVCD, DVD-R, etc. I used it recently to make sure my new Panasonic could player SVCD's.

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:you know it's gonna happen

[TobyWong]

They won't like it for sure but it would be hard to make a case that a compression algorithm is inheirently evil. Most likely they will just launch a series of groundless lawsuits against this small company and run them out of money.

it's flash-able !

[heymjo]

the fact that this thing is firmware-updateable makes it extra cool (and warrants it a lifespan of longer than 1y). It does all the common formats + divX , yay !! Now if only someone could tell me why they named this thing "Kiss" ...

Re:it's flash-able !

[specialized_sworks]

Use the QCAST for the PS2... it's even better. Plays all these formats

It updates its software automatically over the internet.

-Dubya

There's more

[BusterB]

It also supports ogg/vorbis files. Ogg Traffic

subject

[Inf0phreak]

From what I hear, it doesn't work quite as well as one could hope. First of all, it doesn't support DivX3.11 so all those illegal DVD-rips won't play on it. Second: It doesn't support MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile, so if you encoded your video with Quarter Pixel Motion Estimation or Global Motion Compensation it won't play. And finally, I've heard reports that it doesn't work on MPEG-4 compliant videos encoded with XviD, so I'd say that it is pretty much a piece of crap. And don't forget that its MPEG-4 decoding chip was made by Sigma Designs. The very same company that stole code from XviD. I won't EVER buy anything made by those thieving bastards. And my last gripe: If it isn't region free, then it's worthless.

Re:subject

[number]

What are you talking about? DivX, XviD and ffmpeg are all creating MPEG-4 spec-compliant video streams. As far as the decoder can see, streams created by any of them were created by the same encoder.

If you don't like the work the XviD team is doing (i.e. a free, open-source implementation of the MPEG-4 video spec), don't use it.

Re:subject

[number]

That is a limitation of the AVI format, which people continue to stuff MPEG-4 video into for reasons unknown. It requires that you write "FourCC" identification codes, and those codes are what determines which codec is required to decompress it.

XviD will decode AVI files with the FourCC IDs XVID, DIVX or DX50, whereas DivX only decodes its own DIVX/DX50. FFvfw (a VFW port of libavcodec) will decode XVID, XVIX, DIVX, DX50, FVFW and a number of other FourCC codes which all identify video that is purely MPEG-4.

The MPEG-4 systems format (i.e. *.mp4, just as *.mpg is for MPEG-1/2) is what MPEG-4 video is supposed to reside in, and once you mux an XviD/DivX/ffmpeg MPEG-4 stream into it, the FourCC mess is left behind, and any spec-compliant MPEG-4 decoder (say, Envivio) will be able to decode it.

Re:How is this possible?

[Zillatron]

Divx was created as a means of dvd rentals on the first generation of DVD players. I think circuit city came up with the format. Get the disc, watch it for a week, then it wouldnt work anymore, so you threw it away. My friend has a DVD player like 4 years ago that played Divx discs.

While true in and of itself, this is not at all the same thing as the DivX video compression codec that enterprising people are using to store their videos now.

Some folks are kind enough to help us see that distinction by refering to it at DivX ;-) You can grab the codec over at http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec.htm l if you want to take it for a test drive.

an ancient acronym

[MondoMor]

Now if only someone could tell me why they named this thing "Kiss" ...

Keep it Simple, Stupid. A reminder to yourself that what you're building, designing, etc. should be simple and not unnecessarily complex.

It's probably as old as FUBAR.

Just think, when our grandkids are psychic-text messenging each other with "OMG STFU FAG", we'll get to explain it to them.

Too little - too late.

[tcdk]

It looks a bit better than an xbox, but other than that it does nothing that an xbox with xbmp can't do cheaper.

My modded xbox with an 120gb hard drive and xbmp has played everything that I've thrown at it (movie wise), including old divx formats that this thing can't handle. Cheaper (Getting MS to subsidize your hardware helps, thanks Bill!).

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.

Not the first

[LiENUS]

this isnt the first player that could play divx movies on the tv
its the first player that supports full resolution the sega dreamcast played divx just fine at 320x240 resolution
even played 3.xx and xvid
http://www.dcdivx.com

Re:Doh.. no xvid?

[tempmpi]

It supports all real MPEG-4 Codecs as long as they only use Advanced Simple Profile functions. As long as your XVID Video doesn't use QPel motion compensation or global motion compensation your xvid file will work. (You also can't use these features in DivX 5.0 files if you want to play them on this player.)

Re:Doh.. no xvid?

[cioxx]

xVid simply surpasses any DivX codec out there. Small size, superior quality, Open Source, the works.

OT: For those of you unfamiliar with xVid codec, have a look. ;)

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.

It runs Linux!

[Taurim]

I have my DP-450 since 1 month.

First of all, this DVD/DivX player runs Linux kernel 2.4.17.
If you did not believe me, download the ISO containing the firmware upgrade on the Kiss site :

http://www.kiss-technology.com/support/DRIVERS/450 fw261.zip

Unzip it, mount the ISO, retrieve the romfs.bin file, mount it and check it's content :

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32 jan 1 1970 bin
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32 jan 1 1970 cdrom
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32 jan 1 1970 dev
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 279064 jan 1 1970 fileplayer.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7063 jan 1 1970 fipmodule.o
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32 jan 1 1970 img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 308894 jan 1 1970 khwl.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 310850 jan 1 1970 linux.bin.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 114392 jan 1 1970 mpegplayer.bin
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32 jan 1 1970 proc

zcat linux.bin.gz | strings | grep Linux
Linux version 2.4.17-uc0 (kiss@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #1 Wed Jan 22 15:30:35 CET 2003

This player works perfectly with any MPEG-4 file. Mencoder (part of MPlayer) with libavcodec creates files compatible with the DP-450.

The image quality when playing a DivX (on a Sony 32" 16/9 TV) is FAR superior to the quality of the same file played on a PC hooked to the TV. (I made some comparisons with my Linux PC + NVidia GF4200, S-Video + MPlayer and a friends PC running Windoz + WMP + ATI Radeon card + S-Video link)

I know there is the 3.11 issue but it's really simple to convert films to MPEG4 to make them compatible with the Kiss player.

So many technical flaws..

[Junta]

With this review, hard to take them seriously. First they say that it is restricted to PAL or NTSC, and that PAL is 720x576 *dpi*. dpi means dots per inch, drop it because it is wrong, unless you have a 1-cubic-inch pal screen, and the i means 'cubic inch'.....

Then, correctly notes that 1280x720 and 1920x1080 are supported, but the phrasing seems to suggest that it is being scaled to PAL or NTSC, which is wrong. This is a progressive-scan device, and those are HDTV resolutions. They have already on the second page made a *huge* mistake about a fundamental function of the player.

And of course I love that the DVD-ROM is connected via a DIE cable... he he... I know, a simple typo, but one with amusing connotations.

On the subject of the player itself... I'm not so sure it will hit it off with the target audience. Most home users don't care that much about DivX, because making them is very difficult and downloading is hard because it requires too much bandwidth, servers don't give away enough hosting space for movies, and the places where DivX movies can be downloaded are rather intimidating to common users (i.e. IRC). People who do work with such formats frequently are aware of the nature of the media that makes them think twice about dedicated hardware purchases. The formats themselves sometimes change in incompatible ways, and also a format's dominance in tenuous at best. Most are also technical enough to realize that for not much more money they can piece together a decent PC with TV out for not much more that will have faster, general purpose processors that can adapt easy to new formats and new delivery mechanisms. This thing only takes Discs, but many people would prefer to use SMB or NFS... If anything changes, a computer is easy to reconfigure, a set-top box... no....

Is GMC and QPEL that hard in hardware?

[Kjella]

You gotta wonder, because even for their next-gen, HDTV-capable chips, it still says:

MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@HL and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile Level 5* video decoding. * without support global motion compensation (GMC)

Sounds really silly to me to not fully supporting the standard... they're like _this_ close, and you know that many users will have problems with the rips they have *cough* obtained *cough*, because it has the wrong encoding settings. Fair enough that there are other formats on the horizon (mpeg4 AVC, wm10+, realcrap) but GMC is here today, and the mpeg4 ASP profile isn't exactly brand new. Is it that hard to support? Or is there some other reason?

Kjella

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