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DivX CEO on Hackers, YouTube, Technology

Posted by Zonk on from the expensive-duct-tape dept.

Cintia Barreto writes to mention a Red Herring interview with Jordan Greenhall The CEO of DivX talks about the company's roots, a little bit about YouTube, and how entertainment technology grew out of the file-sharing days of the late 90s. From the article: "We sat down and said what you just created will do these things, people will adopt it, they will use it to transmit high-quality video, probably movies, probably television shows, probably porn--on the Internet--and in this domain and in this particular way. In some timeframe, they will want to be able transmit that from the PC into the living room. It will be the kind of content that wants to live in the living room--just like what happened with MP3. You had music files sitting in your PC and you wanted to take them portable. Somebody had to invent the portable MP3 player. In fact, I was at MP3.com at the time, I got to physically touch the first MP3 player ever made. It was made by these guys from Korea--it was literally duct tape."

5 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. LITERALLY by normal_guy · · Score: 1, Funny

    True story. Early mp3-capable DAPs were made completely from duct-tape-based transistors. A single roll of duct tape can be used to make hundreds of thousands of mp3 players. Literally.

    --

    Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
    1. Re:LITERALLY by yoth · · Score: 1, Funny

      the nice thing about the old duct tape based mp3 players was you could run them off of toothpaste instead of batteries.

  2. Duct tape? by the_wishbone · · Score: 2, Funny

    In Korea, only old people make MP3 players out of duct tape...

    1. Re:Duct tape? by Firehed · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well in Soviet Russia, duct tape makes MP3 players out of YOU!

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
  3. Re:Horrible summary by Z1NG · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think he meant the first portable device with the singular purpose of holding and playing music files in the mp3 format. At least thats what I think when I hear the phrase "first mp3 player". Granted, the statement wasn't qualified but I don't believe his meaning was too obscure.