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PS3 Gets DivX Support, Coming Soon to Xbox 360
Mpegged writes "The popular DivX video codec will soon be supported on the PlayStation 3 via a future firmware update. DivX CEO Kevin Hell also hinted that support is coming to the 360 as well. 'During the SMid Cap conference call with investment firm JP Morgan, Hell was asked if the recent deal that will see DivX codecs shipped with new versions of Microsoft's standalone Media Center Extenders means that such support will also be arriving on the Xbox 360. "Yes!" was his immediate reply, although he quickly qualified that confirmation with a disclaimer that the deal was still in the negotiation process and had not yet been finalized.'"
Everyone I know uses an XviD or h.264 codec these days. I haven't seen a new DivX video for a couple years.
The article indicates support for XviD, or at the very least being able to detect XviD files in the PS3 2.0 firmware.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I thought DivX was dead...and XviD is IMHO dying to H.264
Anyway there should also be support for the Matroska container so I can play the DRM free versions of my HD movies.
Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 already support H.264; why in the world would anyone use DivX when a better option is available?
They use them because most people don't want to re-rip and re-encode their library of movies AGAIN. They'll probably use the new codec for new things, but for everything already done, they're not going to spend the time to re-do them for questionable benefit (the source material is only up to a certain quality anyways).
I've read a few dozen times people chiming in saying the PS3 isn't a good media center because it didn't support DivX, I suppose this is a move to address that.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
it's about f*****' time!
I hate transcoding with a passion - the best media centers out there (TVersity, Orb) still seem somewhat buggy and just stop working sometimes. They're great, but if I have to remote admin to my media server to stop and restart the service to watch a TV show, then I'm less inclined to want to bother with it. At their best, transcoders (for obvious reasons) lower the quality of the video to get it over to your console/system of choice.
Can't understand the complaints as to why we didn't get xvid etc, I mean, they didn't have to add divx and its better than having none at all
It's funny, but you make a good point. Pornography has definitely played a part in the history of media format wars and is credited in part for the win of VHS over Beta. Sony wouldn't allow porn on betamax. More recently, Sony initially refused to allow porn on the Blu-ray format, but I think they have quietly relented on that. So it is not too far fetched to say that DivX support may have something to do with porn. At the very least, the legacy DivX libraries other posters have mentioned may play some role in the decision of support. But, of course, a lot of those libraries probably contain a fair amount of, *ahem*, adult material. It certainly won't hurt PS3 sales!
In the end though, my guess is that adding DivX support is not a huge technological problem, and given the fierce battle Sony and Microsoft are engaged in, each wants as many bullet points as possible. In the end, competition is good for the consumer!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Have I ever mentioned about the excellent parties I have, where I break out Wii Sports Bowling? Or my wife, who I regularly conjoin into playing Wii Sports Tennis with me? Or all the old people I'm aware of who picked up a Wii of their own, after waiting in line at Gamestop? It's all about the *fun*, not fancy-shmancy technical specifications.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
You clearly don't understand. Every console should also be an internet browser and a media center. What are you thinking, that there's some other magical device that could be used to browse the internet and play movies? Snap out of it.
Those are all pretty boring games you have honestly. Pickup Resident Evil 4 and Metroid. As for Super Mario Galaxy, well if you're not anxious to play the game starring Nintendo's main mascot in what is so far critically and most probably soon commerically his best game in years, then what exactly did you buy a Wii for in the first place?
Unless you were being sarcastic, I think it was pretty obvious that the GP isn't having fun with the Wii. Just because some others tell you that this new magic console is *fun* doesn't make it so. Fun is subjective.
I don't own a Wii, but my brother does. It was indeed fun, for an hour or so. I have no real further inclination to mess with one again though, and after the novelty factor wore off he doesn't play it anymore either (he's back to playing his PS2 again).
Different strokes for different folks. I know some love the Wii-mote concept, but for me it's a gimmick that gets old VERY quickly. I'll make the same comparison as I have to DDR. DDR is an awesome game. I have gone through 4 mats and still play a lot. It's a good concept with a unique input method. Making the leap from "DDR is fun!" though to "hey, we should make all our games revolve around a dance mat!" is not a wise move. The Wii-mote is the same way. Nice toy for a game or two, but overall, a standard controler is far better suited to most games.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
My XBMC plays all of the above and more. It's a staple in my living room and even passes the wife acceptance factor. Everything is served from a Debian server using the XBMC streaming protocol.
I can't wait until the linux port is complete and I can start doing HD stuff.
Re 4 was good, but if you already played and beat it on the cube or ps2, its just the same game with mouselook and waggle. Metroid is grand, and Galaxy (despite me not being wowed by the gamestop demo) is suppose to be pretty amazing.
As to why he bought a wii? Probabaly same reason I did: It was hyped up as the be all end all savior of gaming. It was suppose to be the biggest thing since videogames first hit, but really, all it was is the same old stuff with mouselook and waggle, and a handful of neat game that don't really take advantage of the console for the most part. I'll pick one up again in a few years, but honestly, its cube 2.0 to me, with all the same short commings.
In light of this and given that I'm not prepared to cough up money for a PS3 or an XBox360, does anyone have any recommendations for a DVD player which will play DivX and XviD?
Most important requirement is the handling of multiple films on one DVD. Apart from that, I'm keen to go with a recognised brand name rather than an obscure Chinese one.
The Philips DVP642 was an oft recommended one but has now been discontinued. Recently I've been hearing good things about the Pioneer DV-696AV-K.
Any thoughts?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The PS3 is a bit quieter than the 360. If you don't hit the cpu / keep it somewhere cool it will spin the fans right down (which is nice), but neither of the boxes are really as quiet as you might want.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
That said, the Wii is going to be off for about a month whilst I play through Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. I just love games. So if it's fun, I want to play. If it's not fun, I don't want to play. But, that's what games are, entertainment... distraction. And most of us prefer the aspect of having fun. Some of us want to scare the living daylights out of ourselves and play Silent Hill. Others prefer excitement, adventure (a jedi craves not these thigns) So, yeah, the poster you were replying to most likely was being sarcastic, but really not doing a bang-up job...
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
The only reason I yawned while playing Mario Galaxy was because I lost track of time and stayed up an extra two hours playing it. It really is digital crack.
They removed the PS2 BC codec and added divx ? Is the PS3 a game console ?
Good for you. Next you're going to say that your computer is hooked up to your TV and everyone else should do the same?
Fact is the PS3 and the 360 are plugged into a TV by definition and have more than enough power to play music and video. In that capacity it makes perfect sense to utilise them as multimedia jukeboxes.
I guess the worst happened as the Wii isn't really good for anything, not games nor media center... none of the 7 games I own really make me play it any more (Zelda, Red Steel, Paper Mario, MonkeyBall, WiiSports, WiiPlay, Excite Truck)... and the prospects are not really nice (Mario galaxy??? yaawn).
Why bother owning a device that isn't really good for anything?
You should sell your Wii to me. I'll give you $200 for it... $300 if you include the games.
The few fun games I've tried on the Wii was hampered by the compulsory us of the wiimote, making them... unfun.
On the other hand, the few games I've tried on PC, PS3, Xbox or Xbox360 lately have been hampered by the games being to much centered on "Oooh! Cool graphics!" rather than gameplay.
Wii minus the wiimote would be a nice thing though.
I have a cluttered apartment. Some Wii-games are almost impossible to play there.
Too few games let you choose for yourself, forcing you to use the wiimote even if you just want to sit in the sofa and enjoy a fun game without having to clear a space around you.
Disclaimer: I don't own a Wii. I've just borrowed one from time to time.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
What?! Games can be fun without having the latest and greatest graphics with a storyline that's just a regurgitation of every other game that's come out before it? No no no Sir, this will not do! I only play games that look awesome but whose graphic novelty wear off because I just realized I've been playing the same exact game as the predecessor except now it looks pretty. Replay value? Social settings? For shame, have you no respect? You should be playing awesome PS 360 games in your dark dark basement while yelling at 12-year olds for being *noobs*. You should be looking down you nose at these so called *casual* gamers, who just come along and enjoy a simple video game. And your wife? How dare you encourage her to play a video game with you or even speak to you at all! She should be playing World of Warcraft, having an online affair because you don't have time to play a game with her let alone speak to her. You know she understands you've got to unlock that one last achievement on Halo of Duty before you're off to *pwn* some *nubs*.
Clearly Sir, you have no clue what it means to be a gamer. Now go away so I can play some more Unreal Quake Fortress 25 and forgo having any contact with the outside world because its a dirty vile place with Wiitards roaming freely ruining my image as an uber cool gamer by making video games popular to a wider market. I finally have some free time now that my wife went on a trip to meet some friend she met on World of Warcraft. I don't have to deal with her nagging about what would I like for dinner or if I want to have sex or when I'm going to get a job.
fuppes is awesome
;)
here is is
of course, no FF/REW, but it plays everything (thanks to ffmpeg
Well, Mario Galaxy has received really excellent mark from many in the gaming community. It is definitely a must own title. On another point though, what games really have so much staying power that you will play it after you've beat it? Unless you play with friends, or online, there's very little reason to re-play a game. That's why they keep coming out with new games, so you have something to keep you playing.
Just sell your games on Ebay, or GameStop if you're lazy, and buy some new games.
I have a Phillips DVP-642, it has serious bug though even in the last firmware made for it if you use a HDTV iva component with it. All XViD movies get squished and additional black bars added on the top and bottom, so you only get to use about 1/3 of your screen to see the movie, the rest is black bars. That bug was fixed in the DVP-5960.
Actually these people provide my paycheck. I just happen to be a pedant, who dislikes mis information. Can you refute there was porn on beta? Can you refute there is porn on blu-ray? how about the sales figures? People holding contrary opinions aren't always shills.
a excerpt from an article: Aside from the occasionally repeated myth that only Sony made Beta machines (easily refuted by a visit to BetaInfoGuide), the other often-repeated assertion is that a major factor in Beta's demise was that the adult movie industry didn't get behind it. It's an odd statement because there doesn't appear to be a shred of evidence to support it. Pick the name of any of the 1980's major porn video distributors (IMDB is good for this), google the name along with the word "Betamax," and you'll turn up all kinds of references to releases in Beta and VHS. PC world
Blu ray porno.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Too late, why? Because you, the minority, run MythTV and MCE in a Virtual Machine instance? Bravo! You are not the target audience!
I try not to go for the troll, but whateves.
It's short sighted thinking like that kinda discourages looking for a better solution. MythTV offered a simpler/better way to show my ripped Dvds for example (BTW, it is running on a machine by itself, no virtual instance). Xbox360, with it's purported extender, was supposed to fill in this void, using a media center edition to do it all. What I got instead was the choice of encoding in WMV9 or transcoding it with a quality hit.
I'm not saying the Xbox or PS3 is at fault for this; they are game consoles first and they both fill those roles quite well. But, when Microsoft Gaming Division is going to implement a media player into their flagship product do you really want to lock your users in to what they can encode with or what quality they want? I didn't think it was worth it and eventually canned running MCE and letting the Xbox360 go back to the reason I bought it for. I realize the fact that I was not gonna settle for something I was not happy with might make me a minority, but I'm feeling better already.
My point is that I WAS the target audience that they lost because of codec support. I'm not going to be buying my episodes of family guy off of XboxLive, nor streaming my media with their Extender. MythTv will fill this need and more.
import system.cool.Sig;
Good luck with playing PS3 games and BluRay films then.
Seriously, I have a MythTV setup and it's good but to compare it to the PS3 is pointless. MythTV is exactly what Sony et al would prefer you didn't use, so clearly it will do lots of things you want it to. The kicker is that it also won't necessarily do what they don't want you to do (listings, anything DRM, proper PVR etc...) A PS3 will support 'endorsed media' as well as increasing varieties (soon to include DivX I read somewhere) of other media as preferred by the user.
So ultimately you can choose Cake, Eat or both.
If you say "too late", then what really were you in the market for? Iit certainly wasn't a games console.
Your optimism strikes me like junkmail addressed to the dead.
Call me when they agree to support Matroska (.mkv). Now that would be news.
"Wii minus the wiimote would be a nice thing though."
Yes, it's called a Gamecube, and should be in the second-hand section of your local games store for a pittance. Worth every one of the small number of pennies it'll cost you, as long as you pick up Metroid Prime, Pikmin, Mario Sunshine, Ikaruga, F-Zero GX, Super Monkey Ball and/or Resident Evil 4 at the same time.
I still love my Cube, and have no real need to pick up a Wii until they're readily available and a bit cheaper - I've got a 360 as well for when I want graphical sheen and online stuff.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And, you know, it plays games. That's just a bit important.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I wouldn't quite call Mario Galaxy must-own. I don't know why the GP was dismissing it so casually, but the reason I do is because I can't stand 3D Mario games. Every one has sucked. I'm not trying to trash-talk Mario here, and I don't know if that's why the GP doesn't care about Galaxy, but I'm just saying, there is at least one legit reason to not be excited about it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard