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Anti-DIVX article

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the here's-the-deal dept.

Zane sent us an article from Best Buy that basically sums up all the problems with Circuit City's DivX Specs. Its actually a fairly complete article covering most of the major flaws of the format. Its interesting watching Best Buy & Circuit City duke it out too.

1 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. your post is pure FUD by Phaid · · Score: 3

    But my real problem with the article was how it exagerrated the problems. If you sell your player, you call them up and they transfer it. No big deal.

    Um, yes, but if I sell my DVD player, I don't have to call anyone at all.

    If you want to watch your movie somewhere else, i'm sure you can just call them up or push a few buttons on your remote, and it'll work at your friend's house.

    "I'm sure". No indeed, if you want to watch a movie at your friend's house, they'll get charged for the next viewing. If you have upgraded the movie to "Silver" then you have to call Divx up and change the ownership of the movie to your friend. Then I guess you have to change it back later.

    And complaining that "Not a lot of movies are out for Divx" is like complaining that Linux doesn't have any applications.

    Actually it's almost entirely unlike complaining that Linux doesn't have any applications, mainly because that statement about Linux isn't true, while it is true about Divx.

    The entire divx concept is pure crap. I can rent DVDs at any of several Hollywood video and Blockbuster outlets in my town, as well as one of the local smaller chains, and I can buy them at any number of places, even including Wal-Mart if I so choose! I could only get DivX at... Circuit City. I pay less for a 3-day rental of a DVD than I would for a first viewing of a DivX film. If I buy a DVD, it's mine and I can watch it wherever and whenever I want -- and the cost of most DVD movies is no greater than the cost of buying a DivX and upgrading it to silver. I don't have to call anyone in Virginia to transfer title of the thing if I watch it at a friend's house -- and if I rent a DVD and decide it's so cool I have to take it to my friends' house the next day and watch it there, I don't have to pay anyone a second time. No one in Virginia gets to send me spam or know my viewing habits.

    Finally, I have two DVD players -- one a standalone DVD player in my living room, the other a PC with a DVD-ROM drive whose output is hooked up to a TV in my bedroom. Can't watch DivX on the PC, can I? And if I owned two DivX players, one for upstairs and one for down, I'd have to pay twice to see my own movies.

    No thanks.