last100 » DivX http://www.last100.com Tracking the digital lifestyle Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:31:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 How DivX delivered DRM into the living room and finally won Hollywood’s blessing http://www.last100.com/2009/08/26/divx-goes-legit-in-the-u-s/ http://www.last100.com/2009/08/26/divx-goes-legit-in-the-u-s/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:35:49 +0000 Steve O'Hear http://www.last100.com/?p=4600 I’ve written before about DivX being the video format of choice for ‘grey’ (read: pirated) content, but now it seems that the near ubiquitous standard is finally on the road to legitimacy with relation to content owners.

Download-to-own movie site Film Fresh (U.S.-only), in partnership with DivX, has secured content from Hollywood studios Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony and Warner Bros. The deal marks the first time that major studio content has been offered for sale in the DivX format in the U.S., according to Film Fresh.

But what made this possible?

Despite DivX winning the hearts and minds of those wanting a cross platform video format for sharing pirated content, and perhaps as a consequence winning the hearts and wallets of device makers (DVD players, PMPs, and set-top boxes etc.) who signed up to officially support DivX, the video standard has for a long time now offered support for Digital Rights Management, the required copy protection technology needed to secure Hollywood’s blessing.

In other words, and rather counter intuitively, pirated content has acted as a trojan horse to deliver DRM into the living room. And with it, copy protected Hollywood content. With the necessary anti-piracy hooks in place, I’m actually surprised it took this long.

See also: DivX 7 adds support for Blu-ray rips

From the press release: “Consumers have the freedom to transfer their DivX movies via DVDs, USB drives, SD memory cards, and portable hard drives, or streamed over a home network for playback on other registered DivX Certified devices they own–all on supported products from top consumer electronics brands such as LG, Philips and Toshiba.”

Those “DivX Certified” devices already sold add up to the “millions”, and include DVD players, digital TVs, gaming consoles (PS3), Blu-ray disc players, and portable DVD players.

That’s some trojan horse.

Of course, as NewTeeVee notes, that’s not to say that Film Fresh will be a success. What with existing download-to-own competition from Apple’s iTunes and Amazon, along with the fledging Vudu. And then there’s the issue of whether or not consumers really want to ‘own’ the films they source from the Internet. Piracy aside, ad-supported streaming (Hulu) and subscription-based rental models (Netflix) etc. are becoming increasingly popular.

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]]> http://www.last100.com/2009/08/26/divx-goes-legit-in-the-u-s/feed/ 1 DivX 7 adds support for Blu-ray rips http://www.last100.com/2009/01/12/divx-7-adds-support-for-blu-ray-rips/ http://www.last100.com/2009/01/12/divx-7-adds-support-for-blu-ray-rips/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:05:01 +0000 Steve O'Hear http://www.last100.com/?p=3532 DivX looks set to continue to be the video format of choice for ‘grey’ content, with the company announcing that version 7 adds support for H.264 video and, more significantly, the Matroska (MKV) container.

Anybody familiar with Blu-ray rips found on BitTorrent sites or other filesharing networks will instantly recognize the MKV file format in combination with the H.264 codec as a popular way to deliver High Definition video on a PC. And now that DivX is throwing its weight behind the Matroska container, MKV support should increasingly find its way on a range of non-PC devices, such as Blu-ray players, HD televisions and set-top boxes.

See also: Samsung Blu-ray players to support YouTube and Blu-ray rips!

Look out for the “DivX Plus HD certified” badge and you should be good to go, says the company.

“The H.264 video standard offers great performance and visual quality and has gained traction throughout the industry for a variety of applications”, said DivX CEO, Kevin Hell, in a press release. “With the release of our DivX 7 software and the corresponding DivX Plus HD certification program, we hope to speed the adoption of H.264 by offering a high-quality, consumer-friendly solution that will let consumers playback their HD videos on the PC, in the living room and on the go.”

See also: The history and future of DivX

With its new DivX Plus HD certification program, like MPEG4 and AVI before it, DivX is clearly hoping to be the consumer-facing brand for the H.264 and MKV format. However, non-DivX certified devices that support MKV have already hit the market, such as the Popcorn Hour media extender or the recently announced Digital Entertainer Elite set-top box from Netgear.

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]]> http://www.last100.com/2009/01/12/divx-7-adds-support-for-blu-ray-rips/feed/ 15 The history and future of DivX http://www.last100.com/2008/05/09/the-history-and-future-of-divx/ http://www.last100.com/2008/05/09/the-history-and-future-of-divx/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 15:15:11 +0000 Steve O'Hear http://www.last100.com/?p=1838 Davis Freeberg over at Zatz Not Funny provides some great analysis on the history and future strategy of DivX. On the company’s historical success, Freeberg notes the importance of creating an eco-system around the DivX codec, both in terms of becoming the preferred format for “grey” content on P2P networks, but also the way in which the company reached out to consumer electronics manufacturers — DVD players, media streamers, PMPs, and more recently Sony’s PS3 — through its DivX certification program. The result is that DivX has become the consumer facing brand for MPEG4, despite rival offerings from Apple and Microsoft, for example.

“I still prefer DivX files because I know that I’ll be able to play them on the hardware devices that I own”, writes Freeberg. “By creating an eco-system that supports portability, DivX has been able to lock me into their format in the same way that Apple has been able to use iTunes to keep their customers buying iPods instead of MP3 players.”

However, the advent of H.264, and other more efficient codecs, means that DivX faces a new round of competition.

Microsoft is pushing its proprietary Silverlight: “By retaining full control over the video format, they are able to convince people to buy as many Microsoft supported products as possible”, says Freeberg. Silverlight also has DRM built-in, making it an easier sell to Holllywood.

And while Apple has opened up a little by adding support for the H.264 format, “they’ve still chosen to wrap their h.264 files inside of the Quicktime container. This prevents other companies from supporting Apple H.264 content, without obtaining a license for Quicktime first.”

Similarly, “Adobe has also forged agreements to support H.264 inside of Flash, but if you want to take your Flash H.264 files portable, you’ll need a device that can support the Flash format.”

Once again, consumers are faced with a plethora of competing formats, many of which are actually based on the same H.264 codec. It’s like the MPEG4 battle all over again.

In response, last November DivX announced that they had acquired Mainconcept for $22 – $28 million. “The Mainconcept acquisition gave DivX an immediate footprint in the H.264 space.”

Essentially, DivX wants to build on its current eco-system strategy by becoming the “consumer face” of H.264, and possibly other next generation formats. During a recent earnings call, DivX CEO Kevin Hell revealed that the company is on track to release a new version of DivX in 2008 that supports H.264 and then extend that support to consumer electronic devices that are likely to hit the market in 2009. “We believe that this development will help move the DivX brand beyond one single format and toward promise of support for any video content, on any device.”

“Instead of trying to educate consumers on the differences between MPEG-4 Part 2 vs. MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), CE manufacturers can slap the DivX label onto their devices and consumers will know that it will support their digital video libraries without complications”, writes Freeberg.

Moving forward, DivX hasn’t ruled out adding Flash Video support to its certification program, if there is consumer demand, and Freeberg speculates that other formats could be incorporated, such as the Matroska container which is popular for “grey” HD content.

Bringing other formats into the DivX program, would add to DivX’s cost of revenue, but it would make DivX certification more valuable to their CE partners. I may enjoy dissecting the nuances between the various competing video formats, but most consumers don’t want to think about it. They want to be able to play whatever file they have without converting it into a single format. By focusing on supporting as many formats as possible, DivX may end up competing with their own eco-system, but they’ll also expand their reach in the process. By taking DivX beyond the codec, it allows their community to move forward with the future, while hanging onto the treasures from the past.

Read the full post over at Zatz Not Funny, with more analysis including comments on Sony’s recent support for DivX, and related issues such as DRM.

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