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DIVX is dead 284

Posted by Hemos from the ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead dept.
Breakdown was the first to send the word that DIVX is dead. Hooray! Now, I think I might finally be able to get off of their mailing list. And, if you purchased a system before June 16, 1999, you get a 100$ rebate. Update: 06/16 01:09 by CT : They cite lack of interest from studios and other retailers. They also say that most Circuit City consumers bought DivX (they gave away 5 free titles and the cost difference was almost negligible so I found that amusing). All I can say is R.I.P. DivX.
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DIVX is dead More

DIVX is dead

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  • PT Barnum is spining in his grave (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    PT Barnum is spining in his grave! He was wrong, now someone HAS lost money by under-estimating the intelligence of the American public (and i thought it couldn't be done...)

  • INSTRUCTIONS FOR DIVX CUSTOMERS! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's a good idea. Every DivX owner, go to CC store where you purchased the machine, and DEMAND five actual DVD movies to replace the DivX movies you were given for free, (that will soon no longer work).

    Or was a selling point for DivX not those five free DivX movies?

    Let me tell you about the time we had a customer return a one-year old computer for full refund because the salesman told her the machine would not go out of date that quick. Or the time I heard of a man who returned a fully-paid for Lexus because it kept having engine trouble.

    Now, surely CC can give you five movies for this major fuckup? Here's a tip, absolutely demand you get the movies, you may have to talk/yell at each successive level of management. Where I worked, I was the third level of management. If I could not get the customer happy, and passed them to the next level (General Manager), the GM gave the customer whatever they wanted to be happy.

    Most retail stores implement 3-4 levels of management before you get whatever you want to make you happy. Work the system.

    Go for it!

    Some other ideas for requests:
    -full refund
    -new DVD-only machine (to replace poor-quality Divx DVD playback)
    -ten DVD movies

    Don't let businesses screw customers.

  • Circuit City pushed DIVX like there was no tomorrow. It was quite disgusting. Their sales people would show DIVX players if you asked to see a DVD player or sometimes even a VCR. And, at least at my hometown Circuit City, every single computer in the store had a screensaver saying "ASK ABOUT DIVX!" (of course it had a password... ;)

  • I had the same problem at one point; I fixed it by getting an RF modulator (about $30), so that's not really an advantage of Beta.

    However, you can tape DVD->Beta, and not get Macrovision troubles, which is cool.


    -----------

  • If you ever want some proof A/B a DVD disc from a good DVD player and the same disc on the same good television (sony xbr or equivalent to be sure it's OBVIOUS, not just visible) on a DivX player and you can easily tell which you're watching through
  • I'd also like to point out that vinyl isn't dead either ;). Many audiophiles even consider it to be superior to CDs due to its analog nature.

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

  • Until you can scratch as precisely and reliably with a CD as you can with vinyl (will never happen), records will still be pressed by the thousands. I have no trouble picking up copies of most any dance/rap/pop song on 12" vinyl, and haven't had a problem for nine years.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • I own a pair of 1200s, so I'm not dissing them or anything, but audiophiles tend to not like direct-drive tables because the motor tends to induce a lot of rumble. The high-end decks (I don't consider 1200s high-end in the audio quality sense) use belt-driven platters which are both heavy and slow to start, but which tend to give much better audio quality in terms of how much noise the player itself actually adds to the music. They also tend to cost anywhere from just under a grand to... well... Idono, perhaps the price of a new car?

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • ha ha (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    That happened quicker than I thought it would. Let's hope nobody [microsoft.com] else tries to get any bright ideas for destroying open standards.
  • The beta format used widespread in video production houses today, etc. is NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING, like the consumer betamax of the 1980's. While the two formats may have similar names, they aren't the same. For all intents and purposes, the consumer betamax is dead.
  • Goodbye DIVX and good riddance! May there never be another like it.

    I've noticed the members of the pro-DIVX crowd often argue that it beats going to Blockbastard and having to worry about late charges. I don't get this. Doesn't a DIVX disk cost more than a rental? Isn't that like having the late charge built right in?

    Also, you gotta be pissed if you 'silvered' your DIVX disk for unlimited viewing and it expires in two years. Doesn't sound very unlimited to me.
  • Posted by jlegacy:

    They must have seen your response.... but look at their page again and see the total turn around... gotta love it... back-pedaling dolts....hehehehe

    L8R
  • Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:

    What don't they understand is that people need the neat blockbuster house and piles of video paper boxes to work up their appetite. If you don't have to go back to return the tape, then you don't have enough reason to convince yourself that you need a new tape either. There are some titles you never thought you would rent when you are doing the selection at you sofa.

    Moral of the story: Foreplay is good, return is good, repeat after me.

    CY
  • Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:

    That means Titanic and Star Wars and all that cool Fox movie will be released in DVD.

    CY
  • Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:

    1.) You buy a DIVX disc for a bit more than the price of a rental.
    2.) You "activate" it and watch it.
    3.) It expires.
    4.) If you want to watch it again, you can "rent" it again at a later date. If not, it makes a stylish
    coaster.



    1) That's not good. Besides, mom and pop video rental is a lot cheaper than DivX/Blockbuster. Nobody goes to blockbuster to rent tape unless he/I want a really rare one.

    4) Just image storing piles of old useless CDs at your home at you can't throw out. It's not a problem if it's Maltese Falcon or such, it's the stupid Godzilla/Batman and Robin/Speed2/*Silver*/hook/Flubber/ that you rent on a soulless afternoon that giving you headache. Oh yeah it's not a problem if you are a neat person. But a lot of people aren't.


    Basically DIvX is an all around bad idea, it introduce stupid multiple choise to consumer.



    cy

  • In terms of being a consumer friendly product, LD is to DVD what DVD is to DIVX.

    DVD has the region coding, which means that I can't buy Japaneese imported DVD's and play them without brakin' the law, and they also have the macro encoding, which even if you don't want to make illegal copies is inconvienient if you don't have enough inputs on your TV, and need to use the ones on your VCR.

    I can also get LD's really cheap now because all the fools are replacing their whole collections with DVD's. There are also many many titles which are on LD but will never see the light of DVD, at least not any time soon.
  • Oh, and one more thing, I'll be enjoying my LD collection long after June 30, 2001.
  • On July 1, 2001, DIVX will be a dead format. Perhaps the only dead format, but it will be dead dead dead dead dead.
  • Well, IANAL, but I think it is a bit of a gray area. All of the mods I have seen for region coding also disable the silly macrovision encoding, which is at least on the illegal side of the gray area. Most of the imported DVD's from Japan that i've seen have language printed on them to the effect that they are only licensed for use in Japan, and they warn of dire consequenses if that is violated. (Download MAME and one of the Japaneese ROM sets and you'll see the blurb that I'm talking about)
  • You mean CED's? I almost bid on one of those that some damn fool listed in the LD section on eBay. Receiving a CED when expecting an LD would have pissed me off more then when I got my Ranma 1/2 LD with an unmentioned hole punch in the jacket.
  • I can rent four movies for four nights for six bucks at my local video store. Even if I returned them late, it would still be chaper then DIVX.

    And if I wanted to take the bus into the next town, I could rent five laserdiscs for five nights for five bucks. Can't beat that.
  • Well, given that a DVD player isn't much more than a VCR, and Wal-Mart and Costco sell DVD movies, I think the necessary "critical mass" is there to consider DVD a viable format for producing movies.

    As for Disney, just take a look at recent releases: A Bug's Life, Mighty Joe Young, The Parent Trap.... I don't think there's any danger that they (or any other studio) are going to drop DVD just because DIVX died a much-deserved death.
  • You could always use The Force to return them, though, right? And what about Jedi mind control?

    "Sir you have five dollars in late fees."

    "No, I have no late fees due."

    "Sir, you have no late fees due. Have a nice day."

  • Consumers choose DIVX? Maybe it was because the salespeople at Circuit City would flat out lie about DIVX. They would sing its praises and if you asked them the right questions, such as whether you could watch the movie at a friends house, they would either lie or change the subject. I actually did this a couple times just to see what they would say. I hate morally bankrupt salespeople. DIVX deserved to fail and I hope Circuit City took a good hit to the wallet.

  • I found these statements very remarkable:

    1) That all existing discs can be viewed only for the next two years, and (even more so)

    2) That "upgraded" discs ALSO have that limit!

    So it sounds like there's an "end of the world" switch built into DIVX, or else there's a fair bit of remote reprogramming that can be done on those things. Not Very Nice.

  • The press release says it all. Disks that were upgraded to silver will still play until Sept. 2001.

    The 'Silver upgrade was advertised as a 'purchase', and was to last forever.

    The other factor is that a 'Silver' disk only works on your own machine, take it to a friend's house, and you have to pay the rental fee. OTOH, pay the same amount for a DVD, and watch it anywhere. If the company you bought it from folds up tomorrow: still watch it anywhere.

    There were also issues of quality, and the DivX encoding wouldn't allow for alternate audio, and various other extras that DVD can have.

    Then there's the millions of plastic disks going into the landfills since you only wanted to rent, not own that particular movie.

    Other than that, it was great.

    1. Laws in place prevent video rental places from handing out that data.
    2. No watching DivX movies in your summer cabin in the woods.
    3. Even if friend has DivX player, and you 'bought' a Silver disk, you'll have to rent it at friend's house
    4. Absolutely true.
    5. With DivX, they can pull it from YOUR shelf even if you 'Bought' it.
    6. Compare to DVD
    7. Compare DVD
    8. Compare DVD
    9. But the DVDs you rent from Blockbuster are.
    10. True.
    11. Point taken.
    12. Again.
    13. To each his own.

  • Why not a lawsuit. In this case, there's a very specific and real consumer issue. They sold people the DivX player based on a specific feature which is now going to be shut off by remote. I'm sure they were very quick to assure the potential buyer that DivX would be around forever.

    In short, specific feature claims were made that just aren't true.

  • Im thinking post-apocalyptic.. as long as i am able to keep a working TV and DVD player around and salvage some car batteries or a generator and a bit of mcguyvering I can entertain myself with my DVD movies indefinatly.... I hardly think DIVX would make it a priority to continue service in the wake of global thermonuclear war... just a thought :)
  • This argument actually references the "PC's are dead" topic.

    Why the fsck would I (or anyone) want to pay-per-use across the internet to an Adobe Software server for Photoshop, rather than simply buy the CD, and install it on my local HD, and use it on a non-internet-connected machine?

    That whole scheme is doomed to failure.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • naw.

    Folks are still buying intel chips.



    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • okay, so what?
    Blockbuster can have their little database of how many times I've rented Blade Runner, or that time I kept The Truman Show two days past the due-date.

    But I'd be an idiot to rent porno from Blockbuster anyway. There's other video rental stores than Blockbuster, there's still lots of little mom-n-pop shops that don't keep a national centralized database.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Our local Hollywood video did it the other way around, much more beneficial.

    $3.50 for a movie, 5-day rental.
    If you return it within 24 hours, you get a $1.00-off coupon.

    Now THAT'S an improved rental model!!

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Most likely people who believed the circuit city salespeople, or who REALLY wanted to see a movie that only came on DIVX format.

    I think on my lunch break I'll go down to circuit city and point and laugh!
  • "Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm".
    Ha ha.

    --

  • Too late, I tried it at home. The stench lasted for weeks...

  • Geeks To Consumers: We Were Right After All (Score:5)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Wednesday June 16, 1999 @03:15AM (#1848332) Homepage
    An ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure, eh? Check out the press release:

    All Divx discs, including those previously purchased by
    consumers and those remaining in retailer inventories, can be viewed on
    registered players anytime between now and June 30, 2001.

    The significance of this cannot be overlooked. This is empirical proof that any system that places consumer property under the access control of a remote body can, will, and just did repossess control of those goods, despite the (promised!) expectations of the customer.

    Told you so.

    The Geek Community was quite clear on this: DiVX gives corporations excessive control over the viewing habits of customers, and was generally an awful idea. Truly, we have the media outlets and electronic stores--corporations in their own right--to thank for realizing the inevitable result of any technically dependant system such as DiVX and protecting as many consumers as possible from what the Geeks always recognized as Bad Mojo.

    What can we learn from this? SDMI--the MP3 competitor--is flat out doomed to fail if it attempts any sort of protection dependant on contacting anyone anywhere for permission to play a song.

    After decades of ripping off artists, lets hope they don't move onto ripping off consumers. (Again. Spoiler Signal What?)

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research [netpedia.net]
    effugas@best.com [mailto]



    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.

  • ...I knew Divx would not stay in the market for too long. Lesson learned? \begin{mode}{RMS from Hell}The proprietary technology is no match for the superiority of open standards. Muhahahahahhahahahahaha....\end{mode}

  • Actually, the idea of divx was buy a DIVX disk at a reduced price instead of renting a movie. Then each additional time you watch it, you pay for it again.

    So it's like rentals, but you never have to return the item.

    Maybe an ok idea in concept, but horrible in practice. Expecially if someone keeps playing the same movie over and over at your house without knowing that you'd be paying for it (amoung other problems)
  • Make a trip to Best Buy or a Virgin Megastore before you say silly stuff like that. There's a LOT of DVD stuff out there.
  • CD's or DIVX disks look cool after a couple seconds of microwaving. The charge buildup rips nice patterns through the aluminum. No, this didn't (apparently) harm my microwave.
  • Last night on CNN Headline news, I saw another one of those DIVX commercials. Has anyone told them to stop? Its the commercial with this guy who has so many facial expressions why you should buy divx and only divx can play divx movies. When are they going to give it up?

  • I have the collector's edition of Fantasia on LD which has a hole punched in it. It was in the "clearance rack" at a store that was clearing out of some of their LD stock a few years back. All clearance items were marked in such a was so as to denote no-return.

    At least they were smart enough to take the contents outside of the box before putting the whole in it. The extra's(picture book, etc) would not have survived the drill very well :-)

  • I've been picking up movies on Laser Disk(LD) for $5-7 a piece.

    A couple comments on LD and DVD

    • The picture quality jump from VHS to LD (75% better) greatly exceeds the picture quality jump from LD to DVD(only 14% better)*
    • LD quality exceeded broadcast quality for it's day(NTSC), DVD does not(HDTV)
    • DVD's replacements, HD-DVD and UD-DVD [techweb.com] (ultra-definition 4000x2000!), are already in the works. This implies that DVD will have a much shorter lifespan than LD.

    * Resolution comparision based on NTSC. For NTSC, all images have 525 lines of vertical resolution. Horizontal resultion varies with the source material: VHS=240, Broadcast=330, LD = 420, DVD = 480. Resolution information from Secrets of Home Theater [sdinfo.com].

  • You may be thinking of the DIVX disc quality, rather than the player; most discs didn't support Dolby Digital 5.1, widescreen, angle changes, or any of the other good stuff the regular DVD's do.
  • None of the things you mentioned are in the same league as DiVX. Save for 8-track, all are still in common use.

    DiVX was never a format. Even 8 tracks enjoyed a few years of market share and lots of software. DiVX had neither, and thank your preferred deity for that.

  • | Yeah, and the best thing about beta is that it
    | is completely unaffected by macrovision!

    You'd see the same thing with many old VHS VCRs (and some new ones).
  • Sometimes bad technology ideas actually lose!!!
  • I got an MD bundle from Best Buy with both an MD console player/recorder and an MD Walkman. They work great! I think $299 for both is not such a bad deal.

    Today's English Lesson: Oxymorons

  • Its a shame Beta never became a home theatre standard in the US.
    It'd kick ass to be able to go rent Matrix at blockbuster, take it to the studio, make a copy on one of the $20,000 decks, and add it to my collection.
    Now I gotta get the vcd, convert the mpg to a mov for better playback on the G3, then just copy it on VHS or SVHS, doesn't matter though, by now its already what, 4th generation?

  • Go to a country like New Zealand, you bring Akira along with you on VHS, your sunk.

    BETA's only dead in the country where people think RAP is cool and geeks are freaks (popular opinion, not mine).

    Hell, the euro's gonna squash the dollar anyway, right?

  • Good friend of mine works(worked? i dont know anymore) for Circuit City. All he used to do was spew about how great it was, how it would crush DVD. all DVD players would be useless soon, because they would only be releasing movies on Divx. They were basically brainwashing him.

    I wonder if he'll believe me now.
  • Hi,
    Get the A120 and upgrade your receiver to DD. You want DD in the receiver for neat future stuff like digital TV broadcasting with AC-3 sound. The A120 also features DTS (I _like_ DTS audio discs) and component video out.

    I've got the A110 and I love it, though I suppose when I go to the FPTV I'll need component.. ;)

    And yeah, Panasonic kicks some serious ass, their stuff is helluva tough... (loving my A110 + 32SF35)
  • The King Crimson DVD is _awesome_!! on one track you get 7 different camera angles, and each angle has audio re-jiggered to put the featured performer on center-channel.. other tracks are very cool, the interface is a bit clunky but if you're into Fripp or prog-rock check it out..

    (and I actually quite like DTS CDaudio, particularly the Steely Dan album)

    ps: IIRC the Crutchfield price is $US349..

  • Yeah, and the best thing about beta is that it is completely unaffected by macrovision! For awhile we were stuck with a TV that did not have a composite input, only a VHF one. This meant the DVD had to be sent through the VCR. The (VHS) VCR would pick up the macrovision and the picture would fade in and out. Replaced it with a beta machine, and voila the problem was gone :)
  • Hmm... BetaMax & MiniDisc are not exactly dead...

    They might be in the consumer area, but aren't in the commercial area.
  • Hmm... the Blockbuster video stores here in San Diego are renting DVDs...

    Are Porn movies coming out on DVD yet? If so, then DVD will NOT die...

  • Minidisc is *huge* in radio. The CD recording quality and ability to erase and re-write is quite attractive to promo creators.
  • Digital cable sucks, too. Until I can run the cable through a splitter to my VCR and TV, and watch and tape different things, I'm sticking with analog.

    (Fortunately, there was that FCC thing a while back which was supposed to have opened the way for TVs and VCRs to include tuners for digital cable, so there is hope.)

  • GOOD RIDDANCE!

    That about sums up my feelings on Divx.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • The message just wasn't registering within the ranks of the Divx-victims till now.

    Let's face it. Inferior video quality, fewer features, less support, completely proprietary to one company, HAS to be hooked up to your phone, gives that company complete access to your credit card, viewing habits, etc.

    It couldn't be worse if it was come up with by a bunch of suits and their lawyers!

    ...........

    Waitaminute! It WAS thought up by a bunch of suits and their lawyers! No wonder it sucked so bad!


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • Reread the article. The cutoff date is today.

    Plus, I'm not going to burn my hard-earned cash on a dying horse like Divx, just so I can tell people I got a $100 back. That's like buying a Pinto so you can sue Ford after getting rear-ended and blown into the next area code (in little, itsy, bitsy pieces).


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • It's not shown on www.bandivx.com [bandivx.com] yet, either. Not everyone in the technology/computer/internet fields read /. regularly (though they should).

  • Thank Goodness.
    Christopher A. Bohn
  • The other problem with this is that it could have killed honest-to-goodness sales of DVD movies. Ranks right up there with leasing software.
    Christopher A. Bohn
  • Ran into the same problem. I've been tempted to buy cork paper & glue cork to the CDs and actually sell CD-ROM coasters. Never got around to it. Anyone who has the gumption to give this a try has my blessing to steal my idea. As long as I get a free sample. (I have no way to verify this -- you're on the honor system :-)
    Christopher A. Bohn
  • You should actually have a really good case to get a refund on your DIVX machine, especially if you bought it recently. Pretty much every state (maybe even every one) has a law that attaches an implied warranty of merchantibility to anything you buy. Since the ability to buy unlimited playing on disks was a major selling feature of DIVX players, Circuit City (and the manufacturer) must either support this feature or give you your money back.

    Don't vaguely threaten a class action law suit. Instead, tell them you'll take them to small claims court. If you convince them you're serious, they're likely just to give you your money back insted of having to deal with hiring a lawyre et al. Also, in some states (like Massachusetts), you can actually sue for double or triple damages in small claims consumer cases, so they'd be even more inclined to just give you your money back rather than risking having to pay you three times its value.

  • Now that the war is over I hope that more people will take advantage of dvd's. But I won't get one for my tv until Star Wars comes out on it. That may not happen for awhile I'm afraid... Well it's on my pc so it's not such a big loss
  • I can tell the difference between 128 Kbit/s MP3s and MD disks encoded with ATRAC 3 and later, so I hope MDs stick around for a while. I have yet to find anything more portable while still allowing me more flexibility than an MP3 player.
  • I know quite a few people who have purchased an MD player in the last few weeks. It is really starting to take off. If only there were more bands available on pre-recorded formats. But, I have a CD player with fiber-optic out and now can make copies of CDs (Or even better, MDs with ONLY the songs that I want to listen to!!) all with digital copying.

    I think it is just beginning. We Americans are just a bit slow! :)
  • Does anyone know what will happen concerning the titles that were to be coming out in the next few months that were going to be DIVX Only, an example being The Thin Read Line from Disney. What message will the studios get from this, especially those that were supporting DIVX? Will they say, "DIVX was going no where anyway, time to seriously invest in DVD" or will they take it like, "Well, DIVX is done. Maybe this means theres not enough stability here and we should back off of DVD as well." How's the industry likley to react to this?
  • "Discs can no longer be upgraded to unlimited viewing, known as Divx Silver. Customers who have converted discs to Divx Silver can continue viewing the discs until June 30, 2001, or can receive a full refund of the conversion price at their request."
    So when they said unlimited what they really meant was 'for as long as we feel appropriate'. We (and when I say we I mean 'them' who acutually bought this stuff) come out relitivly unscathed 'cause the whole deal fell apart so quickly. If Circuit City stopped supporting DIVX in 10 years time would i still get a refund on my 'unlimited' silver edition? Yeah right. But more telling - even when 'unlocked' silver divx needs to run home to momma for authorization? Sure it was unlimted but we were still tracking you - so there.
    Of course - now it's dead and we can gloat but next time? Trick me once shame on you...
    AdamT
  • Minidisc is far from dead. Actually, it never was dead, it just took a long time to start to gain acceptance in the United States due to poor pricing policy on the part of Sony. A year and a half ago, you couldn't get an American-version of a Sony Minidisc player/recorder (at the time, Sony was the only manufacturer making North American localized Minidisc equipment. Sharp started up about a year ago, and now everyone's in the market.) for under $500. Now you can get a portable player and a home player/recorder deck for that much.
  • I'm surprised that the industry is ditching Divx so soon...I figured that they'd run the thing into the ground for another 5 years or so at least.

    Now the big question is this: Since Divx is dead, will Eisner finally remove his cranium from his rectum and release Di$ney movies on standard DVD? I was pissed when they announced that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" would be a Divx-only release.

  • "This difference was a bigger selling point to the average consumer than the oh-so-slightly better quality Beta had to offer over VHS. So VHS won. "


    Quantity was, and is, more important than quality
    to many people. When VHS and Beta were battling it out, lots of people had 8-tracks in their cars.

    Now that it's possible to take digital music
    for granted, it's less of a problem, but it
    was a nuisance to me the low sound quality people
    would settle for back then.
  • "Forget ever being able to have an open source
    program to play the media. "

    If I understand correctly, we have the very same
    problem with DVD. In this respect, DIVX and DVD
    do not appear to differ.
  • "2) Running phone line to my home theatre is an unnecessary hassle. "

    You have to have this for digital cable in
    my market. Calls to TCI did not result in
    straight answers.
  • I'm glad that the divx confusion will die down in the near future. I just wish I could afford a dvd player right now!
    1. Grind into dust. Sell as New Age Crystal Aphrodesiac.
    2. Perpetrate UFO hoax.
    3. High-tech grinding attachment for dremel tool.
    4. Clay pigeons
    5. Mail them to little Timmy, who needs an operation.
    6. Glue to floor of nasty abandoned warehouse. Open nightclub.
    7. Very expensive horseshoes.
    8. Slip onto cellphone antenna for stylish retro-50's radiator look.
    9. Glue to forehead, go to costume party as ER doctor.
    10. Purchase universal remote. Now that you have a Record button, tape over them (oh come on, how do you think the signal go there in the first place?).
    11. Hang them on your office wall. Pretend you're Paul McCartney.
    Jon

  • Laser Disc is alive and well. Perhaps you are thinking of those RCA Video Discs which were played with a needle?

    --
  • Beta sure seems more hyped now than it ever was when it was alive.

    Yes, the original Beta was slightly (not "a LOT") better than VHS in terms of recording quality (resolution). But how good can you get when you're limited by composite NTSC anyway? VHS won out because (a) it was a more open standard (Beta was closely held by Sony), and (b) you could put a full length movie onto a single tape.

    The Beta that is used in TV studios and commercial camcorders these days is Digital Beta. Same tape cassette mechanism but a totally different recording technique, and utterly incompatible with the old Beta tape decks. It's the digital aspect that gives it the higher resolution than the old 3/4" UMatic cassettes they used to use (and are still used somewhat).
  • The significance of this cannot be overlooked. This is empirical proof that any system that places consumer property under the access control of a remote body can, will, and just did repossess control of those goods, despite the (promised!) expectations of the customer.

    Does this remind you of anything? Like the provisions in the proposed revision to the Commercial Code (I forget the new acronym) that allows just that with software licensing?

    What can we learn from this? SDMI--the MP3 competitor--is flat out doomed to fail if it attempts any sort of protection dependant on contacting anyone anywhere for permission to play a song

    Here's hoping that also applies to software that tries to go the rental or time-expired licensing route, as is rumored for upcoming versions of MS Office. (Don't pay the monthly rental, and Word locks up on you. Holding not only your app, but your documents hostage. (You don't actually believe that the default .doc format will be readable by anything else, do you?))
  • What were you doing in there supporting Circuit City anyway if you don't like DIVX?

    This announcement is great -- I laugh, ha ha! -- but I'm still not planning on shopping at Circuit City. Not until July 1, 2001, anyway...

    (As an ex-military associate of mine is fond of saying, "defeat is in the pursuit". Or as an ex-fighter pilot puts it "don't stop firing when you see smoke, follow him down to the ground". We want to make sure DIVX is not just dead, but is buried, with a large wooden stake through its heart and a bundle of garlic around its neck. To remind others who might come up with similar schemes.)
  • What DIVX offers is an improved rental model, where your trips to the video store are cut by more than half.

    "Cut by more than half"? How do you figure that?

    And in any case, it isn't necessarily true. There are far, far more video rental places than Circuit Sh.., er, Cities. When I return a video I just drop it off in the drive past drop-box, and the video store is on my way to work. No special trip involved. And the rental price is typically about half the price of a DIVX disc, which seems to have the late-return fee built in.

    (Or I can rent a movie - VHS or DVD - at my local supermarket and return it next week when I'm back for next week's groceries. Only a buck for the tape, and the DVD rental is still cheaper than buying a DIVX.)
  • However, I still think the pricing model is a great idea. No more late fees...

    The "great" pricing model just built the usual late fee (and then some) into the initial purchase price of the disc. Unless you're the type that routinely keeps rentals for a couple of weeks past due date, it doesn't win you much. If you usually return rentals on time (easy for me, I drop 'em off on the way to work), it penalizes you.

    Around here I can rent two DVD's for a week for what a single DIVX would cost me for 48 hours. Worse than that, if you count mileage to the nearest Circuit City to buy the DIVX.
  • The boycott is not just for selling a shoddy product -- there are (a very few) non Circuit City stores around here that sold DIVX and I don't particularly avoid them (besides, if I boycotted every store that ever sold a shoddy product I'd never buy anything) -- it's for designing the stupid thing and pushing it on an ignorant populace. Kind of like a large software company up in Redmond, only worse.


    Oh, and as for folks looking for a bargain when they sell off DIVX player back stock, keep in mind that no DIVX player sold on or after today will ever play DIVX discs, because you won't be able to register it (see the news release). (Even if you bought one last week, if you haven't registered it yet you're SOL as far as DIVX discs go.) It'll still play DVDs, but poorly.
  • Finally, an example of the consumer masses being too inteligent to fall for a horrible idea or product just because it was slickly marketed.

    We now have compelling evidence that the public isn't as stupid as some corporations think they are!

    My favorite line (probably most people's):


    "Sales at participating Divx retailers reflect strong consumer interest in the Divx feature," said Richard L. Sharp, chairman and chief executive officer of Digital Video Express and of Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC, KMX), the majority partner in the Digital Video Express venture. "The majority of customers purchasing DVD players in Circuit City stores have selected players that include the Divx option. Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain adequate support from studios and other retailers. Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm, we cannot create a viable business without support in these essential areas."

    "Strong consumer interest..." "significant consumer enthusiasm". Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

    Tell ya what DIVX dudes... If the consumer support was there, support from other retailers would have been there. Duh!

    Hey DIVX, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of marketplace!

    [gidyness] [grin]
  • Actually, only one of these examples has an analogy to DIVX, IMHO, in the sense that consumers rejected the inferior format in favor of the superior one.

    That would be the 8-track. The 8-track and the cassette were released almost simultaneously (1964, yes the formats are REALLY that old). Despite extreme marketing on the part of the 8-track camp, consumers finally figured out that cassettes had dramatically less wow-and-flutter, lasted much longer, and could be rewound and fast-forwarded forcrissakes!

    As far as the other formats mentoned:

    Laser Disks: Excellent format in it's time, superceded by a technologically more modern one, DVDs.

    Vinyl: Ditto laser disks. An excellent format for it's day, superceded by newer technology.

    Betamax: Actually dramatically superior to VHS in most respects. Killed by awesome marketing by the VHS camp (and Sony keeping the beta format so closed).

    MiniDisk: Format that still has it's strong niche, and is likely to for a while.
  • This thread give many wonderful reasons why DIVX is bad.

    IMHO the overriding, super-duper, most appallingly horrendous thing about DIVX was this:

    The disks are married to the player.

    Buy a new player because you want do upgrade or, worse yet, because your old one broke and your collection of disks that you fscking BOUGHT just became a bunch of coasters.

    Can you imagine if when you bought a new CD player, either as a replacement or a second one (a portable in addition to your home unit for example) if all your CDs wouldn't play on the new player and you had to buy second copies of them for the second player?

    How outrageous can you get!?
  • Side note: Is there any truth to the rumour that the divx players play DVDs at lower quality??

    Yes, It's true.

    And since I can think of absolutely no technological reason for this, I can only assume it was deliberate sabotage to attempt to cause people who bought DIVX players to have a preference for the "superior quality" DIVX releases.
  • Accually I've found that a lamenating them is the best way of solving the hole problem. Needs to be fairly think lamenation. And try to use a machine that doesn't have to roll it around a spool, as cd's don't like to be bent as easily as paper.
  • >2) Need to connect to a phone to watch a disc.

    I didn't think this was true. I understood that the player would connect to a server through the phone line to charge you for additional viewings after the initial 48 hour rental. I didn't think this happened before any/every viewing. Sounded more like it kept track of your pay-per-views and connected at regular intervals.

    Not that I think this is a good idea either, just seemed like the way this was stated was incorrect.

  • >Divx players are fully featured DVD players, right?

    No, not by most accounts.

    And as far as saving $100, these players typically cost $100 more than DVD so you are getting no bargain. Now, if you could wrangle one for $100 total, but I would rather not give Circuit City any freebies buy taking one off their hands. Let them realize the full impact of this gaff and pay thru the nose to dispose of all these aborted devices.


  • Well, my last excuse for not buying a DVD player has vanished overnight. Which one should I get?

  • >I would suggest a DVD-ROM rather than, or in addition to, a DVD for the following reasons

    That's a given :-)

    Now if I could figure out how to use a PC DVD to play movies and output the signal over to my TV, I'd be set. ;-)

    Holding out until there is (better/widespread/any) support for DVD rom in Linux, tho...

    (Father's day is this weekend, my wife is bugging me for ideas, Best Buy has the Panasonics on sale... hmmm)

  • Exactly. Let them sell them them all off to Sam's Club for pennies on the dollar and then go pick one up at Sam's for $60.

    "This week only at Wal-Mart - get a free DiVX player and 100 free discs with any purchase of $100 or more!"

    haahaahaa, assholes - serves them right

  • Exactly. Let them sell them them all off to Sam's Club for pennies on the dollar and then go pick one up at Sam's for $60.



    "This week only at Wal-Mart - get a free DiVX player and 100 free discs with any purchase of $100 or more!"



    haahaahaa, assholes - serves them right



  • The language comes from the federal Securities Exchange Act:
    [I]n any private action arising under this chapter that is based on an untrue statement of a material fact or omission of a material fact necessary to make the statement not misleading [i.e., in almost every federal securities fraud lawsuit], a person ... shall not be liable with respect to any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, if and to the extent that the forward-looking statement is identified as a forward-looking statement, and is accompanied by meaningful cautionary statements identifying important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statement ...
    15 U.S.C. 78u-5(c)(1) [cornell.edu] (numerous exceptions omitted for readability).
  • The problem with DIVX is that it favored the licensor far beyond what it did the consumer. They got their royalties, and then some -- and had powerful and rigid controls. But the consumer got a system less powerful than DVD, and it combined the *worst* aspects of ownership, rental, pay-per-view, and licensing. In fact, DIVX was more anti-consumer than anything, which is why in the end it was a failure to the company that brought it to market.

    I celebrate this as a victory, because if DIVX suceeded, this type of arrangement may have spread elsewhere. It is very closed-system, inconvenient, and money-hungry. It'd work great for a monopoly.
  • 1) Add them onto the Holy AOL 30-Day Trial CD Necklace.

    2) Coasters.

    3) Frisbees.

    4) Put one on your head and pronounce yourself the DIVX Angel. (4b: Join the circus)

    5) Goes great with cabbage!

    6) Amaze your dim friends by telling them that the disk will explode 48 hours after they watch it. 48 hours later, tell them the trigger must have activated but that there was some problem in the ignition system.

    7) Keep them above your bed, so the first thing you do in the morning is giggle about the incredible stupidity of DIVX.

    8) Label 52 of them differently and start playing DIVX poker at school. Guaranteed to befuddle just about everyone.

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