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There is big news (exclusive to Digital Digest) on the DIVX front today. No, not DivX, but rather the pay-per-view DIVX disc system, that DVD enthusiasts had successfully lobbied against, and is now defunked ... or so we thought. Apparently, a new company (owned by a close friend of mine) has purchased the DIVX license and will now try to bring it back from the dead. So what does this have to do with DivX? Well, insiders at the newly formed company say that instead of using space consuming MPEG-2 based video on these pay-per-view discs, a form of MPEG-4, possibly DivX 5.x, will be used instead, allowing content to be produced on CDs, as opposed to DVDs that the earlier DIVX format used. This will bring down production costs, and hence, lower the prices of rentals.
Just like the early version of DIVX, each disc will be sold at a significant lower price than DVDs (reported to be as low as $USD 2.50, depending on the movie), and comes with 24 hours of viewing included. Additional viewing will require additional payment, payable from a PayPal type service on the Internet (or through telephone). Users are also given the option to purchase the movie for unlimited viewing (from as low as $USD 5.00). The hardware players for these discs will be based on existing DVD players (with normal DVD/MP3 playback support, region/Macrovision protection), but with extra security to prevent hacked/copied DIVX discs from being played back. The even bigger news, perhaps, is that these players will be able to playback non-DIVX MPEG-4 content, possibly home-made DivX 5.x encoded discs!!
Unfortunately, due to the differing formats used for the new-DIVX, old-DIVX discs will not be playable on these players.
Stay tuned to this space for more information ...
(I will post some more detailed information tomorrow, including possibly a picture of a prototype new-DIVX machine)
Just like the early version of DIVX, each disc will be sold at a significant lower price than DVDs (reported to be as low as $USD 2.50, depending on the movie), and comes with 24 hours of viewing included. Additional viewing will require additional payment, payable from a PayPal type service on the Internet (or through telephone). Users are also given the option to purchase the movie for unlimited viewing (from as low as $USD 5.00). The hardware players for these discs will be based on existing DVD players (with normal DVD/MP3 playback support, region/Macrovision protection), but with extra security to prevent hacked/copied DIVX discs from being played back. The even bigger news, perhaps, is that these players will be able to playback non-DIVX MPEG-4 content, possibly home-made DivX 5.x encoded discs!!
Unfortunately, due to the differing formats used for the new-DIVX, old-DIVX discs will not be playable on these players.
Stay tuned to this space for more information ...
(I will post some more detailed information tomorrow, including possibly a picture of a prototype new-DIVX machine)
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