The “anybody but iPod” crowd has another portable media player to choose from, and it’s from Samsung. It’s called the R1, and it’s your standard issue touchscreen PMP. It does play Divx-encoded video, which should be a benefit to those of you who haven’t moved onto Blu-ray rips, or who enjoy watching standard-def rips of TV shows on the subway.

It’s small, yeah, with its screen coming in at 2.6-inches, and being only 8.9mm (0.89 cm). You know Samsung worked damn hard to get that under 9.0mm.

There’s not much else here: it’s a PMP, for Pete’s sake. These things have been the same for four years now.

The R1 will come in 8GB an 16GB flavors when it comes out this fall. A specific release date? Nowhere to be found. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

JVC Japan announced the XV-BP1 today [JP], a new Blu-ray player that comes with two interesting features and a fair price. The player supports DivX/MPEG-4/MKV/AVCHD files and sports a USB port at the front so you can plug in a USB stick with your DivX-movies (you know, the ones you downloaded legally earlier) into the device and directly start watching.

The player also supports BD-Live, Bonus View and delivers video in 1080/60p or 24p quality (DVD upscaling in 1080/60p). Needless to say, it not only features a USB port but also an HDMI interface.

The XV-BP1 will hit Japanese stores in late July (JVC is yet to announce international distribution plans) and will cost $440.

Well, sometimes utilizing a sneakernet is easier than setting up a complicated network, running cables, finding compatible equipment that’s loaded with the right codec just so you can watch a pirated movie. Now, just load the movie on an SD card and the TV will play it back; as long as it’s encoded in DivX.

How long will it be before we’re no longer forced to lug around both a camera phone and a full-fledged standalone camera, “just in case” something truly photo-worthy goes down? According to LG, not too long. At a round table event in London last week, the company’s head of marketing stated that he sees no reason why camera phones couldn’t replace point and shoot cameras sometime in the foreseeable future.

At the same event, Andy Glasson of DivX mentioned that the company is working for H.264 encoding/decoding solutions for mobile handsets, which could lead to HD video recording at some point in the future.

With the Innov8, Pixon, KC780, and KC910 all set to offer 8 megapixel shots, things seem to be covered on the resolution front. Until we start seeing photo samples to prove that they offer more than the blurry blue messes we’ve come to expect of camera phone shots, I won’t start packing up my pocket shooter.

[Via Pocket-Lint]

DivX is making its way into more and more CE devices. Pioneer’s latest Blu-ray players couldn’t withstand the DivX invasion and the BDP-LX71, BDP-LX08 and BDP-51FD all earned the certification that states the unit can playback high-quality DivX material. These players are already shipping worldwide, so just because yours doesn’t carry the logo on the front bezel doesn’t mean that the player isn’t certified. 

PR

DivX will make its way into more Blu-ray players thanks to the certification of the popular Broadcom BCM7440 chip. This single chip will facilitate DivX playback on a disc or stored on a flash drive. By taking the decoding off the software suite, and placing the task on the chip, it will allow for a significant performance upgrade and smoother playback. Curious to know if your next Blu-ray player has the chip? Look for the DivX Certified logo on the front bezel. 

Here’s a five-minute look at the DSM-330 from D-Link. It’s a DivX Connected player, which basically uses your home PC for most of the menu rendering and downloading horsepower. We’ll have a full review up in the not-too-distant future.

So far, I see promise in the plug-ins feature, which allows developers to create their own stuff – I installed a Digg.com thing, an HD movie preview function, and a Google Maps application. Streaming HD content over my 802.11G wireless connection has been so-so. If the files are already on my PC, everything works great. Files that need to be downloaded and streamed on the fly tend to stutter from time to time.

All in all the device looks pretty good, though. I’ll run it through some more tests over the next week or so and report back.

DLink’s DSM-330 is now available for $299. It connects to your home networks via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and can play back high definition DivX content on your TV using DivX Connected functionality, which basically streams DivX, Xvid, WMV, DV, MPEG-1, and MJPEG video content (various audio formats too) from your computer and also harnesses your CPU’s horsepower to make all the pretty menus.

There’s HDMI output along with component, composite, S-Video, and Scart, plus RCA, S/PDIF, and Optical audio outputs. D-Link is selling the DSM-330 for $299, but you can find it for cheaper elsewhere – Amazon.com has it for $199 after rebate, for instance.

More photos and full press release after the jump…

D-LINK NOW SHIPPING FIRST DIVX CONNECTED HIGH-DEFINITION MEDIA PLAYER IN U.S.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., July 9, 2008 — D-Link, the end-to-end networking solutions provider for consumer and business, and DivX, Inc. (NASDAQ: DIVX), a digital media company, today announced the availability of the first DivX Connected™ device in the U.S., with distribution in Canadian markets soon to follow. The D-Link® MediaLounge® DSM-330 enables the seamless streaming of music, photos, Internet services, and high definition video from PCs to the television.

"As more and more people embrace the DivX platform, we recognize the growing demand for a media player that supports all the capabilities that the DivX interface has to offer," said Chris Wong, Director of Product Management, D-Link Systems, Inc. "There is increasing market demand for solutions that bridge the gap between the PC and television and we are proud to be the first to work with DivX in bringing Connected to North America."

"The DivX Connected platform enables an entirely new way to experience digital media and represents our continued mission to improve the way in which consumers engage their digital entertainment," said Patrice Lagrange, Senior Vice President, Products, DivX, Inc. "Connected offers a vibrant solution to the expansive gap between PC and living room entertainment, and DivX is pleased to work with D-Link in bringing this revolutionary platform to the U.S."

DivX Connected is a powerful, open media platform that allows consumers to experience and control PC-based digital media on their television using a remote control and is capable of being embedded within many consumer electronics devices, including digital televisions, set-top boxes, Blu-ray DVD players, and more. The platform’s easy-to-use SDKs allow users to customize the look and feel of their media experience and even create plug-ins to a world of internet services such as Google Maps, Last.fm, Facebook and many more.

Key Features of the DSM-330:

• Fast, intuitive remote-controlled TV interface
• Highly responsive, remote-control lets you access trick modes: skip forward 30 seconds, skip back 10 seconds and virtual chapter points
• Connects to television using HDMI (cable included), component (cable included), composite, S-Video or SCART
• Connects to home network via 802.11g Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable
• Supported Video Formats include DivX (including DivX VOD files), Xvid and WMV9 (transcoded on PC)
• Supported Image Formats include JPEG, JPEG 2000 and BMP (non-compressed)
• Supported Audio Formats include MP3, WMA (transcoded on PC), M3U, M3U8 and PLS
• WEP, WPA and WPA2 Wireless Security Supported

For more information on DivX Connected, see www.divx.com/connected. For more information on the D-Link DSM-330, see www.dlink.com/DSM-330.

Price and Availability

The D-Link DSM-330 is available through D-Link’s network of retail outlets, value-added resellers, solution providers and distributors, or at the company’s online store, www.dlinkshop.com, for the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $299.99.

Anyway, whereas DIVX relied on special DVD players that could play DIVX discs (and also regular DVDs), a new disposable DVD coming from a German company called DVD-D will supposedly work in any DVD player, will cost €3.99 ($6.44 US) and will expire in 48 hours.

According to the Register…

DVD-D Germany Ltd’s ‘Einmal’ (German for ‘once’) – discs incorporate a self-destruct chemical coating to render them unreadable after a pre-set time. The process begins as soon as the discs are removed from vacuum-sealed packaging. After 48 hours (or longer, depending on the price) the DVD gives a ‘No disc’ error when put into a DVD player or PC. There appears to be no DRM (digital rights management), so you couldcopy the disks, if you’re quick enough.

The DVD-D discs are available in Germany currently and may or may not make it stateside. I’m guessing probably not, with all the On-Demand and Apple TV stuff.

Would any of you red-blooded Americans do this? Let’s assume that they’d cost $4 apiece here, not $6.44. Let’s just forget the whole weak dollar thing never happened.

If and when the **AA have Usenet shut down after the piece appears, feel free to blame Biggs. He’s making me write it.

I occasionally mention Usenet when talking about piracy here, but I’ve never really explained what it is or what it does. I’m still not going to explain what it is, technically, (that’s what Wikipedia’s for), but I will put it in layman’s terms. Think of Usenet as a big, unregulated, uncontrollable message board in the sky. The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy even logged onto Usenet when he needed to know the star of Radioactive Man!

The key difference with Usenet is that users can attach files to their messages. That’s the gist of it, at least. And since you can attach a file to a message you can, conceivably, attach many files to many messages. That’s what people do. You’ll find these file-laden posts on something called binary groups. And that’s where the piracy aspect comes into play. Literally thousands of groups devoted to literally thousands of categories, each one filled with all sorts of pirated content. Entire albums, entire movies, entire video games—getting 0day DreamCast games back in the day was top-notch—et cetera. Basically, Usenet rules and is what all the cool kids use. Hopefully you’ll be able to use it, too, after this.

Before you can downloads gigs upon gigs of premium content, you’ll need two things to access Usenet: access to a Usenet server and a newsreader. Like I said, Usenet can be thought of as a giant message board, but one that you need permission to access. Some ISPs give you access to a Usenet server as part of your monthly Internet bill. TimeWarner, my current ISP, has a server as did my previous ISP, Cablevision/OptimumOnline. My old dorm here at NYU didn’t so I had to pay for one. It’s not that expensive when you think about what you’re getting.

There’s a few big, commercial Usenet providers. Some of the popular ones are Giganews, Easynews and News Hosting. I’d recommend Giganews in a heartbeat because that’s what I used so I know first-hand that it’s excellent.

What you’re paying for when you subscribe to these services—it’s like $20-$25 per month for unlimited downloads—is access to their Usenet server. Once you have access to a server, either via your ISP or one of the commercial guys, you’ll have access to the files. Now you’ll need a news reader. Wikipedia has a giant list of news readers, but here’s two right off the bat. If you use a Mac, get Unison, which I endorsed a few days ago. Windows users should get Grabit, which my brother uses. He says it’s pretty good. Then again, I haven’t used Windows for six years.

Setup. Type something like “Giganews” or “RoadRuner” for the description (it doesn’t matter), then the server address in the appropriate field. The server address can be found deep inside you’re ISP’s Web site or (usually) in the “welcome aboard” e-mail that the commercial guys will send you. If you’re using an ISP’s server odds are you won’t have to input a username or password. I don’t and never did have to when using my ISP. For the commercial ones, yes, use the username/password either you picked or what they gave you. That might vary from service to service. Port 119 for the win.

Somewhere around the server settings you’ll want to set how many headers you want to download. (Think of headers as the individual messages. They’re not really, but this isn’t being posted in alt.technical-nonsense, now is it?) My connection is pretty damn fast so I have it set to download 5 million headers. Yes, 5M. You’ll want to set this number pretty high in order to have access to as many files as possible, NZBs notwithstanding. I’ll address NZBs in a minute.

OK, so your newsreader is configured. Treat yourself.

Now you’re ready to party.

Real men browse Usenet groups manually. What I usually do now is choose a group that interests me, like, say, alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.dance and look through it at my leisure. Oh look, a new Markus Schultz remix. Downloaded. Oh wow, this week’s Trance Around the World. Downloaded. (Yes, I know the pics don’t match. Creative license and all.) And so on. This method of downloading from Usenet takes a while because you have to wait for all the headers to load and then you have to sift through the material on your own. Again, that’s why I do, but I have all the time in the world to kill. Usenet amateurs like John Biggs—I taught him how to use it over AIM a few weeks ago—and my luddite brother rely on NZB files to download.

NZB files are, I think, metadata that simply tell your newsreader where on the Usenet sever (what group, what’s the exact file name, etc.) the files are. It’s sorta like a Torrent file. There’s no data there, just a pointer in the right direction. NZB files are created magically by Web sites. My brother swears by NZBIndex.nl (probably because it’s free) but Newzbin is the original and costs 60 cents per week, or $2.40 per month. From there, you’d browse their listings like you would any Torrent site. Look—someone posted No Country for Old Men in the high-def group. Grab the NZB file then double click it and you’ll be downloading as soon as your newsreader launches.

That screenshot I have of the dance binary group shows vanilla MP3s, but a lot of the bigger groups split files up into rar files. Please tell me you know how to use those. A lot of time, you’ll also find Par files. Should anything happen to your files while they’re being downloaded (or maybe they were posted corruptly to begin with), the Par files will repair them. I don’t know how, some algorithm. I use MacPar Deluxe, and QuickPar seems to be popular on Windows.

That’s a quick little primer on Usenet. I suggest you Google around for more information. (Fact—I first discovered Usenet when I was looking for Futurama episodes back in 8th grade. Then I branched out into video games, movies, music, all of it. No one helped me other than some random guys in IRC.)

Hmm, what else? Oh, key groups to keep an eye on.

• alt.binaries.sounds.complete_cd
• alt.biaries.cd.image
• alt.binaries.divx
• alt.binaries.hdtv.x264 (high-def movie rips)

Those are the ones I browse daily, especially the CD one and the x264 one. I practically live there!

BitTorrent users should know that pretty much all the scene stuff that you find on your go-to Web site is on Usenet several hours beforehand.

HTH

As always, Penny-Arcade flies above all of our stupidity to make a point: what makes the iTunes Rental service so different from DIVX, the failed disc format? That all-mighty, all-knowing Apple is behind it? That it has the support of all the studios?

Are you really going to stop downloading movies from the usual places?

::Taps nose::

What Goes Around [Penny-Arcade]

The PS3 update we talked about a couple weeks ago is on its way and should be arriving in your big black box as soon as tomorrow. The readme describes the update as being released December 18th, and not only will it update the Blu-Ray firmware to v1.1, but it will add DivX and WMV support. I don’t think that means support for the cooler XviD and H.264 codecs/containers is forthcoming, but it’ll be nice to play your old high-quality 2-CD copy of Lady and the Tramp through your favorite console.

Playstation 3 update features (Version 2.10)

If you’ve been patiently waiting for the DivX Pro codec and converter but you constantly find yourself without the $19.99 necessary to purchase said tools, now’s your chance to download DivX Pro for the low, low price of free. No rebates, no hassles. Just download it and enter the serial number that’ll be sent to your e-mail address.

Free DivX Pro [DivX.com] via FatWallet

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard update definitely includes support for what are "often referred to as Xvid or DivX video files." I know it’s not earth-shattering news and  I know that most of you probably already know about this, but I just wanted to get it out in the open. I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers or rile anybody up. I don’t want any trouble.

Just another quick note and then I’ll let you get on with your day. It’s been noted that extra DivX-specific features like menus and subtitles won’t work and that only DivX 5.0 and up files can be played. Again, I don’t want any trouble. Peter also wants me to tell you that "the update for DivX playback is a separate download from the main update. It prompts you the first time you play a video." I’ll now say thank you and bid you a fond adieu.

DivX comes to the Xbox 360 [Reg Hardware]

DivX announced this morning that its technology will soon be alive and well inside your PS3 console. “Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format,” said DivX CEO Kevin Hell. I’d like to announce this morning that I’ve never known of someone with the last name "Hell" before now. Heller? Yes. Hell? No.

Developers have been able to access the technology since a November 2nd upgrade of the PS3’s software developer kit so it shouldn’t be too much longer until you’ll be able to access DivX content on your console.

DivX Technology to be Added to PLAYSTATION®3 [BusinessWire]

As reported earlier, the difference with the DivX box will be that most of the horsepower will be provided by your network-connected PC whereas AppleTV and, say, Xbox 360 are both basically small computers and have to do most of the heavy lifting themselves.

This means that the device will cost much less (early figures are around $100) and you’ll only need a 2-4Mbps connection for SD video (1-1.2Mbps bitrate) and 6-8Mbps for HD video (4Mbps bitrate). DivX will also be spinning off its Stage6 user-generated video site and will connect to it via the new devices.

Finally, the company is working with consumer electronics manufacturers to get DivX chips installed directly into televisions because, as Rota claims, you’d really only need a very small, efficient DivX chip and a network connection for the technology to work.

DivX’s Jerome Rota Reveals Home Content Streaming Technology [HEXUS.tv] via Digg.com

Ubergizmo got a chance to play with an in-development 720p networked media player built around the DivX platform. While they compared it to AppleTV, such a device seems more like an orange – it’s dependent upon a host PC, doesn’t have a hard drive, and doesn’t make use of content purchased from an iTunes-like store. All that aside, the device has a couple of pretty unique features…

“The user interface was quite nice. Much better than what we usually get in this type of device (think Apex, Linksys?), but the crunchy part is that all the user-interface (UI) rendering is done on the PC and sent to the player as very small DivX files! That?s a good idea that enables good graphics and UI on cheap hardware.”

That IS a good idea. Sluggish UI systems have been the bane of previous networked media player offerings. Anyone who’s had the “pleasure” of owning D-Link’s DSM-320 will know what I mean. Another cool feature is that forthcoming DivX hardware players will make use of an API to facilitate the development of user-created applications and plug-ins. Me like.

The best part of all? We could see these players for around $99. 

DivX?s Apple TV, but smarter [Ubergizmo]

Having traveled quite a bit in the last six months I really could have used a portable DVD player to drown out the roar of the engines, the terrible movie choices made by the airline, the crying baby two seats over, or the constant jibber-jabber from my girlfriend (just joking, M). While I haven’t had any flights during the review of the Philips DCP850, I have had a handful of train rides over 1.5 hours, including yesterday when an annoying douche sat in front of me and thought he was the next Great White Rapper. This definitely isn’t your run-of-the-mill portable DVD player either. It has a few tricks up its sleeve.

The DCP850 offers a wide-range of video playback from multiple sources other than a DVD. You can hook up your video iPod (it also charges your iPod) and play back all your iTunes content. You can also watch burned DVDs that have DivX files on them and listen to MP3 CDs. If you have your SD or MMC card handy then you can hook those up as well and view your pictures on the massive swiveling 8.5-inch LCD screen. Can you say convergence device? I thought so.

The 850 also includes an IR remote that sits flush into the iPod dock and lets you control every function and feature the DCP850 employs. The remote was a tad too wide for me, but I’m just a nitpicky sort of guy. Another thing I liked about the 850 are the dual 3.5mm headphone jacks that let you snuggle close with someone without having to use a splitter or being the lame duo who each get one earbud. There’s also an AV-in and AV-out plug allowing you to take advantage of the included RCA cables, so you can connect to your home entertainment center or a hotel TV. The standard volume and brightness control are also integrated with the other plugs. A cigarette lighter adapter is also included for those long car rides.

However, it’s not all peaches and cream for the DCP850. The first thing I noticed was the amount of vibration generated when DVDs are starting up. If felt like it would take off at any moment. The speakers are sub-par and I found myself plugging in my ‘phones more than anything else. The battery life when playing back DVDs was around 2 hours and not the 2.5 Philips boasts, but I had the brightness level cranked all the way up. Video playback on the iPod lasted much longer at just over 4.5 hours. If you intend on using the DCP850 on a flight then I suggest you upload video content to your iPod. The biggest downfall of this device, though, is the lack of iPod controls. You can’t navigate through the menus via the IR remote and you’re basically using it to play and pause your music.

Overall, the DCP850 does everything you’d want a portable DVD player to do and the iPod video functionality is great, but the battery life and lack of a battery backup solution could make you think twice about purchasing it for $199.99.

Product Page

The iRiver M10 that we spotted last week has bee made official and is now known as the iRiver NV. It’s a GPS receiver with a very LG Prada look about it (and a very LG enV name about it…). The 7-inch widescreen display trumps other GPS devices on the market. Built-in DMB support and out-of-the-box compatibility with popular video formats like Divx, Xvid and H.264 further help distinguish it from the rest of the crowd crowd. There’s also not one, but two SD Card slots. Clearly iRiver has gone craaazy.

Now the bad news: the NV may well be an exclusive to Asia, which is incredibly lame news to start the week with. It’s pretty obvious that its looks will be the device’s main attraction, but its innards shouldn’t be ignored. After all, as long as its beautiful on the inside… hah, right.

Product Info [iRiver via dapreview.net]