Sometime in the near future, Samsung TVs are going to have DivX playback capabilities built-in. This should allow playback of the video format from a connected USB mass storage device or Ethernet connection. The certification will probably start with the top-tier models and eventually work itself down market. A handy-dandy front DivX logo should reveal wether the set is equipped with the video playback goods.

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.

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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…

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Remember DIVX? Not DivX the codec, but DIVX as in Digital Video Express — from Circuit City — the ill-fated self-destructing DVD system from lo those many years ago. A similar idea just might be able to succeed where DIVX failed. Or not, who knows?

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.

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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]

HEXUS.tv has a pretty good one-on-one video with DivX co-founder Jerome Rota about his company’s upcoming foray into the connected video box realm, where it’ll compete with AppleTV and similar devices.

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.

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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…

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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.
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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]