Divx DVD player a good option?

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Frobozz

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 15, 2002
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Well.. I've come to the conclusion that my only real reason for building a HTPC is to play DVDs and encoded video types. I've noticed some set top players can play DivX and can be had for a really reasonable price. For example: this Philips. (web order only)
Another contender is this JVC. It costs a bit more but can be found in B&M.

Think I'm going to make a disc of a hodgepodge of content and see BestBuy will let me try out the JVC just for kicks.

My quesitons are - (If you've used one) what was your experience with a set top Divx player? What disapointments and positives have you had with it? With the limited selection that is out there, what unit would you recomend?
 
the phillips one is great if you don't have an HDTV. It can be found at Compusa and Target as well. They actually have it in the stores there. The main problems I see with one of those is that you have to have the media on a disc and that you are locked into the Divx codec. No xvid or anything else that comes out in the future. But for $70 , the Phillips is nice. 2 of my friends have one.
 
I have the Phillips one, it is very good. I reccomend it to everyone and will do so here as well. BUY IT!
 
I own one of the philips Divx players and because of it I have decided not to build a dedicated HTPC. I have a TV record in my main pc to record stuff with and everything else I just burn as either a Divx (You can burn a lot of Divx movies on one DVD R). The quality is as good as playing a Dixv off your computer using TV out. I would recommend it.
 
I own the Phillips player, from Walmart, in stock all the time at most stores...

It will play xvid as well as DivX.... So, no worries there. :)

The quality is pretty nice, considering the price of the unit. It also is pretty quiet, and doesn't put off a ton of heat, so you can "trap" it in a cabinet out of the way.

I love mine, DVD quality is better than the other Apex I own, and it doesn't play these more compressed formats.
 
Thank you all for the great replies! and my mistake on the upper vs lower case 'X' thing. (yay for sharing names with dead technologies! I had soo forgotten about them.)

I'm probably going to go with the Philips. May still swing by BB tomorrow just to give the JVC a try for shucks and grins.

One negative thing most reviews of the Philips shared was regarding the remote. They said it was laid out funky (not that it really matters when you get used to it) and they questioned the quality. Some of the write-in reviews stated that you were up a creek if you lost or broke the remote (no controls on the unit.) What are your opinions on the remote? Should something 'stupid' tm. happen, a universal remote could probably be used right?
 
I haven't used it enought o know. I usually go with a good universal anyway.
 
I have a liteon divx dvd player, and a few of my friends have the phillips one....Divx DVD player is hit or miss....For the most part they play almost everything, but sometimes in fast moving scenes they tend to slow down....I have started using my HTPC as my Divx player, and it is great, PQ is better IMO...
 
I still wonder why they named their codec DivX, when the divx(Circuit City) nightware was going on. I still have bad thoughts when I think of divx due to what Circuit City tried to pull. I'm glad that experiment was a total and complete failure.
 
SilverMK3 said:
Has anyone tried this one yet?
Its certified to play DivX-HD and WMV9-HD content from DVDs, CDs, or over Ethernet.
Click to expand...

That looks cool...But I do not know about Xvid and some of the other codecs....
 
xbox + mod + xbmc = set top divx/xvid/quicktime/mpeg4/anythingelse/game player.
 
darktiger said:
That looks cool...But I do not know about Xvid and some of the other codecs....
Click to expand...

copy & pasted from the site:
Supported Video MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG2-TS/DivX® VIDEO/XviD/WMV9
Supported Photo JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG
Photo Resolutions Up to 2048 x 1532
Supported Audio MP3/AAC/WMA (*2)/PCM/Ogg Vorbis
Bit Rate / Sampling Rate 64K to 192Kbps / 32K/44.1K/48KHz
Audio Playing Stereo PCM / Dolby Digital AC-3
Wired LAN 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX(RJ-45) x1
USB Host Interface USB 2.0 port (front-side) x1 Mass storage class support
USB Support Devices USB Memory Stick, I-O DATA HDD products, and any FAT16/32 storage devices / card readers
Video Out Japanese D4 Connector (Digital Out 1080i/720p/480p/480i)
* D4 to Component Cable Bundle
Composite Out x1
S-Video Out (S1/S2) x1
Audio Out Analog Audio Out (L/R) x2
Digital Surround Out (Coaxial) x1
Optical Digital Out x1
Bundle Items Remote x1, AAA battery x2, D4-Component Cable x1, AV Cable x1(composite&stereo), LAN cable x1, CD-ROM x1, User's Guide x1, Quick Reference x1, Warranty Card x1
Click to expand...
 
I've got the Philips player

Pros:
Plays a wide variety of codecs; XVid, Divx 3,4,5, MPEG 1-4, and more

Plays every disc I've thrown at it; CDR, CDRW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW

Playback looks good on my TV via Composite (don't have an HDTV, so I can't comment on that)

Heck of alot cheaper than a dedicated PC or X-Box to do the same thing

Cons:
WIDE player. About the same width as a laserdisc unit. You may not be able to fit it in a VCR hole in your entertainment center. It's actually wider than my old Apex AD-500W.

Remote is very small and doesn't have many buttons. There are no dedicated Fast Forward or Rewind buttons, once playback is started (on a DVD or DivX), you hit the right navigation arrow to Fast Forward, and the left navigation arrow for Rewind. Takes some getting used to.

No volume control. A minor issue, but it means you'll need to have your audio equipment control handy to change the volume.

Odd limits on when you can't fast forward/rewind files. No corelation to whether or not you can fast forward on a PC.

Doesn't have WMA/WMV support, even though it has icons for it. May have been fixed in later rom releases. Appearently it upgradable using CD. I haven't tried any upgrades myself.

Takes a long time to parse/reparse a disc that has complex directory structure. Doesn't really matter if you make DVDs directly for it, but on my old system backup discs it takes awhile for the menu to come up each time.

Over all, it's great for ~$70.
 
I got that same Philips dvd player from Best Buy.

It's played everything I've thrown at it. Looks great with component on my 27" Widscreen LCD.

I definately recommend it. A+++
 
To the right of the big LCD.

Room2.jpg
 
Just a follow up -
I've purchased the Philips player and it has played everything I've thrown at it thus far (edit: that has been divx encoded), and the color is excelent. The remote is a little different than normal, but it makes sense enough.

Only issue that may be a show stopper is that a lot of the content I want to play are anime fansubs that have the subtitles in the video (not an external file.) The videos feel like they are zoomed in and/or are not being resized to fit the screen properly. People in other forums have commented on this and refered to it as overscan and blamed the TV. I don't recall having an issue like that when I made a test htpc (spare noisy parts,) but I think I should try again to make sure. I had hoped that the updated firmware would address the issue, but it didnt.
I need to try some DVDs and compare it against my Apex AD-1000 (it's picked up a weird tapping noise anyway.) For $70 it may still be worth keeping around. Perhaps I'll try it out on a newer TV and see the results there.
 
Frobozz said:
Just a follow up -
Only issue that may be a show stopper is that a lot of the content I want to play are anime fansubs that have the subtitles in the video (not an external file.) The videos feel like they are zoomed in and/or are not being resized to fit the screen properly. People in other forums have commented on this and refered to it as overscan and blamed the TV. I don't recall having an issue like that when I made a test htpc (spare noisy parts,) but I think I should try again to make sure. I had hoped that the updated firmware would address the issue, but it didnt.
Click to expand...

No problems here, though my TV is a high-end set (albeit from the '80s). Some PC video cards put a black border around the picture to make sure it doesn't get cut off by the bezel of the TV (then thing that holds in/hides the tube). You might want to check your TV's service menu to see if you can control the image size, it's a long-shot, but you might be lucky. They really should have put in bordered mode for people unlucky enough to have border/overscan issues.

If you're really bugged by this, you could try re-encoding the video to a lower resolution, as it seems this plays will only scale down an image, but not scale up. A resolution below 320x240 should give you a video with a border when played on the Philips.
 
For fun I tried it on a Hitachi HD ready tv. Should be new enough to eliminate a lacking in TV technology. It still croped out the subtitles.
Because I'm sure I'd have to crack open the shell to access vertical/horizontal adjustment controls on my TV and that I am guessing that would screw up the experience for normal TV even if it worked, I think this unit is going to go back to the store. Please take this as just a statement and not bitching/complaining. I'm sure the unit works fine with lower resolution vids, but since I dont want to re-encode gigs of vids I think I'm going to go ahead and look into building a HTPC. I think the technology is great and the price cant be beat, but it just doesn't fit my needs to my satisfaction. I sure hope they continue to expand upon the idea though. A $70 solution would sure have been better than a $400+ one.

Thank you all for your comments.
 
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