Chapter 1

The interesting thing many people don’t realize is that DTV happened
sooner, faster, and cheaper on PCs. A year before any consumer DTV sets
came out, you could buy a DVD PC with a 34-inch VGA monitor and get
gorgeous progressive-scan movies for under $3000. The quality of a good
DVD PC connected to a data-grade video projector can beat a $30,000
line-doubler system. (See BroadbandMagic, Digital Connection, and Sleakline
for product examples. Video projectors are available from Barco, Dwin,
Electrohome, Faroudja, InFocus, Projectavision, Runco, Sharp, Sony,
Vidikron, and others.)
Eventually, the DVD-Video format will be upgraded to an HD-DVD format.
See “Will High-Definition DVDs or 720p DVDs Make Current Players
and Discs Obsolete?” later in this chapter. Also see “What’s New with DVD
Technology?” in Chapter 6, “Miscellaneous.”
What Is Divx?
Two forms of Divx exist. The original was a pay-per-view version of DVD.
The later version is a video encoding format.
The Original Divx
DVD’s Relationship to Other Products and Technologies 73
Depending on whom you ask, Divx (Digital Video Express first known as
ZoomTV) was either an insidious evil scheme for greedy studios to control
what you see in your own living room or an innovative approach to video
rental that would offer cheap discs you could get almost anywhere and
keep for later viewings.
Developed by Circuit City and a Hollywood law firm, Divx was supported by
Disney (Buena Vista), Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, MGM, and
DreamWorks SKG, all of which also released discs in the “open DVD” format,
because the Divx agreement was nonexclusive. Harman/Kardon, JVC, Kenwood,
Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Thomson (RCA/Proscan/GE), and
Zenith announced Divx players, although some never came to market (The
ones that did were Panasonic X410, Proscan PS8680Z, RCA RC5230Z and
RC5231Z, and Zenith DVX2100). The studios and hardware makers supporting
Divx were given incentives in the form of guaranteed licensing payments totaling
over $110 million. Divx discs were manufactured by Nimbus, Panasonic,
and Pioneer. Circuit City lost over $114 million (after tax write-offs) on Divx.
As stated, Divx was a pay-per-viewing-period variation of DVD. Divx discs
sold for $4.50. Once inserted into a Divx player, the disc would play normally
(allowing the viewer to pause, rewind, or even put in another disc before finishing
the first one) for the next 48 hours, after which the owner had to pay
$3.25 to unlock it for another 48 hours. A Divx DVD player, which cost about