DivX Connected SF Event
In partnership with Jeremy Toeman’s Stage Two public relations company, DivX hosted a demo party for the soon-to-be-released DivX Connected platform at a cozy little venue called MR. in San Francisco. As expected, there were popular bloggers and journalists in attendance like Robert Scoble (Scobleizer), Om Malik (GigaOM), Ryan Block (Engadget), Hubert Nguyen (Ubergizmo), Scott Beale (Laughing Squid), Vincent Nguyen (SlashGear), and others. The evening started out as more of a mixer but then morphed into a hands-on demo opportunity and then into a full-fledge 20-minute presentation by DivX co-founder Jerome Rota.
[Full video recap of the event and presentation can be found on my post at eHomeUpgrade – photos on Flickr]
Overall, I think everyone came away impressed and eager to see how the platform would do once it’s out in the wild. For those who don’t know what DivX Connected is all about, it’s essentially a new technology layer that will give set-top makers an added networked media playback feature-set similar to Microsoft’s Media Extender concept.
What I like about it:
- DivX Connected is an “open†platform. Meaning, the company has developed a plugin SDK which third parties can leverage to add new codec support, online mashups, and few other neat features.
- The platform is capable of outputting 1080p high-definition video (preferably DivX HD).
- The platform is able to tap into Stage 6’s online video library and Shoutcast’s Internet Radio directory.
What I don’t:
- The platform requires a Windows PC to always be on due to the fact that the networked PC the server software is installed on renders the user-interface you’ll see on the TV via the set-top. Jerome did hint that a Windows Home Server version may eventually roll out. Makes sense since WHS runs Windows Sever 2003.
- The set-top can only identify network shares the server PC has detected – no UPnP auto-discovery without the PC.
- No Linux PC support planned, only Mac in the near future.
As you can see, the platform has a lot of potential and makes a good competitor to what Microsoft and Apple have in store for consumers. And, the fact that DivX is going with an inexpensive licensing model for OEMs, puts them in a position to sell a large volume of units worldwide.
UPDATE 12/24/07: DivX Connected is officially out. DivX has partnered with D-Link to bring consumers the D-Link DSM-330 HD Media Player.
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About
Alexander Grundner is a San Francisco Peninsula based web publisher who spends most of his time tracking down news stories for eHomeUprade, attending technology events, or working on his next big project.
For fun he likes to stay active outdoors, take photographs, shoot video, hack together PHP/Python code, play with Linux, and test new technologies.
