Everything you wanted to know about MPEG-4 / DivX, but were hesitant to ask Part 7
DVD players with MPEG-4 DivX function
We are talking about DVD players widely available for less than $ 250 that can be found on the shelves of electronics stores today and in the usual supermarkets of Western Europe. The ability to play MP3 and JPEG files on these players is standard. But it was not always like this. The first DVD players only worked with DVD, VCD and audio CD formats. We have every reason to believe that next year, DivX playback will become standard on all mainstream players on the market.
What’s up today? The first MPEG-4 compatible DVD players appeared in early 2003 from KISS Technologies at a price of around $ 500. This price could not attract a wide range of users, so they did not cause much enthusiasm in the market. The situation changed radically, a few months after the second wave of cheaper players appeared, in the $ 200-250 category. Thus, for example, at the CeBIT-2003 exhibition, the German company MAS Elektronik AG announced the product Xoro HSD 400 (support for 3.11 and higher, integrated 5.1 audio decoder, VGA output) for only $ 250.
The market turned to DivX. The press has published many articles on the prospects for MPEG-4 and DivX in home appliances. Heated discussions broke out. As a result, today there are DVD / MPEG players on the market from various manufacturers, the demand for them is so high that they are in short supply both in Europe and in Russia.
Currently, three manufacturers offer chipsets for the production of DivX players: Mediatek, ESS Technology and Sigma Design. Sigma has historically been the first and has been skimming the cream for about a year. However, today ESS is the undisputed leader in this market. ESS Vibratto offers a powerful and affordable solution to play all popular formats and codecs (including the old 3.11). Also, on the basis of an ESS chip, unlike Sigma, 6-channel Dolby Digital audio decoding can be implemented.
Modern popular players implemented in ESS microcontrollers with DivX support
Philips 737 is a stylish player (6-channel built-in audio decoder is not installed)
Xoro HSD 311 – Popular Affordable DivX Player with 6-Channel Audio Support
Xoro HSD 400 Plus – 311 modification in elegant design with karaoke and VGA (PAL / NTSC progressive scan) output, it is a successor to Xoro HSD 400 and Xoro HSD 410
The JVC XV NP1 DVD player is often mentioned in the forums. However, unfortunately, this player only plays MPEG-4 movies on memory cards.
