Okay, so there is a trend to offer DivX support on some of the newer DVD Players. I found this list of officially certified DVD Players at DivX.com. Honestly, I’m surprised to see so many considering you don’t see that many in any one consumer electronics store. I’ll attribute that to the list containing some overseas models and some that may be listed, but not yet released to mainstream outlets.
While I was perusing through the hot deals of the morning, I ran across this new beauty. Toshiba is now a player (punn intended) in the DivX DVD market. The model SD-4980 has DivX and MPEG-4 support as well as HD upconversion via HDMI. Check it out. Did I mention, it is also under $100?
I just saw this online at CostCo.com and it is only $80. That is not bad for a DivX playing upconverting DVD Player. The manual, as well has a high res photo, can be found here. Buy it at CostCo.
I’m still contemplating getting one for the HD upconversion. I currently have three of the older DVP-642 units, so I would either sell one of those or move it to the last TV I have without one. $80 is not bad for the HDMI feature alone, much less a player that plays DivX videos. Oh… what to do… what to do?
If you have an HDTV Tuner Card in your PC, you might be wondering how you can backup this content to DVD. HDBeat has posted about this very topic, and they couldn’t make it look more easy.
Side note: When I had my ATI HDTV Wonder I was asking myself this very question. How in the world can I make use of the .ts file that was holding my recorded HDTV shows?
This morning I received an email from Netflix regarding a class action law suit settlement. Apparently someone thought Netflix reneged on their deal of ‘Unlimited DVD Rentals’ and not keeping to their ‘1 day turn around,’ which myself have experienced time and time again. Needless to say I took the deal with the option of one month free upgrade from 3-at-a-time to 4-at-a-time. I feel they’ve throttled my rentals too many times. Just a week ago, I turned in all 3 of my movies on a Monday. Tuesday morning they received them, and typically they would have sent the next set that afternoon for me to receive by Wednesday. This time, by noon (not the end of the day) I had 3 ‘Shipping Wednesday’ messages in my queue, which meant instead of receiving my movies on Wednesday, I would possibly receive them by Thursday, which pretty much eliminates all possibility for same week turn around.
NetFlix History Anazlyer - is your subscription worth it? I just found this tool that will analyze your Netflix rental history and basically tell you if you are getting your money’s worth. Here are my results:
Your results You’ve rented 276 DVDs over 21 months from January 27, 2004 to October 26, 2005. Your plan costs $17.99/month so you’ve paid $377.79 total. Your average price per rental was approximately $1.37 each. Average rental costs elsewhere are $3.75 each (not including late fees). You’ve saved approximately $657.21 over your membership lifetime or $31.30 per month. Here’s some more about your renting habits… You kept each rental for around 5 days on average. The longest you kept a single DVD was 20 days: Enemy at the Gates (2001). You rented about 13 DVDs each month. You’re not taking full advantage of your current plan. You could be renting 19 DVDs each month.
Check out NetFlix History Analzyer here.
Rental Statistics from tallrock.net - detailed statistics showing your rental history in detail you’ve never imagined. The initial summary is somewhat similar to the previous tool, but the tabs across the top of the page will show your true rental habits. Here is my summary as of now:
- You have rented 271 DVDs over 22 months. (That’s an average of 12 DVDs per month).
- On average, 22% of your rentals were delayed (i.e. ‘throttled’) by Netflix.
- In your most recent month of data (10/2005), your rentals were delayed 36% of the time.
- In processing the input data, the program found 3 problem rentals and 1 multiple rental.
- The direct link to your results is at ( link ). For fast access to your output, bookmark this link.
Unless this is in Japan dollars (I know there is no such thing), this DVD player will surely ‘miss the boat’ at a high price of $950.00. Sure it plays DiVX, WMA, and MP3, but so does my $70 Philips player. My Philips DVP-642 also has Progressive Scan, so unless this thing is HDTV, or a 700-watt THX receiver built-in, I’m sure DiVX lovers will pass since (lack of spending) money is typically the motive for downloading DiVX movies.
Check out the Yamaha article at Tom’s Hardware.
I remember the days when I would put a movie in the mail and they would receive the following morning, then ship out that next one that afternoon. I would then receive my new flick the following afternoon.
Day 1 - Send back to Netflix Day 2 - (AM) Netflix receive my movie Day 2 - (PM) Netflix ship next movie in Queue Day 3 - (PM) Receive next movie from Netflix
3 - 1 = 2 day turnaround (~12 movies per month for one queue slot - best case scenario)
Now the situation is a little more sluggish. They are actually waiting to send out my next movie.
Day 1 - Send back to Netflix Day 2 - (AM) Netflix receive my movie Day 2 - (PM) Netflix places next movie in Queue to ship following day Day 3 - (PM) Netflix ships next movie in Queue Day 4 - (PM) Receive next movie from Netflix
4 - 1 = 3 day turnaround (~9 movies per month for one queue slot - best case scenario)
I not a Statistical Analyst, but I can tell you that losing the value of three movies per month is a big deal especially when it equates to actually losing 9 movies per month (with the 3-at-a-time Netflix plan). If anyone has this same issue, let me know. If you have never had this issue, let me know. I’d like some reassurance that Netflix is just screwing up and it’ll get better. If I’m going to lose the value from my plan, then I might as well save $3 per month and go with Blockbuster.com, which I already know I’ll get this same shotty service for cheaper.
After thought: One thing that is hindering Netflix quite a bit is the fact that they do not operate on weekends. I can understand no Sundays, because we all have better things to do on Sundays, but Saturday is an odd day to miss especially when the Post Office is still operating that day.
Is it me or is Netflix dragging arse lately? They typically get a new movie to you within three days of mailing off the last one. Now I’m lucky to get the movie by their estimated arrival time. This is not good since the only reason I chose them over Blockbuster was turn around time. If this continues, Blockbuster could be back in the running for my business.
DVD Authoring in Linux is nowhere near as far as most Windows Apps. I think this is just because these are mainly written by small groups and individuals. So far the best tool (by appearance alone) appears to be dvdauthor. This application is a backend app used for creating DVDs in Linux. There are several front-end available for this app and they all look promising. Find out more about dvdauthor.
coverXP is a very unique tool that takes all of the labor out of printing your own CD and DVD Covers. It has templates for many different covers, layouts, and so on. In what time it took me to print 2 DVD Covers previously (using Photoshop and ACDsee), I was able to print 12 (using only coverXP). Obviously I had some catching up to do, printing 12, but this program made that process very very easy. I’m surprised this is the first tool I have found that does this type of work for you, but I’m sure the rest of the world could care less about printing their own DVD Covers. More info can be found at their site.
Apparently I have a buggy DivX avi file. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get it converted to DVD format, but no luck. I have converted over 20 different (DivX) files to DVD, but this has stumped me. Here is what I have tried:
I’m thinking it is time I give up on this file and either move without completing the project or attempt to download a replacement file that perhaps doesn’t contain this bug.
Update: 02-Jan-2005 I redownloaded the file and tried it again, this time using NeroVision Express 3s Export feature. I exported the file as a DVD compliant MPEG movie, then proceeded using NeroVision to complete my DVD project. There is the slim chance that the Export feature, previously unattempted, could have solved the problem in the first place, but downloading the file again seemed like a good idea.
