DivX enabled DVD deck: RCA DRC240N

[Dr Mordrid]

New Slot-Load DVD Player

Targeted toward PC-savvy consumers, the RCA DRC240N DVD Player featuring DivX playback enables users to view downloaded video content on the television instead of the computer. Based on the MPEG-4 standard, the DivX codec compresses programs that can be downloaded and transferred to a DVD or CD-R, for playback on the DRC240N. This player also incorporates mp3 and WMA playback for audio CDs.

The slot-load, progressive scan player features Digital PhotoView and mp3 combination playback - a unique way to share favorite digital photos, complete with a personalized soundtrack. The DRC240N includes a bookmarking function for convenient navigation through favorite DVD recordings, Scene Again one-button instant replay, one set of video outputs, an S-Video output and analog audio output.

For added convenience, the unified remote control can also operate basic functions of most RCA and GE-brand TVs and VCRs.

Suggested retail price of the DRC240N is $99

Dr. Mordrid

[Kruzin]

Cool. Might have to keep my eye out for that one.
My $40 noname DVD deck is starting to flake out (big surprise ). Randomly turns on/off random languages of closed caption/subtitles. Think it's almost ready for the dumpster...

[UtwigMU]

Problem is, downloaded movies have shifted to XVID. The support for that is coming though.

I too encoded my first two projects in XVID, simply because i didn't have the full (gator enabled or pay for) version of divX.

What I fear is, that at some point we won't be able to watch the downladed movies due to codec incompatibilities.

[paulw]

Are there any DVD type of authoring programs that allow a menu system to play Divx files on these new players??

[Kris1]

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2598455&cat=110929&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A62055%3A124624

.... at 70$, this one's even cheaper, and dare I say it doesn't look worse either. And it does play Xvid as several users have reported.

However ... Xvid support alone won't cut it. The crux is being able to support Xvid at high data rates : the're a couple of Xvid-capable players today already, but most of them choke on higher data rate Xvid files, especially the cheaper ones. I've no idea what so ever how this unit performs then. But I HAVE seen standard DivX5 media playing on this one, and the "4x upsampling" thingy did make a serious difference in output quality I can tell you.

As for "the tech-savy user" .... I don't know. Most tweakers around here buy and mod their Xbox : the endresult is far more flexible than any standalone player I've seen to date. This one's more for the "I know about Emule/Bittorrent but I don't know or don't care enough about fiddling around my hardware" category in my opinion.

Take Care

[Kris1]

Just to give you guys an idea ...

Just a heads up :

Here's the list of currently supported video-files when you mod your Xbox and equip it with the latest XBMC player :

.nsv|.ts|.ty|.nfo|.strm|.rm|.rmvb|.m3u|.ifo|.mov|. qt|.divx|.xvid|.bivx|.vob|.img|.iso|.pva|.wmv|.asf |.asx|.ogm|.m2v|.avi|.bin|.dat|.mpg|.mpeg|.mp4|.mk v|.avc|.vp3|.svq3|.nuv|.viv|.dv|.fli

Short of using a normal PC, I don't think you'll ever see a dedicated DVD deck capable of equaling this level of compatibility.

Subtitle support is pretty impressive too :

MicroDVD, srt, smi, vplayer, rt, ssa, aqt, sub, jss, mpl & VobSub

And some of them are even usable when still rar-ed !

The list is currently only limited by the amount of codecs written for XBMC's playback module (based upon Linux' mplayer) and the time it takes to implement new modules.

In term of compatible music files, it is capable of playing :

.nsv|.m4a|.flac|.aac|.strm|.pls|.rm|.mpa|.wav|.wma |.ogg|.mp3|.mp2|.m3u|.mod|.amf|.669|.dmf|.dsm|.far |.gdm|.imf|.it|.m15|.med|.okt|.s3m|.stm|.sfx|.ult| .uni|.xm|.sid|.ac3|.dts

and Picture shows can be used with pictures from :

.png|.jpg|.jpeg|.bmp|.gif|.ico|.tif|.tiff|.tga|.pc x

Take in account you can stream data from your PC-network straight to the Xbox, and it can be used for "odd" applications like Weatherchannel-Forcast.


Of course, this thingy is very much a labour of love and "work in progress", but since its early days when it still was called XBMP it has gained a lot of maturity and stability, and today it's pretty unbeatable in terms of being an equivalent of a "swiss army knife"-DVD player.

All details about "can and can't"s of the current XBMC version can be found at http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/xbmc_vs_xbmp.htm

[Debbie]

I have just purchased the KISS DP-1000.
It also takes DivX which I use for slideshows. I like it's small size (about A4 paper) and fits nicely on my over loaded computer desk.
Also ideal to test DVDs after burning.