The DVD Player Everyone Hated - DIVX

[@erikmolnar6585]

How much fun it was to go to Circuit City after the demise of DIVX looking for DVDs and asking, "What happened to Divx?". Especially after the salesperson almost had me convinced that the dvd player I just sunk all my savings into was gonna become obsolete because of this new format. "What happened to Divx?" I would ask the very same salesperson. "It dieddddd" was his dramatic answer.

[@zt1053]

I actually got a DIVX because it was on sale and cheaper than regular DVD players. Only reason I got it was because it could play regular DVDs. I still got the $100 rebate check Circuit City sent to customers who bought one.

[@subleek]

I worked for Circuit City from ‘94 -‘07 and I remember what a disaster this was for the company. It was the beginning of the end for Circuit City.

[@jadedheartsz]

yup this was arguably the thing that led to their demise, they lost over 300 million on it, one wonders why they didn't just sell regular old DVDs.

[@billcooksey3176]

I also worked for CC. In my opinion the beginning of the end was the combination of exiting the Appliances market and switching from commissioned to hourly sales people. Maybe both things were going to happen no matter what but I think they represented our loosening grip on our markets. I also worked for Divx for 3 years too. I think it was a great idea for a very limited period but we didn't get it working fast enough to benefit. Also we had terrible deals with the content owners. We had a couple of other significant challenges over the last few years that kept us moving closer to the drain, but that's another day.

[@billcooksey3176]

@@jadedheartsz We did sell regular DVDs. Like I said below, shutting down Divx didn't help things but there were multiple factors in play. One thing I liked about Divx was that the company was always looking for new directions (like CarMax) since they knew competition in Retail Electronics was just going to keep getting more impossible.

[@zt1053]

I thought it was more because Best Buy offered better finance options.

[@gctechs]

I always thought that DivX was just an old video codec.

[@s8wc3]

DIVX and DivX are two different things, confusing I know.

[@freeculture]

It was actually a play on the other one. The infamous h263 encoder was named the same as this system as a sort of protest, DIVX was attempting to add DRM features not present in the original DVD format.

[@Ichicard]

freeculture nope. Mpeg-4 part 2 or Mpeg-4 (a)sp is actually based on h.263. DivX, Xvid, 3ivx and Nero Digital ASP is a Mpeg-4 compliant codecs.

[@METALMAN4Wii]

My 10 year old RCA DVD player doesn't wanna open its tray.

[@TheWardog1369]

gctechs it was a pirate codec mocking this technology with a wink ;-)

[@filanfyretracker]

I remember hearing how Circuit City employees were REQUIRED to push this too, If a customer was looking at a DVD player they were required to push an often times inferior DIVX player or face reprimand.

[@ShrimplyPibblesJr]

Worked at a competitor at the time and can only imagine the bullshit corporate was pushing on them. “Quick, everyone pretend to do what corporate wants until they leave!”

[@mikeg2491]

as they should that’s what they’re hired to do frankly.

[@estew6764]

My memory of Circuit City and DivX. I went to a CC in my city to browse for a new DVD player. The poor sales guy approached me and started his spiel. I politely declined and asked kept browsing DVD players. He again gave me more spiel about how dvd players may be obsolete once DivX becomes more popular. I even told him that’s a possibility, but in the meantime, I already had a few DVDs at home that I wanted to watch and needed a DVD player now. He looked a bit stressed and I saw him looking around towards his manager, who looked like he was nodding at him to keep going. I felt so sorry for the guy. He looked so flustered and I felt so uncomfortable that I left after a bit of browsing and went somewhere else and bought my new dvd player.

[@ozrithclay6921]

The random play was the best feature ever. You start the disk on random and hit menu to skip all the junk, bs, and FBI warnings at the start of the DVD. For some movies it saved literally 10 mins.

[@qazmko22]

Love that!.. on my computer DVD player I can just skip them with a click of the keyboard.

[@Rich77UK]

WHy on earth would you buy a disc for $5 and then have to pay to watch it?!

[@LaurenGlenn]

Some people figured that the discs would be so cheap that everyone would carry them. Seriously. People had told me that convenience stores would have them, gas stations, etc. (which to be honest, they do now with regular DVDs :) ) .... but this was just greed on the movie studios part and everyone knew it. Except for my brother in law who bragged that he bought a DIVX player as I refused to buy one. From what I recall, the $5 would get you the disc and a period of time to watch it. You'd have to pay for watching it more.

[@mspenrice]

The initial purchase included a complementary rental period, so it didn't really cost you any more than renting it from Blockbuster or the like, and it was about a quarter of the price of buying a normal DVD at the time. Once the initial rental ran out, you could keep the disc instead of having to return it, and then when you wanted to watch the movie again, it was only a little more expensive than the cable PPV schemes of the time, you could play it instantly instead of having to wait for the movie period to loop around (and weren't constrained to what was being shown by the PPV service), got better quality than analogue cable, didn't have to go out to a rental shop, you got all the extra features thrown in, and the disc would be in basically pristine condition (so long as you hadn't somehow destroyed it in the space of two plays) unlike the case with a lot of rental DVDs. When you think about how many times each of your own VHS tapes or DVDs actually get repeat plays, and certainly how many of them may have been played more than four times, it would seem to actually be a fairly cost effective alternative to buying the unencrypted discs. Particularly in an age before digital cable and broadband streaming services. And maybe they might have dropped the prices over time, come up with a flat monthly rate subscription plan, or even set some titles as free to play (either for everyone, or just on a per-user basis when you've already paid for a certain number of repeat plays). But of course they never made it to that point, and the wisdom of making a device that can only play its own format by phoning home to a single preset phone number was shown to be extremely questionable...

[@yrly59e]

DVDs were not that cheap when they came out $20 was an average, low end titles were maybe a year or two later and were $10.

[@edstar83]

@@yrly59e $20 and its yours to watch unlimited times at no extra cost. Vs paying $5 then paying to watch it again every time you choose to watch it. Its as stupid as renting a fridge or tv instead of buying one.

[@TomCat05t]

The public asked itself the same question.

[@tdrewman]

Circuit City sunk over 200 million on DivX, it failed within a year.

[@5roundsrapid263]

The Drewman Disney’s first DVD releases were only on this format. They didn’t want unencrypted copies of their movies out there.

[@marcboulware6242]

''DivX'' ==== ''HD-DVD'' ............... A Promising Future, But It Did Not Deliver Either; To Date I Have HD-DVD Discs with "HD-DVD ROT" on Them.

[@Seawolf.Gaming]

The Drewman That would explain why they died out.

[@LaurenGlenn]

So glad it did. But what it also did was delay all Paramount movies from coming out on DVD for years because they vowed that all their movies would only be on DiVX. I remember being really annoyed because I wanted to buy Face/Off so I had to buy it on LaserDisc instead.

[@buddyclem7328]

Wow. $200M would build you a small bridge on an Interstate highway.

[@YellowpowR]

"It's almost impossible DIVX could go under." - Man acting as employee in DIVX training video.

[@Gannooch]

Considering what happened to Divx, I can make SO MANY JOKES about that line.

[@Oldbmwr100rs]

Remember the expiring DVD's that someone tried? They came in a metalized mylar sealed envelope, once opened only worked for a few viewings before exposure to air ruined them. Have to wonder how many of those were made.

[@BadWebDiver]

Sounds fascinating. Never heard of them. Reminds me of the Mission Impossible gag: "This message will self-destruct in 30 seconds..."

[@und4287]

That's called Flexplay.

[@darinb.3273]

That went belly up too, if one had the ability to copy the DVD before the atmosphere destroyed it that would have a really cheap way for movie purchases and building a collection.

[@irtbmtind89]

It looks like the daughterboard on the modem has a suicide battery, to stop people from dumping the DIVX keys. At this point it's very likely impossible to crack DIVX because of this, unless someone gets their hands on RCA's internal documentation.

[@electronman32k]

or dumps the fw from that 27c series eprom on that mainboard and alters its code

[@jort93z]

I don't understand how that would stop someone from dumping the keys. As i understand it, the keys are never stored on the thing in the first place. only the active connection over the phoneline sends the decryption keys. Suicide batteries were used in arcade cabinets, but in those cases they actually stored the decryption keys. Those devices don't hold any.

[@nomusicrc]

irtbmtind89 What’s a suicide battery

[@jort93z]

Its where you have a decryption key saved on ram(or any other type of volatile memory) that is fed by just a battery. when the battery dies, the data on the ram is lost and you can't decrypt the files. But since the decryption key is not saved locally but is transmitted over the phone line, i don't think that is the case.

[@AtariBorn]

jort93z Yeah, thanks Capcom lol

[@gavincurtis]

Some times those VFD displays get faded/dim segments from a process called cathode poisoning (if I recall correctly). Usually caused by lack of use of certain segments or unbalanced power supply voltages to the display. Aka your bad power supply problem did it. My dad was an accountant and his 10 key calculators would do the very same on unused digits to where they couldn't be read. The solution was to load the entire display with "888888888888" and leave it i for the weekend. All digits back to full brightness again. Those dim segments should return to normal brightness after a few days of operation on the bad display.

[@Peter_Yachymczyk]

I have a Denon RCD-M33 stereo that I bought from eBay and has the same problem with the VFD (It was supposedly used "very little" the unit has a VFD test mode so I will try that and hope it works

[@Peter_Yachymczyk]

VFD = Vacuum Fluorescent Display yeah a VFD Display is Vacuum Fluorescent Display Display

[@supermasterPIK]

The Dollar Guy I've had fluor displays in 1979 machines and never faded. May be the 888888 trick refills the display.

[@colombianguy8194]

I'LL BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR! haha. thanks for the info. My old sony modular hifi system has the same problem in some of their VFD's. i will check that out.

[@devicemodder]

Just like a PIN Number is a personal identification number number

[@JeremyHemp]

Ah yes... DIVX. Late 90's and I was just a few years out of high school and had a CC less than a mile down the street. I was in there all the time and yes the employees pushed the hell out of the DIVX. My mind told me to wait because I still remembered the whole Beta vs VHS thing. By fall of 2000 Divx was dead and I bought my very first Sony DVD player.

[@ytrewq6789]

There is little point in setting up a DivX server emulator, unless you were doing a proof of concept project for computer science class...

[@brainndamage]

The chip you show when talking about the processor is the ROM. The left one has a EPROM, the right one an OTP ROM.

[@RMJ1984]

I read the title at first as The DVD player that hated everyone.

[@NepgearGM6.1]

RMJ1984 lol

[@enzoperruccio]

alistair mogenot X2

[@SSoto_21]

XD

[@jeremygregorio7472]

Buddy of mine loved these. They were hacked early on and he used to buy them and then rip them, getting the movies for cheap

[@kirklandlake]

Wow. The machine on the right was my first DVD player. Never opened it, so I did not know it contained blanks for DivX. Thanks.

[@zakernichny]

Please, stop calling these memory chips processors, it hurts my brain.

[@spacewolfjr]

zakernichny good catch! I chuckled because it says "ROM" in huge letters on the silkscreen next to it.

[@ozrithclay6921]

Did it also hurt that he kept calling it a CD-Rom drive?

[@spacewolfjr]

I thought he was saying "See de ROM"

[@swrzesinski]

Yup, i thought he knows the stuff... I was wrong. Clearly it's the EPROM in machine with a sticker on the UV erase lens.

[@AmstradExin]

Yeah, since I know these from Amiga Kickstart boards. It's a whopping 2 Megabytes....

[@user-friendly-boiiis]

I love you poppa!!! Omg I really enjoyed your video!

[@frazzleface753]

Seems like a horrible idea that was geared way too much towards copy protection, making it nonsensical for the consumer. Who would've wanted to buy a movie with a limited number of views, and the threat that you'll never be able to play it if the format fails or the companies involved disappear (as actually appears to have happened)? Just spring for the extra cash if you want to keep the movie, or go rent it from Blockbuster. Not to mention having to fork out for a DivX player as well!

[@bluephreakr]

HDCP. That's all I've got to say.

[@Ndlanding]

Well, people buy games on Steam, knowing that it's not a physical copy and may disappear. I think some rival companies have indeed disappeared.

[@greggeshelman]

This was before online was fast enough for video streaming. The selling point (they hoped) was convenience. No late fees, you didn't have to return the discs. The DIVX discs were priced well below the cost of a retail DVD so if you were only going to watch a movie 2 or 3 times, ever, then it was still cheaper than buying the retail version. Once you had your DIVX disc you could pay again to watch without having to go back to the video store and hope they had a copy. IIRC a DIVX rental was for unlimited viewing for 24 hours.

[@Rich77UK]

Nail head...Meet hammer.

[@MrWombatty]

They certainly managed to unintentionally add build-in obsolescence!

[@RoughJustice2k18]

I've "rebuilt" stuff like that (made one good unit out of two identical models- each of which had different faults). I did it with DVD-VHS combos, some TV's, and a couple of desktop PC's. Salvage the good parts, make a working unit out of them, throw away the rest. This can in most cases, prove very resourceful as well as economical. None of my present DVD players support DivX - though I have repaired a few in the past.

[@GeoNeilUK]

What surprises me is that the other DIVX never became a retail format. There were some DVD players that also played DIVX (the other DIVX) discs available in the UK (this DIVX was US only I believe) but there were never discs sold in that format, which is a shame. They'd have done well in places where VCDs were still popular. Back in the day, you could rip a DVD and shrink it down to the size of one CD-ROM, there were even rips of films that were the size of a CD-ROM available in... places that my ISP has court orders to block. But I remember using the other DIVX format wondering why discs weren't being sold in this format. The only reason I could think of was Americans being confused over branding because the people who took the MP4 codec used DIVX as their name for a joke.

[@neliaironwood7573]

Who here first heard of this after reading the "Horrible" section on TVTropes?

[@BakaOnigiri]

Your « processor » from the start of the comparaison is an eprom ! 27C1024 ! This is a memory ! And on the right one you can read ROM next to it!

[@goobfilmcast4239]

I worked at Circuit City when DIVX first came out....It was still a commission sales outfit back then (late 90's) and we wore slacks and blazers each day. At periodic meetings with regional mangers and daily meetings with the store manager we were directed, instructed, cajoled etc to PUSH DIVX players and discs regardless of what department we worked in. What a hassle....when trying to convince a costumer to plunk down $2500 to $3000 on what was likely their first computer, we had to work in and sing the praises of DIVX over regular DVDs....We knew the concept was crap and was one of those bad business ideas that set the company on the road to it's final bankruptcy and closure

[@MrMario2011]

Interesting look at it all!

[@18minimus18]

MrMario2011 odd how this came up in my recommended after watching a video of uses

[@mikerichardson4772]

And that Andrew Horton is exactly how I located your comment to MrMario2011.

[@jeremytravis360]

Divix stopped operating as a company in 1999 and the modem disconnected 30 days latter so all discs became unplayable. People do say their is a fix to make them play but it requires modding your player.

[@davanime877]

I just like how you watch an old KZbin video with the DIVX logo is just nostalgic

[@8bits59]

Ah yes, the art of frakensteining two machines into one perfectly working one. Infinitely satisfying when it works :p

[@TheWardog1369]

I remember circuit city wound up teaching customers to remove the battery in the Divx players so ET would not have to phone home. The salesman wouldn't want to sell these pieces of crap!

[@mspenrice]

So it defaults to playing without contacting the server if you remove the battery?

[@jeffw1267]

I never heard that and I used to sell these things. I didn't hate the concept: in fact I thought it was great for people who watched movies every day.

[@TheWardog1369]

jeffw1267 I wish.i remembered what model it was on. I do. I remember. One of the guys at CC showing.me a rig they modded so they could bypass. They didn't want to sell these units or the underpar movies.

[@SweetBearCub]

Nope. No DiVX discs can be played since some time around mid-2001. No matter what you do to the player.

[@MrNateSPF]

The disks are encrypted and the keys were on the server. Removing the battery doesn't magically get the key from the server without connecting to the server.

[@peanutismint]

Fascinating video! Had no idea this was actually used as a "rental" system in (I'm assuming) the USA. Growing up during the heyday of DVD ripping/encoding, I always knew about the xvid/DivX encoding technology, but as was my understanding "DivX" was simply a paid/licensed version of the xvid MP4 codec… i've often seen options on games consoles like the PS3 and other DVD players to input a DivX license code, but I never knew this is what it was intended for (as to my knowledge no companies did this rental system here in the UK). Fascinating stuff! :-)

[@MrNateSPF]

They went to market right before Netflix started mailing DVDs, which was cheaper and more convenient. DIVX was a rush job with only a handful of companies on board. Only certain brand players as well as the disks only at certain stores with movies from only certain studios.

[@bxdanny]

The DivX codec used on PCs is not the same as the DIVX system of encrypted DVDs. The former was named after the latter (with the change in capitalization), but has no technical connection to it.

[@RichardServello]

yeah and every divx player could play xvid. So divx dvd players were AWESOME for pirated movies! Could put a whole season of a show on a dvd!

[@RichardServello]

@@bxdanny but I had a dvd player that played divx and it played everything I downloaded. Was there ANOTHER dvd player that played xvid divx?

[@bxdanny]

@@RichardServello Now you've got me confused. My understanding was that DivX and DIVX were two totally different things. I never heard of entering a "DivX license code" on a game console. But I doubt that has anything to do with the decryption codes that were used with DIVX discs, which the user never saw.

[@pummisher1186]

How short sighted of them to think DivX would work.

[@lochinvar00465]

Goes to show how well copy protection fails in the real world.

[@BadWebDiver]

It didn't fail. You can''t watch the dvd.

[@qazmko22]

It's 2022 with streaming locking away almost ALL content... It looks like copy protection won.

[@thejpkotor]

@@BadWebDiver…and caused the failure of the platform

[@mediumjohnsilver]

Consumer dials up DIVX Central. “Please, sir. May I watch my disc of ‘Evita’ just once more?” DIVX Central: “No. It’s past your bedtime. Go to bed.”

[@scootermom1791]

My best friend and her husband rented DIVX DVD's. At the time, I didn't know about DVD technology, and when they explained to me how the DIVX rental worked, I thought it was pretty confusing. I didn't understand how a rental company could keep track of the number of times a person viewed a movie rental. After all, you could rent a movie from Blockbuster on VHS for a day and watch it as many times as you wanted and had time for within that period. I thought all DVD rentals started out this way, initially. I hadn't realized it was specific only to DIVX. I just remembered there being a limited number of times my friends could watch the DVD within a certain timeframe.

[@Rodrigo-ks6oc]

Why does the idea behind the DIVX format.. sound like the idea Don Mattrick had for the Xbox One (Always-on DRM)?

[@MoonLiteNite]

divX is how i watched all my korean starcraft videos back in 1999

[@troy4340]

Thats some hardcore state of the art equipment you got there. It was well worth the trouble doing all that swapping. Hope you enjoy your 480p dvds lol

[@databits]

Hope you enjoyed the video! lol

[@ilcool90]

So no one hacked this encryption till this day ?

[@databits]

No one has ever that I'm aware of.

[@TheWardog1369]

Some models only needed to pull a battery, but it was a total flop.

[@writerpatrick]

Nobody had need to. You could get unencrypted DVDs of the same stuff. People tended to avoid getting into it in the first place.

[@simonpaton196]

Can the encryption be used for something else?

[@greggeshelman]

Nobody *cares* to crack it to find a way to make all DIVX players play all DIVX discs. The discs could be upgraded to "Silver" to unlock them permanently - on one player. Supposedly they had a way to upgrade a disc to "Gold" status so it would play on any DIVX player, but that was never implemented. I've never been able to find out how many "Silver" discs a DIVX player could support. There has to be a memory chip to keep all the individual disc codes. The only hack on these I know of is stopping the clock that controls the rental timing so they never time out. Does a "Groundhog Day" on the player so you have 24 hours forever to play the discs that were rented for that specific player. Circuit City did have a system where had they wanted, they could have commanded the players to permanently unlock for all DIVX discs. Just had to enable it on the authorization server so that when a player called in it would be unlocked. But the @%@%^@^'s decided to just pull the plug on the whole thing and a big screw you to everyone who'd bought a DIVX player. So there IS the possibility of hacking these to play any DIVX disc, but nobody cares because all the movies were available on normal DVDs. The only reason to hack one would be if you've scored a big box full of useless DIVX discs.

[@maniatore2006]

Wow i had no idea :) i know DIVX only as a Piracy Video Codec ;) i never seen such a player Like this :) Great Video.

[@08pipster]

every old matrix video i've seen aged from 2006 or 2007 it had 'DivX Video' in the corner of the screen

[@davrulesdawurld]

I'm amazed that this is the first time I've ever heard of DIVX, because I'm all about the old movie players. Hell I watch most of my movies on a VCR from like 1998. And about the VCR it's really neat and everything but I wish I had an older one like early 90s or mid to late 80s.

[@jadedheartsz]

it was only ever sold at Circuit City so that's probably why you never heard of it.

[@neilbrookins8428]

As a former user of the divx format I can assure you that the player did not dial out each time you played a new disk. It only dialed out once a month to charge your credit card for extra play periods. The initial play period was 48 hours. If you never played a new disk beyond that period then you were not ever charged any fee other than the original purchase price. $4.49 was the original price before they went on fire sale. I still have about 60 disks in this format.

[@mikejb2009a]

The other IC XX15489-40A is also memory. PROM programmable read only memory. Also right near it ROM is written on the board. PROM is cheaper than EPROM, but PROM can only be written once.

[@prfo5554]

I also own a 1998 RCA Divix DVD player it is nearly identical to yours except it doesn't have clock battery on the modem board. I originally bought it from Goodwill to use a a fancy CD player for my stereo, but it had power problems where it would keep on turning its self off. Also, the disk tray would not close all of the way so I would have to push it close when playing a disc.

[@ryanjacob8568]

Back in the early 2000’s I bought my mom the non-Divx version of this RCA DVD player. The front face and the menus look exactly the same! The funny thing is back about 4 or 5 years ago it eventually had the same problem this one did, it would not read discs and would do all sorts of weird things including the disc getting stuck. Im guessing the power supplies in these units had a penchant for overheating and eventually causing the board to fail.

[@vespasian606]

Subscribed. I feel a binge coming on.

[@Craig_Spurlock]

Weren't they supposed to unlock all the players for full playback when DIVX went tits up?

[@xpistolbaked]

I used to have a really bad internet connection.. So I would just rent DVD's and rip them to my hdd then mess with VCD, SVCD and when better software came out I used straight DVD to DVD-R. Also encoded to DivX and XviD a few times.. Fun times...

[@darthvader8433]

Wonder if DIVX disks will play using VLC or are ripable via DVDRip (Linux) or Handbrake (Mac/Win). We didn't see DIVX in Australia.

[@TilmanBaumann]

Funny, DivX was the name of my English learning software. :D

[@davidjames666]

I had a friend - Bob Saccamano who almost got cut in half when a dvd spun out of its holder and hit him. Be careful.

[@TrollDecker]

Regarding "Random Play", it might be handy for music DVDs. By that I mean DVD Video releases such at PopArt, which was a collection of Pet Shop Boys music vids, and the whole sorry DVD Video single thing some labels attempted for a time.

[@mspenrice]

Hey, I quite liked music video singles. Even though the individual tracks proved to be a complete pain in the ass to try and collate onto a single disc.

[@TheNintendo8]

The divix number is now a phone sex line 😂😂😂

[@gmfinc18]

On a random note I find it interesting how we used to cover the blue lights up to turn them yellow, and nowadays companies specifically make them blue, usually by using a white light and putting a blue cover on them.

[@tookitogo]

Very late reply, I know, but FYI, we do not make blue LEDs by filtering a white one. We use a natively blue LED. (In fact, white LEDs are actually blue LEDs coated with phosphor that converts some of the blue light to yellow light, which together make white.)

[@gmfinc18]

@@tookitogo yeah I don't know where I got the idea of filtering white to blue when it's cheaper to just use blue or red and filter to white, I may have been mistakenly referencing some old tech at the time

[@tookitogo]

@@gmfinc18 The players in the video had vacuum fluorescent displays, so probably that. But in modern stuff it’s usually LED or LCD, sadly.

[@Gexzumi]

I was under the impression that DIVX were standard DVD format which could be played in any player, but on a special time sensitive medium where after a few days of opening the package, the data would deteriorate thus rendering it unreadable LMAO. I think I watched Mission: Impossible too many times.

[@nanamiarisegawa8690]

That's Flexplay. It has a material that turns blue (but it can still be read by Blue Ray players but not DVD players.)

[@Gexzumi]

Ahh, that is awesome that the concept did exist. I must have just mixed up the two when hearing about the Flexplay at a later date haha. Thanks for the info!

[@DarkLinkAD]

Divx and RealPlayer Codecs were amazing for Anime back in the day.

[@Kahn4]

Omg, I have that RCA dvd player. The non DIVX one. Got it in '99 $200 and came with 5 free dvds. Good deal back then

[@LordFalconsword]

Did you notice, even though you swapped display boards, both had DIVX LED displays. You're theory of a retasked machine was dead on, because both the DIVX and the non-DIVX displays had the feature in them.

[@FernandoBiaziNascimento]

Nice video! I liked your "mix things" aproach to make it work. Sad that You have to buy a license to play your movie. :-( In case You are curious about 5 things I saw on your video: 1 - The so called "processor" are, in fact a ROM memory, the Divx unit have a EPROM, that can be erased, and the other unit have a ROM that cannot be erased, you can search for "M27C160" on google and see some pictures. You will see that the chip has a window that can be used to wipe the memory with ultra-violet light right bellow that white label (if curious, see the pictures, don't remove your own. I'm not going farer here, only if asked); 2 - The Divx unit have a kind of splitted modem, I think that You realised that; 3 - The real difference on the base player is that Dolby Digital chip that hasn't even a reserved space on the regular unit, may be it is responsible for the unencrypt? I would say "Possible, who knows?" 4 - The brown color you saw on the Divx unit seems normal to me, I saw it on working power suplies of several electronic devices. 5 - My first guess would be that the DVD reader has a short circuit. May be or may be not, the unit worked as You exchanged it too, in fact you got the apparently best thing of each unit. Only testing each component would show what was the problem, but note that it could be dangerous to mix working parts with defective ones, causing all parts being defective. Nice work!

[@Lachlant1984]

I remember reading about DIVX in Electronics Australia in around 1998 or 1999, the format was not well received at all. Of course these days we use digitally encrypted video all the time. iTunes anyone? Does anyone know what Netflix is? They all have pay per view services, renting movies on iTunes for instance.

[@databits]

Thank you for the comment and for being a subscriber!

[@TheWardog1369]

Lachlant1984 I still remember going to Australia in '97 and DVD was just released in the US and telling the locals how amazing it was to VHS. I think you guys got it the next year.

[@Lachlant1984]

DVDs were available in Australia in 1997, I remember reading reviews of DVDs in Electronics Australia, but at that time there were only about 13 or 14 movies available on DVD and I think that was the case for about a year, and for that reason a lot of people thought DVD wouldn't take off here. I think I remember an article that said something like "DVD in Australia is still born", or words to that affect.

[@TheWardog1369]

Lachlant1984 oh my I didn't know distribution was THAT bad. Wow! I guess even the local kids reading up were wanting the format for the features, but I could see studios not making the investment. I learned something new today, but here in the states, it killed the LD, and went after VHS. And the size of the CD, we didn't look back cause I think we wasted too much time rewinding tapes.

[@Lachlant1984]

I don't think Laser Disc was particularly popular here in Australia, I certainly remember hearing about it, but I never saw an LD player or any LDs. DVD eventually gained traction and replaced VHS cassettes, and DVD is still pretty popular today, part of me thinks it may be more popular than Blu-Ray, I could be wrong though.

[@mazda9624]

I don't think I've ever seen a dvd player without component video output (my oldest one is from 1998)

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

Budget models from the mid-2000's often had composite only.

[@coladict]

DivX used to require you to have an internet connection? That's whack! I'm glad Xvid kicked their ass!

[@braelinmichelus]

And how would this have been better than simply renting a normal DVD? It'll play on any DVD player you have, and you can watch it as many times as you want as long as you have the disc. Just simply return it afterwards. Netflix had a DVD rental service. And there was also Blockbuster. Long ago...

[@LaurenGlenn]

Yes, but unlike Netflix who didn't charge late fees, Blockbuster was popular at that time and got crazy with those late fees. This was supposed to "solve" that. :)

[@cubdukat]

It wouldn't have been. The industry just wanted another way to squeeze money out of consumers.

[@gottijunior5594]

Idk i loved my divx player. I didn’t see a problem back then with divx. You went to circuit city, grab a few movies for like 5 bucks each, watch them and if you really liked it and wanted to buy it, buy it. If not just put it on the shelf knowing you can watch it anytime without committing to 20 bucks right away, just 5

[@FerintoshFarmsPhotography]

What an amazing format, wonder why it failed...

[@databits]

Politics mostly. And consumer fears.

[@davidbjork5063]

Amazing? Maybe to movie companies. Today they control us via streaming services. What I mean limit how long time you can watch a movie sell their movies to streaming companies and earn a lot of $$$$ "Sorry HBO, Netflix payed us more for the rights" "Sorry Netflix, HBO payed us more..." (Streaming company); "sorry we have no more rights to show that movie anymore right now as our rights are timelimited with movie creators..." No more this you buy a movie you keep it as long as you want. Im happy we still have blueray discs. Only bad thing in blueray is thats it not either completely hacked and this mean some discs not working on computers and no way to convert to another format.... Too bad also google encrypt its movies. When Google have a good music service that I also use since it allow us to download a non drm copy.

[@writerpatrick]

Because nobody wanted to buy movies only to be limited as to how often they could play them. The whole point of buying is to get unlimited viewing. It was nothing more than a cash grab.

[@timramich]

Blu-ray's decryption was been hacked fairly quickly. UHD Blu-ray has not officially been cracked, that I am aware of (I don't really follow it much).

[@davidbjork5063]

Tim Ramich Yes its partially hacked format. Maybe also can say same to dvd as some discs not play properly in a computer. But I guess bluray its much more discs that dont play....and to dvd you have many hacks and software. But I like blueray more than streaming.

[@datswissguy5387]

Small correction to an over 1year old video. The M27C160 "chip" is an EPROM. It contains data and cannot compute anything. It'll probably contain either cipher keys or program data (adapted firmware for the zoom board addition).

[@Tranceman30]

Very nice explanation.

[@yakacm]

DivX players were great, they only cost about £25, and you could burn DivX files straight from your computer on to a CD or DVD and the DivX player would play them, IE you didn't need to encode them into DVD which was torture on computer from 10-15 years ago. The last DivX player I had could play everything AVI, Xvid, all flavours of Mpeg-4. Never knew the story behind DivX thou and I'd never heard of DIVX, nice video.

[@SimonQuigley]

This is not the story behind Divx. That's a story about a French hacker who reverse engineered a Microsoft codec. This is DIVX, which is completely different.

[@Ryan.Lohman]

I got this RCA in 1995-1996. This player had issues playing with Dual Layer DVD's and had problems when switching chapters when it came to digital audio (it would briefly pause). The model I had wasn't the DivX model.

[@Andersljungberg]

Divx and xvid were a popular compression format. especially for people who downloaded movies from DC and pirate bay. and they didn't need a key to see the movie

[@TruthAndMoreTruth]

• Divx didn't get a key code from it's modem to play a disc, it only kept record of when and which Divx disc were played, it would connect to its server once a month and charge the customer accordingly. • The disc cost $2, and when you bought one. You could play it as many times as you wanted for 2 days. Any time the disc was played after the 2 days, it would charge another $2 to the customer's account. • The Divx discs had none of the special features, were often 'pan and scan' as opposed to letter box wide screen. • A customer could "purchase" any Divx disc, allowing them to play it as much as they wanted for a single fee, approx. $20. • The players could play regular DVDs just like any other DVD player. • One of the issues was disc sharing. People could buy these $2 discs, watch them, and trade them with a friend with a Divx player, who could then watch the discs for 2 days for free, as their player would register it as a newly purchased movie. • Movie studios LOVED this locked down format and really pushed for it. • The average customer, who couldn't program the clock on their VCR, didn't care for it so much, as setting up an account with a credit card number, and plugging in your player to a phone line was cumbersome and annoying.

[@TruthAndMoreTruth]

I wish I could find a way to data mine the old disc.

[@J__C__]

In case you didn't realize it, modems are still a "thing". Whether it be a dsl modem, a cable modem, or whatever. We still use em.

[@Th3Pr0digalS0n]

I called the number it is now an astrology reading line

[@LaurenGlenn]

You made an 18 min. video thinking that the player would be fully unlocked? I kind of saw this coming from the beginning.

[@BadWebDiver]

I think was deliberate to demonstrate the system. He really knew what was going to happen. ;)

[@timfischer]

He obviously knew it would not work. He kept saying things like "and THEN I'll be able to play ALL my DIVX movies, RIGHT?" after explaining he only had one to begin with.

[@starstudio8402]

Your divx machine sounds like what I imagine I will hear if I put a blu ray disk into a DVD player

[@MsJinkerson]

the digital optical audio out is great for minidisc recorders by Sony

[@tilmanluther1887]

The bottom DVD player I had as a child til it wore out

[@liamgbooth]

Many years later KZbin decided to do something similar with its movie 'Rent or Buy'. I think I've always bought the film, never rented a view.

[@MrROTD]

I used to borrow movies from my neighbor he had burned onto dvd r discs, I thought it just a way to rip movies in a smaller file size because that was a concern at the time, I had no Idea it was a legit format, anyways they only worked sometimes on my player and on my PS2 and had no extra features like a DVD

[@50CalRay]

You should call the number lol Anyhow, I remember Dvix, you bought the movie for $5 and got to watch it once before having to pay? I've slept since then. I can't recall one person who owned one. I had some college buddies who would use the Divix format to compress movies on to blank 750MB CDs...movies still in the theater or just barely released. It was always fun to hang out at their dorm on weekends...we went two different colleges within 20 miles of each other. I always left with a stack of movies even after watching a few, the Good ole days lol

[@Ropetupa]

Remembered today as that obscure alcoholic machine from Penny Arcade.

[@sirMAXX77]

I can imagine some poor sap that invested in Divx dvds, built up a huge library and one day, puts in a movie and it stops working.

[@databits]

Reality, for sure.

[@aaronlane8276]

P. T. Barnum was right.

[@thetg2117]

if DivX was never cracked then why was it the go to format for every pirated movie back in the day

[@ghrayfahx]

The tg211 it’s two different things. Not really sure why they had the same name, because it caused a lot of confusion. They had nothing in common other than being video related and having the same names.

[@thetg2117]

thanks for the info.

[@andrewszombie]

15:32 damn I was really hopeful it would play 😭😭😭😂😂

[@AureliusR]

FYI - that is not a Zoom modem. The codename of this project was Zoom TV and that's where the name came from.

[@booyakafoo]

I was surprised the DVD only players display had the divx logo on it.

[@BrandonTaylor-y8y]

I loved ripping divx in the late 90 s

[@iRepairElectronics]

I remember the local circuit city in my area always trying to sell me this P.O.S. (Picec of Shit) idea to buy one of those RCA playes and rent discs that were already in my Video store for less money. Damn i used to have the promo video for this too. Here's one thing i do remember from the video...You had the OPTION to rent for 2 or 3 days for the $5.00 buck..OR you could "purchase the rights" to play as if you owned the disc., after buying it of course...for a Poultry $25.00

[@JOELwindows7]

13:45 wtf? That RCA DVD player was even better than same era back then Chinese DVD Player! The RCA works like an early Blu-Ray Player, with *select menus!*

[@Lanzbik]

I called the number, some Indian fellow asked for my information so I said my name was Mike Hunt and I lived 2745 Ligma lane.

[@jeremycatches9766]

After they dismantled the company, they took all the remaining units they had and they converted them over so they could play regular DVDs. I remember because i bought one of these converted players for cheap.

[@chriskalkman3815]

the reason the certain VFD segments are the way they are is because the previous owners never shut it off!

[@databits]

Very true! And always plugged in.

[@5roundsrapid263]

Just like CRT burn-in.

[@kthwkr]

The brown on the power supply board means heat. Heat is death to electrolytic capacitors. I would replace all the electrolytics on the power supply board. I have done this many times on all kinds of old equipment and it brought it back to life. Also, when you have equipment that you are not using it is a good idea to power it up frequently because otherwise the electrolytics loose the charge that holds their plates apart. You can put up a perfectly working piece of gear and 5 years later pull it out and it won't work.

[@JUST_ONE_ID10T]

I wonder if there is a way to modify the board to make it play divx disk without it calling in.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Every time I see a chip using a Dual Inline Package, my brain thinks “upgrade upgrade upgrade upgrade!” because of all those 68000-to-68010 swaps I see people do.

[@mspenrice]

You know, I think this is the first time I've ever seen something mounted on a _grand-_ daughter board. Like, that big capacitor (or battery?) and VLSI chip... that's a daughterboard on a daughterboard, right there. 3D circuit stacking before any of the memory or CPU manufacturers ever thought of doing it on a miniature scale. As for the restoration, you did a good job, but I can't help thinking you would have had a similar outcome for a lot less work just by binning the DIVX player outright and keeping the plain DVD, as that had most of the good parts anyway. I mean, I know the DIVX is a rare beast and all, but it's not one that's ever likely to have any utility or value other than as a historic curiosity. Unless of course there's something that's only ever been released on that format, and no-one's ever managed to crack the disc encryption but *have* managed to fake out the players into thinking you've paid for a fresh rental period... Also, made by Thompson? That's a bad sign for starters. Most of their products that I've had to deal with, other than maybe my current cable modem / wifi router (which is no better, but also no worse than resolutely average) have been under-featured, barely-functional junk which only got worse with age...

[@AtariBorn]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this but the Divx board appears to have an EEPROM where the DVD player has a mask ROM. I don't think they're processors. Probably the BIOS or the Menu, making the DIVX machine upgradable via swapping or flashing the EEPROM whereas the DVD player isn't. You would have to desolder the mask ROM and solder in a new one (or solder in a socket).

[@coondogtheman]

Can you decrypt those DIVX discs using a PC and software and then burn unencrypted to DVD.

[@coondogtheman]

generalleoff better off using them as coasters then.

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

Someone try Red Fox (formerly known as AnyDVD) and I'll bet that will decrypt and rip those Divx DVDs, which was a dumb idea in the first place. And surely someone has a hacked firmware update for these units. I found one for a friend's ILO recorder that disabled Macrovision and added a 2.5 hour recording mode. :)

[@coondogtheman]

A Floyd I'd like to hack all my DVD players to disable Macrovision and to play any DVD but I only have a sylvania car DVD player and my PS2. My computers can play DVDs too. except my new laptop which has no optical drive.

[@nicholas_scott]

the divx were encoded with triple-des instead of CES. basically unbreakable. the keys would be sent by the server

[@xpistolbaked]

dandanthetaximan Exactly!!! That's what makes it worth doing.. It's called curiousity.. Not Apathy..