DivX / Xvid compatable DVD players

[stuartj]

Can anyone reccomend me a reasonably priced DVD player that is capable of playing DivX and Xvid encoded avi files without having to burn them as a proper dvd.

Cheers in advance chaps...

[renegadegenius]

I can recommend this instead:

WDTV
Just plug that into your tv & an external drive into that.

Had mine for about 3 months now & love it!

[Double Drop]

My Samsung surround sound plays DIVX and XVID direct from memory stick.

[oldskoolforever]

I can recommend this instead:

WDTV
Just plug that into your tv & an external drive into that.

Had mine for about 3 months now & love it!

same, i bought this to solve most of my incompatibility issues

I previously had a Samsung HD-950 i think, which to be fair played most DivX/Xvid rips. Its just the disc clutter that i don't like anymore.

[soopaslooth]

If I can slightly hijack Stu's thread but with a highly relevant question - anyone know of a BluRay player with USB connectivity and divx etc playback? That WD thing looks very tasty but I need something that will play both physical disks and files off a usb stick/hd. It seems probably a waste of time to get a dvd these days what with bluray taking over (and bluray players generally backwards compatible with dvds).

[renegadegenius]

If I can slightly hijack Stu's thread but with a highly relevant question - anyone know of a BluRay player with USB connectivity and divx etc playback? That WD thing looks very tasty but I need something that will play both physical disks and files off a usb stick/hd. It seems probably a waste of time to get a dvd these days what with bluray taking over (and bluray players generally backwards compatible with dvds).

The WDTV does play HD files (downloaded a fair few myself), but it doesn't play the actual discs (you'd have to rip them & probably not worth it as they'll probably take a lot longer than a dvd would).
There is talk of a new WDTV unit coming out with 'wifi' so if you had a pc nearby that had a bluray player (or maybe even a ps3), that may work.
There are hacks to get the current player to do wifi, but I've not had the need so haven't looked into it - there are plenty of wdtv forums out there though.

[soopaslooth]

Just ordered one of these fellas:
http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/bd370.jhtml

Supposedly a very well featured media player (divx, mkv etc) with a usb port so you can use a flash drive/portable hd/whatever, as well as a decent bluray and dvd player. Hmmm I like new toys!

[prollocks]

You can get dirt cheap DivX DVD players from supermarkets - I saw one in Tesco's or Asda the other day for 15 or so quid.

Or you could mod an old xbox (cost around 25 quid from Game) and turn it into a streaming internet and dvd playing device which also plays console emulators and acquired games - piss easy to do.

As for Blu ray Divx players - I would have thought a ps3 would do this although I've been looking around for my next device and have seen a couple :-

LG BD390 looks ok as does a DuneHD ( http://dune-hd.com/fullhd_players/72-dune-bd-prime.html )
bit pricey though

I'm also considering building a media PC with the new Intel Atom Nvidia based motherboards ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Ion ) - this is probably the most future proof with an install of XBMC or one if its offshoots - Boxee looks quite nice ( http://www.boxee.tv/homepage/ ) or if you install MacOS you get Plex ( http://www.plexapp.com ) - take a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hlZ8xmLVGk

[soopaslooth]

I've got an xbox 360 downstairs which works great as a media player streaming from my pc over the network, tbh its the perfect solution. The thing I've just ordered is to go in the newly decorated bedroom - I dont think I can really justify getting another console to put in there and there's no way of getting a network connection to it anyway, so using a usb flash drive is ideal for this situation

But yeah Stu, if this is for somewhere you'd be able to have a networked 360 I couldn't recommend that enough. Cos then you'd be able to play Modern Warfare 2 on it also!

[groovesection]

It seems probably a waste of time to get a dvd these days what with bluray taking over (and bluray players generally backwards compatible with dvds).

All DVD players are backward compatible.. they all work the same in that the laser reads the 1`s & O`s on the disc.

Its just Blu Ray players have an onboard chip that decodes the Blu Ray
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (h.264 codec basically)

same as XviD/DivX compatible players have a chip onboard that can decode XviD / DivX
MPEG-4 ASP (XviD / DivX codec basically)

You could in theory hack a standard DVD player to play any content by integrating an onboard decoding chip into the PCB :D

[lien]

I brought a DvD player from Maplins that did it for £25 a few years ago. Cheap & Cheerful :)

[stuartj]

Cheers for the replies people

But yeah Stu, if this is for somewhere you'd be able to have a networked 360 I couldn't recommend that enough. Cos then you'd be able to play Modern Warfare 2 on it also!

Already have the xbox 360 downstairs and do stream to it directly, works like a charm. Like you, I'm also after something for a bedroom that doesn't have a net connection

[samuel]

Gotta look into these tips (thanks!). I've got about 5 year old LG myself and it has worked practically fine until last year or so. Nothing wrong with the drive but it doesn't support newer XviD formats properly anymore and does some skipping on those files. Also I've had XYPRO's modified firmware, but that and FallenAngel's firmware development has stopped and it's impossible to find official LG firmware for it as well.

It's ok, but I'd love something new that gives perfect watching experience. That WD TV sounds interesting.

[renegadegenius]

That WD TV sounds interesting.

So far I've got 200 films & a load of kids tv 9 (for the little'un) on my 1TB drive & it's still got 200gig spare.
Most of those rips are dvd rips, a few HD bluray rips & about 20-30 avi files.

The only slight niggles are:

1: With 60hz region 1 films, you have to change one setting in the video menu when you first turn the machine on (from auto to 60hz) as for some reason it tries to play everything at 50hz even in auto mode. This takes about 15 secs to do, so nothing major, and once you've done it, it'll remember the setting until u physically switch it off from the wall socket.

2: There has been the odd dvd rip which for some reason won't fast forward properly (sometimes it goes well off from when u press play again or goes back to the start of the film) - but this has only happened on about 4 films out of those 200 I've got on the machine.

The benefits way out number the cons:

Plays just about all file types except protected files (such as wmv for eg).
Also plays music & with the right software & updated firmware, u can create playlists (not done this myself though as only use it for films).
Also plays HD rips @ 1080P if your tv can handle it. I can only go upto 720P 60hz quality on my tv, but it plays everything perfectly & those .mkv bluray rips far exceed my dvd originals.
And it's cheap - £65 on amazon for the gadget & a 1TB Western Digital drive is about £69.
Very portable so u can just take it around peoples houses & have a virtual dvd library on your drive :)

[samuel]

The only slight niggles are:

For me the only "niggle" about it would be that it's 100% digital only. So far I've been looking for a DVD drive, so now I'd still need my old DVD or Blu-Ray in the future. But it really is cost effective solution for what it does, I also checked my local supplier and it's not even worth ordering it from overseas.