Divx — It IS The Enemy
Dear Gary: I’ve enjoyed reading Widescreen Review over the years and your commitment to investigating products that give the consumer “the best it can be.” However, I’ve become dumbfounded over your coverage of Divx, the pay-per-view disc version of DVD in your magazine. Almost 99.99 percent of home theatre enthusiasts and a great majority of home theatre and computer magazines seem to find this product to be complete and utter garbage of the worst kind. And yet, you accept advertising money from Divx and fail to speak out on the problems associated with this concoction of Circuit City and a handful of Hollywood lawyers. If you are truly unaware of the motives behind Divx, I suggest you dig deeper and also spend some time on the many different web forums devoted to squashing Divx. Under its mock-shell of “unparalleled consumer convenience” lies the real heart of the matter: Hollywood slipping around Free and Fair Use laws and undermining and changing the definition of Intellectual Property ownership. It’s the same idea as if suddenly none of the books in my personal library were mine to own, but were on “loan” from the content holder and I had to pay via credit card every time I opened my copy of Moby Dick (they could also choose to lock out a title at any time). As it is now, I may not be able to plagiarize or copy the content of the book for money, but I can do anything else I please with it, including selling it, loaning it to a friend or relative, giving it away, reading it when, where, and how often I choose without permission and with no additional fee involved. The same holds true for digital multimedia, including home theatre technologies. To add insult to injury, it has been reported numerous times all over the web and elsewhere that Circuit City has directly and/or indirectly allowed misleading sales tactics to be used in order to increase Divx disc and player sales, to the point of outrageous lies by sales consultants at the worst, and subtly deceptive ad campaigns at the very least (causing Warner Bros., Toshiba, and their sales partners such as Best Buy to counterattack with television and print ads trying to get the truth about DVD out). Not even considering all this, just trying to sett up an account for your player and each disc you bring home is a complete nightmare. So in closing, the real reasons practically no one likes Divx are for what I’ve described above (please believe me, there are many more), not because it is practically feature-free and has only two widescreen titles to show for itself. Unwary consumers need to be warned about this product before they waste their money and give rise to other closed, pay-per-view models. We all need to work together in making sure this “feature” dies a quick death. Divx—the very worst it can be.
Dan Hitchman
Editor Gary Reber Comments:
Your letter implies that Widescreen Review is pro-Divx. This simply is not the case. We have taken a cautiously neutral stance from our very first reporting on Digital Video Express when it went by the name Zoom TV, even before it was known to the public. As I stated in the preface to an exclusive interview in Issue 27 with Richard Sharp, Chairman/CEO Digital Video Express and Circuit City, “...Divx releases should, as well, be issued in the anamorphic widescreen format, otherwise there can never by any support (from WSR) for Divx.” When Divx was first announced, Warner Bros. had no intention of supporting rentals of DVD titles. DVD was to be strictly a sell-through format. Divx has been one of the factors that has casused Warner Bros. and others’ position to change. Thankfully, we now have a growing presence of DVD rental oppotunity nationwide. The lack of national rental opportunities was one of the reasons the LaserDisc format never achieved mass market status. Hopefully, DVD will be able to achieve mass market status; but even now after twenty-one months and millions of dollars and virtually every hardware and software maker supporting the format, the U.S. household penetration is roughly 1,000,000 DVD-Video players. That’s an excellent record by the way, but still short by roughly 1,000,000 units to equal current LaserDisc player household penetration and tens of millions short of equaling VHS household penetration. Thus, in one way, Divx has served as a wake-up call to those in the “open” DVD camp who strictly were supporting sell-through DVD. The only distinction between renting an “open” DVD title and “renting” a Divx pay-per-viewing period title is with Divx, the tranaction is monitored for billing purposes over the telephone in a similiar fashion as DSS pay-per-view. Rental pricing for Divx titles is currently $4.49 per 48-hour period whereas “open” DVD rental pricing varies. With a rental title, you do not own the title, whether “open” DVD or Divx. However, if you purchase an “open” DVD or convert a Divx title to purchase, then you enjoy the same rights and restrictions. There is no difference in this regard. There may be differences as to content features, widescreen vs. full screen and supplementals, and Divx discs will only play on Divx-featured DVD-Video players. The choice as whether to rent or purchase “open” DVDs or Divx titles is a consumer choice. Our readers have rejected Divx and have no interest in the feature. Personally, I have no interest in the Divx format either; though I have acknowledged Divx to be a reality, and if it is to be a reality, I would want Divx titles to be released in the widescreen theatrical format, just as I have always wanted to see widescreen VHS titles released. But I don’t rent or purchase VHS titles of any shape because I prefer optical disc picture and sound quality to VHS. We have written extensively about the pros and cons of Divx. Twenty pages were devoted to this subject in Issue 26, followed by an exclusive six-page interview with Richard Sharp in Issue 27. Subsequent coverage has reported on Divx developments simply as news stories to keep our readers informed of the status of Divx vis-a-vis retailers and studios supporting the format. I suggest you read these extensive articles which lay out the pros and cons. While some have told us that Widescreen Review has influenced the decision to release Divx titles in widescreen, I don’t believe it. Divx will explore the widescreen format strictly as a test to determine if there is a profitable market for the widescreen version of a title released in the Divx format. Thus far, four titles have been released and yes, Divx appropriately advertised its first widescreen title in our special edition Laser Magic 1998™. We would not have accepted an ad from Divx had not the subject matter been widescreen. But we wanted to inform our readers that indeed “widescreen” was in Divx’s vocabulary. Our advertisers are savy and they know that our readers are hard core widescreen theatrical format enthusiasts who reject the altered full screen or pan-and-scan version of a theatrical film released to home video. Divx remains uncommitted to the widescreen theatrical format, though the company has announced the release of a widescreen version of DreamWorks’ Amistad, only its fourth widescreen release. The April release will include several special features: a made-for-TV special entitled “The Making Of Amistad,” production notes, theatrical trailer and cast biographies. This is the first Divx title ever to include supplementals in addition to the movie. Previous widescreen Divx titles released are Tomorrow Never Dies, Deep Impact and Armageddon. If you are so angry at and hateful of Divx, then you will have plently more opportunities to express your emotions in the near future as there are numerous electronic digital delivery formats on the horizon, including the Internet and satellite and cable delivery, that will be based on similiar pay-per-viewing-period schemes, all requiring a telephone/ cable connection to receive or authorize the service.
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