An historic day in DVD history... (1 Viewer)

Ten years ago today, Circuit City (R.I.P.) pulled the plug on DivX.

I thought it was worth paying tribute to the other HTF old-timers who ceaselessly fought for "open DVD" when its very existence seemed in doubt. Although we can never know exactly "what if...?" -- it's quite possible that, without our concerted efforts, by now, all our current home-theater software would be "pay-to-play," instead of the panoply of choices, from purchased Blu-Ray to online downloads, we now enjoy.

Thanks to all of you who fought the good fight a decade ago.

And Circuit City is not around to be bashed. It is funny in that when the company was so arrogant about DivX, I stopped buying at their stores. I guess 10 years of missing my money finally go to them

It's crazy to think that someone actually thought this was a good idea. I remember the thing I kept hearing when Divx came out was that it was going to be like renting a movie, only more convenient and better. I'm not quite sure how paying more than a regular rental while still having to go to the store to buy the disc, and then having the plug my DVD player into the phone line, would have been more convenient than just renting a normal disc.

Bottom line is that anything that's a step backwards isn't going to catch on. Divx offered lower quality than regular DVDs (I remember all of the Divx discs I looked at when visiting Circuit City were fullscreen only and not in surround sound), higher prices than regular rentals, the rigid inflexibility of a pay-per-view cable order (you can only watch for a finite period of time), all to be used on a player that essentially had to be cemented to wherever you put it and connected to the phone just to work.

Yeah, can't imagine how that didn't catch on

The death of DIVX gave me a little hope that humanity wasn't completely filled with rubes that would fall for any shiny object.

It was a remarkable time, no doubt. There were enough questions about "was DVD enough better than LD" without throwing that CC format into the mess.

For some of us, it was not at all hard to never darken the door of a Circuit City again. (Okay, that's a little bit grammatically twisted, even by my standards!)

On the other hand, it's a little scary to realize that I've been a part of this whole mess since (seemingly) forever.. or that HD has taken so long to get "practical."

But it's still a strange world out there...

Leo

Now there is a date I had completely forgotten.

Death to DIVX, Long Live DVD!

- Steve

And irony of ironies DivX today is far more popular than it ever was 10 years ago.

Thank God DIVX was strangled at the get go-
Just imagine how different these last 10 years would have been if we'd all had to go thru the ridiculous hassle of ponying up $3 or $4 every time we wanted to watch a movie we already owned!


...rather than paying $15-$20 on seemingly endless dips of the same film, always chasing a better, more definitive version.
Yes, Thank God DIVX died, so the studios could find out what real suckers we are

Those self destructing EZ-DVD's proves there are still dumb ideas being tried out.

All DIVX discs became coasters once the phone lines were shut down, right? Were there ever any titles that didn't come out on DVD?

Somewhere on my computer, I've still got the sound clip of you singing "Don't Cry For Me, Circuit City."

Ten years ago today, Circuit City

Wow, ten years already...

All this internet stuff was new to me then, (at the time very few people I knew were connected)and I discovered forums like this one and others reading about the Divx fiasco, there was a fightdivx.com page, I think it was there where I found links/references to HT boards/news letters like this one.

DIVX forced me to wait for my first DVD player...

I purchased a Toshiba portable DVD player a little over a year ago (at CC) that has a DivX logo on it. I checked the date of manufacture on the back and it said 2007. Unless this is something else entirely, why would this product, recently manufactured, have such a capability? Strange. Anyway, I don't miss CC. I don't enjoy shopping for DVDs at places that sell washing machines and other knick-knacks, in addition to movies - their selection was very poor and disorganized.

I like to think of that era as the "Beginning of the End" for CC. I know that I virtually never shopped there during or after that fiasco.

It's not the 'pay per view' Divx.

In recent years, "DivX" has signified a certain type of video codec rather than the old CC format - you can download DivX type files online the way you might download an AVI or an MPEG of a file, and your DVD player should have the capability of playing that data file without it being in DVD (MPEG2) format.

Yep, just one example of the truckload of bad management decisions that killed a once vibrant company.

I don't much drop into this part of the forum anymore since my move to HD, but had to give thanks to those who fought against DIVX back in the day.

Here's to being able to play back what we own on disc whenever we want!