DivX Plus Web Player 2.1 Beta Overview

We’ve been working on a ton of new features for DivX Plus Web Player over the last few months, and even though there’s still a lot of work left to do, we just couldn’t wait any longer to share them with you and get your feedback. New formats? Check. Web Player on YouTube? Double check. HTML5? Triple check. Hardware Acceleration? Quadruple… You get the idea – it’s a pretty long list.

New features in this beta release:

• DivX HiQ™ – use DivX Plus Web Player on YouTube and more
  
• New Format Support – MP4 & MOV
  
• HTML5 <video> tag support
  
• DXVA Hardware acceleration
  

DivX is releasing documentation and a sample application that introduces our newest .mkv extensions: Smooth FF/RW and World Fonts. Further information on the extensions can be found in the following articles, which include high-level demonstrations, concept overviews, step-by-step guides, and technical specifications.

DivX Plus MKV extension: World Fonts
DivX Plus offers an extension to the MKV container called World Fonts, which authors TrueType fonts into an .mkv file so all players can reliably load them and display subtitles for every language. Our special optimization technique is used to significantly reduce the size of the font data, so fonts can be loaded not only by desktop players, but also by DivX Plus Web Player and hardware devices with limited memory.

DivX Plus MKV extension: Smooth Fast-Forward & Rewind
DivX Plus offers an extension to the MKV container called Smooth FF/RW, which helps solve the jerky fast-forward and rewind problem you can experience when seeking in a video file. This is done by including a special navigation track in your MKV file during authoring, and this extension is supported by all DivX Plus devices and gives you the option to trade a small filesize overhead for a much better navigation experience.

Did you know that the Sony PlayStation 3 is a DivX Certified device? Unfortunately, at this time, it is not DivX Plus HD certified (vote for DivX Plus HD / MKV on PS3 here), which would enable H.264/MKV playback via a firmware update. In meantime, you’ll have to convert those MKV videos in order to watch them with your PS3.

The good news is DivX has a free solution just for this scenario: DivX Plus Software for Windows. This latest release, which came out mid-March, sports dramatic updates to the user interface and introduces “DivX to Go” as part of the DivX Plus Player. This free and easy utility is how we’re going to transfer your MKV to either a USB drive or disc to enjoy on your PS3.

Today is a great day! We’ve been working really hard over the last year on the latest version of DivX Software. DivX 8 you ask? Nope. We call it DivX Plus Software even though technically it is version 8. Why? Because it’s leaps and bounds ahead of DivX 7 in a couple of ways:

• It’s completely redesigned from soup to nuts and debuts new format features
• Provides an easy way for users to transfer their videos to DivX devices.

DivX Plus Software truly is the beginning of our vision for what DivX Plus will become as DivX Plus Devices start to hit the market.