porfitron's blog

Hey Beta People,

Here's a breakdown of one of the new features to be rolled out with the next beta release. I'm giving you a preview here, so that you'll have your thumbs ready to test it out as soon as you update.

While viewing a photo, you will be able to use the number pad on your remote control to zoom into a region of the photo and explore it in more detail. The arrow keys will pan your view, while Page Up and Page Down can be used to zoom in and out.

The photo gets divided into 9 regions.

Pressing 2 will expand the 2nd region.

Pressing 7 will expand the 7th region…

… and so on.

Be sure to add some hi-res photos to your library so you can really appreciate this new feature! Update coming shortly...

This past Friday, the DivX Connected™ team celebrated the D-Link release with a lunch and go-cart racing. In the end KFry edged out Gej for first place in the finals... good times!

Anyone else get the update notification for the Connected™ device?

The new fonts look great, and there are German and French menus too!

Here's the forum discussion about it:
http://labs.divx.com/node/904

Here's the full list of changes:
1) Localization: The client setup screens have been localized and translated to Deutsch/German and Francais/French. You can choose the language from the top level settings menu in the option ‘Language’ or through the Setup Wizard.

2) Support for Audio over HDMI. The audio in the welcome screen of the setup wizard now plays over HDMI.

3) Support for down mixing 5 channel AC3 Audio to the stereo RCA outputs

4) The LAN and WLAN on the DivX Connected Device light up according to the connection type.

5) A new ‘Connecting to Server’ screen to notify that the connection to server is taking place.

6) A new ‘Searching for Server’ screen to notify that searching for server is taking place.

7) Support for Mute button on the remote control.

8) Support for Volume up/down on the remote control.

9) Support for not having to re-enter the encryption key after the SSID of the router previously connected to has been changed.

10) HDMI issues on Samsung and other TVs have been resolved.

11) Auto EDID is displayed next to the actually display resolution if Auto EDID is selected.

12) Better & more clear fonts

13) Screen does not flicker any more after updating the DivX Connected Device to a newer version.

14) Entering an invalid WEP key now displays the same error message as entering any other invalid encryption key types.

15) High Color overlay support. This will be evident when the new server update is released.

16) DRM support- DivX VOD activation is now available.

So, after a demo this week, blogs are popping up all over the place, including videos and pictures. It's pretty interesting to see Connected™ out in the wild. If you're interested in checking out what's happening, here are a few links:

eHomeUpgrade
Gizmodo
Slash Gear
New TeeVee

Also, here's a thread updating you all on what you're allowed to share, as members of this beta:
http://labs.divx.com/node/789

Did everyone see the auto-update for the firmware? This time, found the wired connection just fine. As with the last one, you have to go through the setup wizard again, but after that you should be back in business :-)

FYI, after the firmware update, you may encounter a problem detecting your wired connection.

We found that if you get stuck there, you can hit setup on the remote, and run the setup wizard again, and then you should be able to get your wired connection.

This firmware also resets all your former settings, so you'll have to reconfigure your video, etc.

So, with all the brainstorming and bug fixing going on around here, we needed more white boards. Management happily complied... Gene pulled up in his truck and the team unloaded the 2 brand new boards. Today, we found the boards freshly mounted on the walls. What's the first thing we do with them? As you can see, Roland decides the boards work great for Nerf Darts. Here's the video: http://stage6.divx.com/Connected-Community/video/1503915/Money-Well-Spent

Today is Friday... the team has been working hard, so it's great to just walk around the corner and unwind with a game of wii tennis. In this pic, we've got a battle of Connected™ Device vs. Connected™ Server. Mayur (left) represents the client developers, and Loren (right) the server team. What a match :-P

You can find the video action HERE on Stage6.

Hey All,
I hope you're all having fun with your Connected™ boxes, and if you don't have yours yet, hopefully you'll see it shortly. I wanted to clarify the purpose of the DCMP.exe application that installs with the server on your host PC(s). The DCMP.exe (PCDCMP) is a tool for the developers for quick display/function testing as they're working on their dev machines. The DCMP.exe is not intended to be a client to serve your primary host's media to other machines. Although out-of-the-box, the DCMP.exe can somewhat do this, it's not been the focus of our development efforts and therefor can crash and do other unintended things. The DCMP.exe is not part of your beta duties... we can't tell you not to play with it ("now whatever you do, don't touch that button!," heeheee), but keep in mind we're not supporting it (yet), and we do acknowledge that there are possibilities. We'd like you to focus all efforts on your media experience from your Connected™ server(s) through your television, mmkay?