SanDisk inks licensing agreement to support DivX

Good news for all you video-playing SanDisk owners out there, as the creator of your PMP just inked a licensing agreement to support DivX in the very near future. As a part of the deal, future SanDisk video products will include interoperability with the DivX Stage6 video website, and while it wasn't directly stated that firmware would be pushed out to upgrade existing units, we've got our collective fingers crossed. Unfortunately, SanDisk apparently isn't quite ready to divulge exactly what products (if not all of the video-playing varieties) will indeed be stickered with a DivX-certified logo, but it did say that it would relieve that tension and let us all know "later this year."

[Via TGDaily]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 4:43PM]

Nice... finally, we can look forward to a Divx capable portable player?

[MrDiSante Posted Jun 13th 2007 4:53PM]

You mean like the entire Creative Zen Vision series? Or the Archos?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 5:04PM]

I must be out of date then, didn't know that Archos sold their video players divx capable out-of-box...

[anonymouspimp Posted Jun 13th 2007 5:16PM]

I don't know about Creative... but as far as Archos goes... my understanding is that they ship their devices with basic codec support... but nickel and dime you for other codecs, like DivX.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 5:42PM]

Anonymouspimp: Actually, from the look of things, Archos, on their website, doesn't explicitly state support for Divx
However, there are a few products from Creative that does explicitly state Divx support on their website.

[MrDiSante Posted Jun 13th 2007 5:47PM]

The Creatives do indeed play DivX out of the box. Beautiful screens, might I add. Archos players do indeed require you to purchase the codecs for DivX. Point being, there are players out there with DivX support (the original poster never said anything about out of the box - only capability).

[JeremyBenthem Posted Jun 13th 2007 9:55PM]

The whole ARCHOS = buying codec thing is getting very much out of hand
Archos players support a fine number of codecs out of the box
what you do need to play for is stuff that isn't normally used which are .VOB mpeg2 (the stuff you find in DVD Videos), AC3 Dolby 5.1 audio, and H.264 videos with AAC sound

DivX, XVid, WMV 9, 10 work beautifully, and unlike some PMPs it can play them video files that are at 480P resolutions without a hiccup
some players require a lowered sized dispite the format support

[anonymouspimp Posted Jun 13th 2007 4:43PM]

Could this be why they put the brakes on the Sansa View release? It would be pretty nice if that puppy supported DivX out of the box!

[Axon Posted Jun 13th 2007 6:16PM]

Does Divx support == Xvid support?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 7:19PM]

Brandon: Yes, mostly. Although Xvid diverges in some areas and so you will encounter some that do not play.

I'm curious though whether any portable player can handle any of the motion compensation things that DivX certified DVD players (such as the Phillips HDMI upscaling DVD player that I own) cannot play properly.

[Axon Posted Jun 13th 2007 6:16PM]

Does Divx support == Xvid support?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 13th 2007 9:23PM]

You mean like the Cowon A2?

[nx2000 Posted Jun 13th 2007 9:54PM]

Yes, Like the Cowon A2... the story doesn't claim this is a first.

In any event, this is pretty cool. I have a Sansa e200 player and am definately interested in a PMP offering my Sandisk.

[JeremyBenthem Posted Jun 13th 2007 9:58PM]

and as for my comment about the article
SanDisk makes very nice MP3 Players and I hope they keep a strong pace at 2nd to catch up to Apple
it's not like there is a real video made Sansa yet so a move like this isn't late by any means
its nice for a company like SanDisk to give official support for DivX and maybe there will be a Sansa view is integrated WiFi that can stream Stage6 videos, now that's a real use of WiFi

[ComradeZ Posted Jun 14th 2007 12:06AM]

OK, this is basically two companies who are getting crushed by the iPod teaming up in an attempt to stay relevant. I wish them luck: Apple needs some solid second-tier competition.

[JeremyBenthem Posted Jun 14th 2007 12:31AM]

DivX has nothing to do with iPods
they are just not getting enough attention as the big companies push for the more expensive H.264 process

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 14th 2007 6:39AM]

@ComradeZ:
*Every* company are being crushed by Apple at the moment. Adding DivX support is a nice touch; frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of having to re-encode things to MP4 just to get them to play on my iPod.

(Of course, this is not to say that I have a problem with Apple or MP4. There's just a lot of video out there that isn't encoded in MP4 yet that I'd like to not have to re-encode.)

[ComradeZ Posted Jun 14th 2007 7:27AM]

John, perhaps it's not seen so much on the Windows side, but DivX (the codec) is being rivaled more and more by .mp4 videos so that people can play them directly on their iPods. And now of course the AppleTV is moving into DivX's living room space. This is why DivX just recently released a free DivX Pro version for OSX. The company realizes the handwriting is on the wall unless it can make more alliances such as with Sansa so that its own codec remains a presence.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 16th 2007 12:56PM]

proprietary codecs = bah

Xvid would be fine.
As would FLAC and Ogg Vorbis, SanDisk - both of which are world-class and which you will not have to pay royalties for.

Cowon and others have you beat in so many ways it's not funny.
http://flac.sourceforge.net
http://www.vorbis.com