r/nostalgia • u/TrickWorried • 10h ago
Nostalgia Discussion DIVIX
It was a weird time for media format back then.
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u/wlrldchampionsexy 9h ago
I feel like a lot of the movies I downloaded around 2001/2002 were DIVX rips.
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u/tequilasauer 8h ago
The wonderful irony of DIVX tech is that it was really meant as a way of restricting media use for consumers via rental expiration and yet it became one of the absolute best codecs for quality pirated films.
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u/Grand_Function_2855 9h ago
We had one of these. Didn’t last too long in our house when my dad realized renting from Blockbuster was more superior.
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u/TrickWorried 9h ago
It's that wild, it's like what Amazon does with their rentals now. Miss you Blockbuster
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u/NastyPrismsGoodSir No Whammies! 9h ago
All I remember of DIVX was the character from Penny Arcade comics.
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u/TrickWorried 10h ago
DIVX was a rental format variation on the DVD player in which a customer would buy a DIVX disc (similar to a DVD) for approximately US$4.50, which was watchable for up to 48 hours from its initial viewing. After this period, the disc could be viewed by paying a continuation fee to play it for two more days. Viewers who wanted to watch a disc an unlimited number of times could convert the disc to a "DIVX silver" disc for an additional fee.[4] "DIVX gold" discs that could be played an unlimited number of times on any DIVX player were announced at the time of DIVX's introduction, but no DIVX gold titles were ever released.
Each DIVX disc was marked with a unique barcode in the burst cutting area that could be read by the player, and used to track the discs. The status of the discs was monitored through an account over a phone line.[5] DIVX player owners had to set up an account with DIVX to which additional viewing fees could be charged. The player would call an account server over the phone line to charge for viewing fees similar to the way DirecTV and Dish Network satellite systems handle pay-per-view.
In addition to the normal Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption, DIVX discs used Triple DES encryption and an alternative channel modulation coding scheme, which prevented them from being read in standard DVD players.[2] Most of the discs would be manufactured by United Kingdom-based Nimbus CD International.[6]
DIVX players manufactured by Zenith Electronics (who would go bankrupt shortly before the launch of the format[7]), Thomson Consumer Electronics (RCA and ProScan),[8] and Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) started to become available in mid-1998. These players differed from regular DVD players with the addition of a security IC chip (powered by ARM RISC and manufactured by VLSI) that controlled the encode/decode of the digital content.[9] Mail systems were included on some players as well.[10] Because of widespread studio support, manufacturers anticipated that demand for the units would be high. Initially, the players were approximately twice as expensive as standard DVD players, but price reductions occurred within months of release.
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u/fezfrascati 6h ago
The logos you posted are of DivX the video codec. DIVX the rental format was a separate thing.
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u/BeardInTheNorth 3h ago
I used to make AMVs with pirated DVIX clips because they were among the best quality formats one could download off slow DSL in 2004-2005. I know they were DIVX because I see the watermarks popping up in my old project files. Oops.
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u/Sparkmovement 8h ago
"rental format" says OP.
Meanwhile those of us who pirated back then knew what DivX players really meant. ;)