Video technology company DivX is partnering with Google to make Google Video accessible on a variety of consumer electronics devices, the companies jointly announced at the Consumer Electronics Show.
DivX, the video compression and content company with the sometimes renegade reputation, is actually more pervasive and established than some people might think. According to company executives, the DivX digital video file format is in some 50 million devices “DVD players, for example” around the world.
The DivX video-codec video compression technology offers DVD quality at 10 times the compression of traditional MPEG2 files, enabling a full-length film to fit on one CD or eight films to fit on one DVD.
More than 50 million DivX-certified devices are on the market worldwide, San Diego-based DivX said.
The agreement—more a promise to work together than true technology—will, DivX executives explained, lead to Google offering the video content end users find through Google Video Search in a variety of DivX-ready download/playback formats. This means that, eventually, anyone who downloads video found through Google will be able to play it back on any of the millions of DivX-certified devices.
DivX representatives acknowledged that neither it nor Google actually creates the video end users find through Google video search and that it will ultimately have to be converted on-the-fly to the DivX format.
Google’s video search is one of its newer online offerings, but the company clearly has bigger plans. "Our goal with Google Video is to make the world’s video content accessible to people, and working with DivX is a very important step toward extending that service beyond the PC to consumer electronics devices," said Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management at Google.
The company has also recently unveiled drag-and-drop video conversion software and is offering a beta version of a more feature-rich video conversion tool.
DivX also announced that Pioneer Electronics will introduce a new line of DivX-certified DVD players and recorders in the U.S. and JVC will introduce a new line of DivX Ultra-certified in-car DVD receivers in North America.
In addition, DivX said Zoran’s Vaddis processors are DivX certified and ADS Tech’s DVD Xpress DX2 audio/video-capture device supports DivX digital video technology.
DivX does for video what the popular MP3 audio standard does for music, allowing people to create and play copy-protected video that is small enough to be easily distributed over the Internet and played on a variety of devices. The company’s latest DivX 6.0 technology is designed for storing high-definition personal movies and allows distribution of commercial movie releases.
First-run movies still have not made it to the digital realm, DivX Chief Operating Officer Kevin Hell said in an interview with CNET News.com. The timing is hard to predict. It is based on buzz and the perceived market-opportunity and sometimes based on politics.
Further strengthening its ties to Hollywood, DivX announced that Christopher McGurk, former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer chief operating officer, has joined the DivX board of directors.