Bytes for beginners

NEA Today, Sep 1999

I want to get a DVD or Divx player to show movies. What's the difference? Will there soon be a shakeout, like we saw with VHS and Beta?

What a timely and perceptive question! Digital Video Express (Divx) and Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)-or Digital Video Disk, depending on who you ask-have completed their "shakeout," with DVD emerging as victor.

Both DVD and Divx look like a CD, but store a lot more data-enough for a full-length movie. Because of superior picture quality, these disks were predicted to replace VHS videotapes. You need a DVD player to view DVDs, but the player will also play CDs and CD-ROMs. Many PCs are coming equipped with DVD players these days, or you can buy a standalone player that hooks up to your TV.

Divx players were generally just DVD players able to handle Divx disks. Divx players included a modem, a chip to decrypt each disk (each Divx disk has its own serial number), along with all the standard electronics of a DVD player.

Divx players needed access to a regular phone line, and owners were required to open an account using their credit card.

Divx disks cost less than DVDs, around $4.50. But they could be viewed only twice within a 48-hour period after the first play. After the first 48 hours, if you wanted to watch the disk again, you paid more money-around $3.25 for an additional 48 hours, charged automatically to your credit card.

Divx was supposed to eliminate the hassle of returns and late fees for consumers renting disks from the local video store, while allowing content creators to protect their rights. Despite the concept's popularity with consumers, Divx now resides atop the scrap heap of industry-quashed technological innovations.

Have ideas, comments, or questions about technology? You can E-mail webeditor@dear.nea.org or fax Dear Webeditor at 202/822-7206. Check out www.nea.org/cet for more questions from beginners and answers from the experts.