To: John Rieman who wrote (27693 ) 1/7/1998 4:41:00 PM From: Peter V Read Replies (1) | Respond to
It's just more spin from the Divx camp:
Sharp said much of the negative reaction to Divx has been a failure to understand the benefits the system was designed to deliver to end users. Movie renters no longer need to return movies, and DVD player owners run less of a risk of being burned on the full cost of a movie they purchased but didn't like.
If you buy a movie without knowing whether you will like it or not you are a complete half-wit and deserve what you get. I don't know anyone that buys movies they have never seen. So you have to be a moron to see this as a "feature." And everybody needs discs to throw away -- I'm sure most people would love to have a landfill in their backyard ...
Echoing the sentiments of the player hardware manufacturers, Sharp said: "What we've been trying to communicate since September is that Divx is a feature and not a format. A Divx player starts as a fully functioning DVD player, and it adds this capability to it. To call that a format war is an exaggeration. It is another opportunity for the consumer to purchase software and accomplish the objective of watching movies at home in a substantially different model than is currently available today."
Hmmm, if I want to see "Sleeping Beauty" and it's only available on Divx, which won't play in my ordinary DVD player, I'd say it's in a different format, wouldn't you? Although it is true that Divx will play DVD discs, the fact that certain movies will only be available on Divx means that unless you buy the Divx player, you cannot see those movies in a DVD format. It is a format war, no exaggeration.
