What is the best DIVX player for low price i can buy ?

Depending where you are located, different players will be availible.

I am in the usa and I picked up a Philips DVP3040 from Best Buy ~ 4 months ago after my previous Philips Divx player died (DVP642).

The DVP3040 was very cheap (<$50 usd) and plays all xvid and divx files as long as they aren't encoded in high definition. It even supports Qpel encoded files.

For more info on other players check out: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers

The DVP3040 is on sale at Best Buy right now for ~$42

A modded XBOX beats them all. Well worth the purchase.

How do you mod an XBOX?by Hardware or by firmware?

I bought Philips DVP3040, it was very cheap and it was the only good one i could find in online stores here.

u can do either (modchip or tsop or softmod)... i currently have my main xbox with a "Xecuter 2.3B PRO" (this chip aint made anymore. i put it into my xbox back in august 2004) modchip in it and a 80GB hard drive ... but u can softmod the system also which i had did on a few other xbox's and it works great.... i just used XBoxHDM with kingroach's NDURE installer.... it requires hotswaping the ide cable while the power is on though using the method i just said ... which can potentially run either your pc/xbox or possibly both, but i did it several times and never had any problems with it.

NOTE: this might not matter to most people but i DO notice that the general output of video quality is worse on the xbox than it is on a standard dvd player... nothing drastic but "i" can notice it ... it just seems to have a more hazy look to it.... although bottom line it's still a great device for playing back video files on

a great thing with XBMC (XBox Media Center) is you can adjust where the image is displayed on the screen so basically u get more viewable picture vs just standard dvd's players! ... and also if u want u can download a skin for XBMC that makes it look like the XBox360's interface called "MC360" which is a great skin and my primary skin i use for XBMC.

basically the softmod route is 100percent free if u use the XBoxHDM + kingroach NDURE installer! ... TSOP is basically free to but requires soldering and flashing the mobo's bios (i never tried a TSOP myself before)... modchip is probably the best if u can afford one and know how to install it... i dont recommend getting solderless modchips... if u get a modchip get a solder one... i recommend any modchip by "Xecuter" brand.

basically main advantage of modchip is once it's all up and running... if something happened to mess up it's easier to fix the xbox with a modchip than it is with a softmod install... also with a modchip u can install any hard drive u want into the xbox.... if u use softmod method and want to upgrade hard drive u will need to make sure the hard drive u buy supports "locking".

but basically anything u choose above will still get you XBMC running perfectly fine.... XBMC is great it can play basically any video/music/pictures a pc can do but on your tv

so if all your conserned about is playing XviD/DivX movies on your tv through the xbox then u can just softmod it as this will be the cheapest route.

also another good thing (if your into gaming) is u can run your emulators and stuff on the xbox... so in other words u can play old games on genesis/snes/nes/n64 etc etc on the xbox

I have no idea how well this works but I ran across it the other day
http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/info_project.htm
The best standalone unit I have found is a jsi one though I think the particular model I have is a discontinued model (small chance you might find one at biglots). Its not the best quality wise (kind of a cheap unit but it was only 35$) but it will play anything including nero digital and every xvid/divx/mpeg4 etc. that I have tried on it. It can also play off a usb external hard drive.
Looking on video help (the model I have isn't listed), other jsi players seem to have the same reputation of playing anything.
I also have the philips dvp642 and it seems a decent unit though I have found a few files that it wouldn't play that the jsi would.

It works superb. That's why it is better than any DVD Player that supports divx. Like a PC the player supports a wide range of files. Probably the feature that I enjoy the most is the ability to play raw .bin files. Try doing that with a standalone DVD Player. As mentioned above if you softmod and aren't concerned with an HD upgrade (run everything from disc) then it is piss easy to setup.

even with the stock hard drive in the xbox (which is 8-10GB)... u will still have roughly 4GBish (on E partition) on it to store files on... so if u wanted u could store some XviD/DivX movies u made onto the xbox and play em back from the hard drive itself inside the xbox.

NOTE: just make sure u "always" have free space on the E partition or otherwise if u play games etc it might corrupt the saved game files or the system might possibly act up.... so if u got 100-200MB free give or take u should have no problems.

basically the XBox HDD has... C D E X Y Z partitions on it... C = main system files .... E = where basically saved games go.... D = your dvd-rom drive in the xbox .... X Y and Z = cache partitions the system uses for games etc (so basically dont store any files on these (X Y Z) partitions)

also another great feature of the XBMC program is you can stream the XviD files from your pc's hard drive into the xbox and play em back on your tv through the xbox... u will generally need a router hooked up to the xbox in order to do this and enable file shareing etc on certain folders on your pc for it to work.... it's not hard to do basically

or u could just burn your XviD files to dvd disc and play em back that way through XBMC.

p.s. i sent u a PM "ripit" with where to download the newest XBMC (the T3CH releases) for the xbox ... if u care

Can you guys tell if 3040 plays *.sub subtitles. My 642 seems to only handle *.srt

Crap, I forgot to mention the biggest plus to XBMC. Unlike a regular standalone unit where you are limited by the perameters of the hardware, XBMC is constantly being upgraded and updated. So if a given file doesn't work properly on XBMC, chances are that it will be able to do so the next revision or two down the road. So no need to purchase new hardware or just say that you are SOL on a given file.

Actually I don't even have an xbox but I have been looking into the program for a friend at work that does, so I'll down load it for him (he was asking the best way to play various media files on his tv and this seemed like a good free way). Personally I primarilly play pc based games and for media on the tv, I have 3 multi format players, a philips dvp642, a uslogic unit that is similar, and a jsi unit that will play anything you throw at it and can play from a usb hard drive. I just got a 300 gig segate (I already had enclosures) to use with it.

Thanks for the download info!!!

also you can stream video from pc to the xbox.

There's some slight difference in price between Xbox and DivX-capable DVD players. I paid @ $60 for my Philips DVP-642 a couple of years ago and don't expect to pay much more than that for a replacement when the time comes. However, the Xbox package Newegg has is $400! BestBuy does have the console alone for only $300.

Unless other primary Xbox features are of great interest, the OP could do much better than puchasing this "cannon" when all he's trying to do is "shoot a sparrow."

You can always convert .sub to .srt

They're not talking about the Xbox 360 just the normal old Xbox, which isn't over 150. Still till you get it setup it could be an expensive video player.

Yeah, but its only fun for the first time. Anyone got *.sub playing?

I haven't, but there are several "flavors" of .sub files. DVDSubtitle, MicroDVD, MPSub, Philips SVCD Designer, Sofni, SonicDVD Creator, SubSonic, two versions of SubViewer, and the infamous .sub + .idx twins (VobSub) all employ .sub files. Which of these are playable on a Philips DVD player is anybody's guess. I'm fairly sure Philips SVCD Designer would be and I know the .sub + .idx twins aren't.

Although I agree converting to .srt isn't much fun, that's the surest way I've found to make a separate sub file play on my 642.

A better way when I encode my own foreign language DivX or XviD using VirtualDub is to convert subtitles to .ssa (SubStation Alpha) and then incorporate them directly into the movie file. That way, subtitles can be larger than the Philips player provides and even in color. Then the player only has to worry about playing one file at a time.

Something else I ran across that se3emed like a pretty cool idea would be to wirelessly transmit video/audio from your computer to the tv. I hadn't realized till the other day that the equipment had gotten so cheap to do so. You can get wireless a/v transmitters starting for about 50$ for a single transmitter and reciever (I have no idea how good the cheap ones are though) and I think it was link sys and d link that make units specifically designed to wirelessly serve from a computer to a home entertainment center (though they are a lot more expensive). Obviously you could just hard wire it cheaper if your computer is in the same area, or set up a media server if you have the spare computer parts, but if not, wireless seemed pretty cool to me anyway....

Uh, just to be clear here we are talking about the original XBOX and NOT the XBOX 360 here. You can pick up a gently used XBOX for $100 or less these days or a brand new one in stores for $150. XBMC is for the original XBOX.

I bought a Magnavox player that supports DivX play-back for under $40 at Wal-Mart. So far so good.

It even supports the new Xvid format.

I'm really suprized what some of the cheap ones can do these days. The jis one I got was 35$ (28$ with my employee discount) and that thing plays everything. I have verified a few diffrent divx versions, xvid, mpeg4, nero digital etc and it plays everything in my library. I think the model I got was discontinued (thats why it was at big lots), but what is the model of the layer you got? Have you tried diffent file formats on it?

how well can the xbox with a celeron 733 play h.264 coded contents? not too well id say. xbmc must
just be playing back standard def [sd] stuff then.

none the less, its a great idea! wish someone would do that for regular pc's, like the compaq sff i am
using as a firewall. with a 733mhz p3, 128mb ram and a 2.5" 6gb hdd its virtually similar to the xbox's
hardware specs! optimised and shrinked kernels and fine tuned decoders would make most 4-5 year
old cmputers into full fledged mpc's!

most set top boxes are quite picky at best! cant play mpeg4 asp [xvid/divx/3ivx] with packed bitstream!
its still some years away that a set-top player emerges that can do, atleast:

avi + mpeg/vob + ogm + mkv/mka + mp4 [and maybe even divx containers]
mpeg1/2 + mpeg4 asp/avc + wmv7/8/9 [maybe real video and QT]
pcm + wav + mp1/2/3 + mp4 he/lc aac + ogg + ac3 + dts + wma1/2/9
flac + wv + tta + ape
srt + sub/idx + ssa + assa + mp4 timed text
m3u + m3u8 + pls
and play containers with multiple video/audio/sub streams!

the above codecs/parsers would be the most common. but to make the set-top box more versatile the
manufacturer can keep the api open and documented, so even if the manuf. dosent update or add more
codecs in the future, 3rd party programmers/users can!

Keeewl! thanks for sharing the info on xbox. Now I know I dont want it.
Do you suppose there is a linux distrib for HTPC, something lite that would load quickly? Cos the idea is great. I remember having no problems with DIVX even on P3 500.