Digital Home Thoughts: $99 ZVUE Playback Hardware Will Support DivX

"HandHeld Entertainment and DivXNetworks, Inc. today announced a licensing agreement to integrate the patent-pending DivX® video decoder with HandHeld's popular $99 ZVUE personal video player, which will allow playback of DivX and MPEG-4 compatible files on the ZVUE. The ZVUE is the first DivX Certified(TM) handheld product on the market, offering users the ability to play all versions of DivX video content on a portable device. The DivX-enabled ZVUE player was tested by DivXNetworks' and HandHeld Entertainment's teams of video engineers to ensure high performance and full interoperability with the entire suite of DivX technologies. DivX, often called the "MP3 of video," is among the most popular video technologies in the world with over 120 million users."

I still haven't put my hands on a ZVUE, but this announcement bodes well for them - playback devices are useless without good content, and by tapping into the scads of DivX content out there, the ZVUE suddenly becomes a more realistic player - but that's assuming it's easy to get the content on there. And let's not forget the issue of transcoding - if the ZVUE requires a specific resolution and bit rate, you'll have to put your videos in that format, which is another drop in quality from double compression.

UPDATE: I made an error on the headline the first time - the ZVUE will support DivX. Sorry for the mix-up!