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Engadget: The possibilities teased in 2009 by Wi-Fi Direct have probably kept Bluetooth up at night, and we’re sure the commencement of device certification last month hasn’t helped, either. Now the LG BD960 has emerged as the first Blu-ray player on the Wi-Fi Direct certification list, hinting direct P2P communication in our home theaters among WiFi devices (without the need for a routing middleman) could soon go from fiction to fact. Unfortunately, mum’s still the word on shipping and pricing. The mere chance however that the player could stream content to any other WiFi-equipped device — Direct certified or not — is a big enough deal to give our dedicated media streamers Defarge-like glances already. Particularly, if the BD960 comes packed with features similar its suspected predecessor the LG-BD390, which can stream both Netflix, Vudu, and DLNA network content, as well as play DivX HD 1080p content. Until more details surface though, we’ll simply have to keep reminding our poor Galaxy S that it isn’t destined to be alone in this cold, cruel world forever.

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Engadget: Other than amassing support from seemingly every CE device on the market, DivX’s next step? Online content aggregation.

Announced as a partner with LG during yesterday’s press conference, the company feels it is in a position to give a more TV-like experience to internet video by extending its platform to interested content providers.

The software will allow users to stream not only from the cloud, but also compatible video from their own PCs. Its pitch to OEMs claims IP streaming capability on any hardware, and with it demonstrated ability to cut a deal, expect to see DivX TV on a set-top near you very, very soon.

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Electronista: Young movie store Film Fresh today launched itself as the first US-based movie store to provide downloads from larger studios in DivX form.

Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony and Warner have all agreed to include both recent and classic titles on the store and as a result have created one of the first few truly cross-platform movie services.

Although the videos are still copy-protected, the choice of DivX lets them play on Macs as well as any other device with an official DivX certification, including Blu-ray and DVD players, consoles like the PS3, and even the TVs themselves.

The approach works by requiring that users register the DivX devices allowed to play the files on the web, which prevents casual piracy but still provides room to copy movies in any form possible, including burning DVDs. Not all movies are available to download, but those that aren’t are available through Film Fresh on regular DVDs.

Prices vary widely depending on the profile of the movie as well as its original release; a slightly older movie like School of Rock costs $10 (€7), while Watchmen costs $16 (€11). The store doesn’t pose a particularly large threat to iTunes as neither iPhones nor iPods support DivX videos.

It nonetheless serves as a rare alternative to this store on Macs and is a larger risk to stores that often require Windows or are limited to very specific devices, such as CinemaNow or Vudu. Services like Amazon VOD or Netflix avoid the restriction by using streaming access on the web through Flash or Silverlight.

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TGDaily: DivX corporation announced yesterday the first line of DivX certified HDTVs for Panasonic, which are currently available in Europe.

There are nine models in the Panasonic VIERA Z1, V10 and G15 series which allow full 1080p resolutions with DivX video formats output directly onto the TV by the TV’s built-in encoder and a front-load media slot.

The TVs include an SD/SDHC memory card slot directly in front of the TV. On a 4GB media card using DivX compression, over six hours of video are possible. The DivX content can also be streamed to the TV directly off a DLNA server, allowing the PC to serve as a host for video favorites played on the TV.

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HD News: The dust has hardly settled on the High Definition format war but already new forms of digital technology are threatening to further revolutionize the way we acquire and watch movies.

The dominant High Definition DVD format, Blu-ray, has had a cool reaction from consumers and its market position is under increasing threat from services and technologies offering on demand films.

Coming to the forefront of digital download technology is DivX, a digital compression technology which prepares media files for high speed, high quality Internet distribution. Consumers can watch content on their pc or distribute to a whole host of DivX enabled portable devices and recently more notably HDTV’s.

DivX and Samsung have jointly announced that high-end Samsung HDTVs will soon be able to support DivX files through USB devices or DLNA-certified Ethernet connections.

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Electronista: DivX and Samsung on Wednesday announced high-end Samsung HDTVs will support high-quality DivX video files under a multiyear agreement.

The DivX Certified HDTVs should be available worldwide at the beginning of 2009, and will be able to playback DivX media files stored on USB devices or a DLNA-certified Ethernet connection. Samsung already offers DivX-certified products that range from cellphones to DVD players.

DivX is a high-quality video codec that keeps file sizes small by using lossy MPEG-4 ASP compression. It is commonly used on downloadable files and its adoption in Samsung TVs will let users enjoy content created on or acquired from their PC in their living room.

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Unbeatable: The Onkyo LS-V501 Home Cinema System is in a league of its own with its stunning appearance. This is not a system that you will hide away in your TV cabinet, but you may even install a shelf specifically for its display!For such a reasonable price tag the Onkyo LS-V501 is an impressive piece of kit with some outstanding features starting with support for HDMI which leads to High Definition connectivity set up with your state of the art LCD TV, a 2-channel sound with DVD support and DivX for watching home movies on your HD DVD Player or Blu-ray player. Music options are also of high importance with this system and MP3’s can be played with the optimum quality of DVD Audio and Super Audio CD.

The speakers included are the icing on the sound effect cake, and come in the shape of 2 8cm cone woofers, and a balanced dome tweeter as well as a Bass Reflex Powered Subwoofer, 2x 20cm cone woofers. An iPod dock is also included as it is one of the necessary and popular connections in today’s MP3 player world.

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Easier motoring: Having recently grabbed Europe’s top gong in the in-car, audio-visual stakes – In-Car A/V Head Unit of the Year – Clarion is showing no signs of let-up in the development of cutting edge in-car entertainment, with the launch of its intuitive VRX578RUSB multi-media masterpiece.

Featuring DVD R/DVD RW, CD R/CD RW, MP3, WMA and AAC file playback, as well as USB and optional iPod control, the new VRX578RUSB is the easy-to-use answer for getting the most out of multi-media in-car.

A fully motorised 7” touch panel control glides effortlessly upon command from the elegant single DIN housing. Once open, a sensibly styled ergonomic control panel, makes speedy navigation of the range of audio and multimedia functions on offer a breeze, whilst Bluetooth connectivity makes it safer than ever to stream voice calls via a mobile phone on the move.

The VRX578RUSB’s hideaway USB terminal allows for the link-up of portable MP3 players and subsequent access to 255 folders, each supporting 15,000 tracks, whether they’re MP3, WMA or the iTunes-friendly AAC files.

Equipped with the industry’s latest method of video compression, “DivX”, the VRX578RUSB is more than capable when it comes to video playback.

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Electronista: The Xbox 360 is likely to gain support for playing the long-requested DivX video format, a DivX official has inadvertently revealed at a JP Morgan conference. Company presenter Kevin Hell was apparently caught off-guard when asked about how the Xbox 360 would interact with Microsoft’s update to its Windows Media Extender feature that provided DivX support, at first confirming the addition outright but backtracking to say only that DivX was holding “discussions with Microsoft” over the prospect.

The addition would provide enthusiasts with native support for many of their videos without having to use special software on the Xbox itself or a nearby PC to transcode videos on the fly.

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Mobilitysite: DivX, Inc. announced the DivX Certification of the Samsung Ultra Video (SGH-F500) mobile phone, a revolutionary phone that features an unrivaled design and brings a superior range of multimedia experiences to consumers including high quality DivX(R) video playback. The F500 is the first mobile phone to achieve DivX Certification to ensure true interoperability between the device and the over 70 million DivX Certified consumer electronics devices in the world today. (…)

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Newlaunches: If the i600 made messaging easier here is the Samsung Ultra Video F500 straight from Hong Kong. It is the first phone to support DivX codec along with support for MPEG-4, H.264, WMV and AVI files thus covering all major video formats. Videos are bought to life on the crisp 2.4 inch screen, you can also shoot images and take videos via the 2 Megapixel camera. The Ultra Video has a smart design to go with its cutting-edge features it’s got dual faces – one side is a phone while the other contains a large screen and intuitive controls for multimedia. It has a unique swivel design for multimedia content. The screen swivels away from the controls to adjust the viewing angle or form a stand to place the device down. The F500 has 400 MB of internal memory and has a Micro SD card slot which can swallow a 2 GB card which is good for 4 hours of video.

Pricing and availability of the Samsung Ultra Video F500 is not known yet.

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EngadgetHD: The highly-regarded DivX format now features 1080p (and 1080i, too). So the next time you feel the need to rip and encode online, you can do so in beautiful 1,920 x 1,080 resolution.

In the latest DivX newsletter, support was annouced for “full HD digital video encoding in both interlaced and progressive scan modes,”.

This lastest 6.4 version also boasts a few other improvements, including “faster multipass encoding, better compression when using internal resize filters, and a new adaptive noise reduction feature” to improve overall quality.

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