KISS to begin work on HDTV DivX compatible DVD Players

April 30, 2004

KISS Technology the makers of DivX compatible DVD players have announced that they will work with DivX Networks inc. to develop HDTV compatible DivX certified DVD players. These KISS DVD players will offer the capability of playing back HDTV DivX content with high resolution playback on a suitable HDTV display. Consumers will also have the ability to encode HDTV content into high resolution DivX files compatible with the KISS HDTV DivX player without having to sacrifice on resolution.

The DVD Player will support all DivX versions including both secure, video-on-demand and HDTV content from DivX Networks' content providers. So far, no announcement has been made on the expected release its HDTV DivX DVD player products. Thanks to jef195 who submitted the following news via our news submit :

KiSS Technology, Inc. today announced that they will work with DivXNetworks, Inc., to develop a DivX Certified DVD Player optimized for the high-resolution HDTV playback of DivX video files. KiSS Technologies will demonstrate DivX Certified DVD players to major retailers at RetailVision North America, where DivXNetworks is an event sponsor. RetailVision is held April 26-29 at the Hyatt Grand Champion in Indian Wells, California.

The DivX Certified DVD player from KiSS Technologies will offer the additional ability to playback high-resolution DivX videos optimized for HDTVs. The player will enable DivX users to archive high-definition broadcast content on their PCs and easily playback DivX video encoded from high-definition on HDTVs. Additionally, as a DivX Certified Home Theater device, the KiSS DVD player will support playback of all versions of DivX video, including secure, video-on-demand content from DivXNetworks' content partners.

It seems that KISS Technologies may be the first to offer consumers a HDTV compatible optical disc playback device while the DVD-Forum has yet to finalise the next generation of optical disc format. Even if the KISS HDTV DVD players prove successful, it will be interesting to see if the DVD-Forum would take on DivX as part of the next optical disc generation. Like the current MPEG2 standard for DVDs, DivX is still part of the MPEG family. jef195 wrote "I never knew Divx could do HDTV but this should be interesting"

To find out more information about KISS Technology, visit their website here . For more information on DivX networks, visit the DivX Networks website . Feel free to discuss and read more about the DivX Codec and transcoding content on our Transcoding Software Forum.

Source: Designtechnica - Home Video News