Download DivX Plus Software 8.0

Softworld editor's review - 2011-06-23

Application that plays and converts video and audio files

Divx Plus 8 is a extremely useful suite of utilities when you want to play various types of media content. It includes a codec pack, a converter, a player and a web player, which comes in the beta version. Although the web installer has under 1MB, the whole Divx Software suite takes on your hard drive more than 120 MB.

Now lets start with the player. It has a great looking interface, however it is not very light on your system resources. To be able to play a video file you either drag it into the player or you go to File, which is located in the top left corner of the main interface, and then select Open Video. A window will appear where you will have to navigate to the location where you have stored the video files.

For the test i picked an MKV video. When i tried to play it i received the message that "an additional audio decoder is needed in order to play the soundtrack of this file." In the message was also mentioned that a DirectShow decoder is needed to be installed for the audio format. I must say that i was a little bit surprised.

The quality of the image was excellent but there was no sound. This was only the case with the MKV files. With the rest of the formats there were no problems. In File you have the preferences section. By entering this you have available various options. You can change the appearance of the application, associate the Divx Plus Player with various file types, make various settings in the Video library etc. Beside that you also have available Playback, Subtitles and Advanced preferences.

Near File you have View. Here you can change the way how is displayed the movie in the player and also the video aspect ratio. In Tools an option that really caught my attention is Transfer Video to Device. You have available four devices: DVD Player, Blu-ray Player, TV and PlayStation 3. You can transfer video content to this particular devices through a USB drive or by burning a CD or DVD.

What i like a lot about the player is that it gives you the option to "Burn Videos". In this section you can select various videos and then choose to burn them on a CD or DVD. Another cool feature is the DFX Audio Enhancer. This is a extremely useful tool for those that are using the application for audio files. However you can't fully take advantage of this feature. You can use just a couple of presets. Tu use all the Audio Enhancer functions you need to buy this audio application.

Now lets analyze the converter. Unlike the player this is not a free program. You have available a 15 days trial. The interface looks great and you are provided various converting options. You can choose to convert a video file in various types of formats: Plus HD (which covers MKV, H264, AAC/ACR) HD 1080P (AVI, DIVX, MP3/AC3), etc. After you have selected the format in which you want to convert then next step is to press Start. What i certainly do not enjoy is that the speed of this procedure is very slow.

Overall the Divx Plus 8 suite is a decent application. The player has a excellent interface and plays a wide variety of formats. The thing that i don't like is that the MKV files were played without sound. In order to have sound you have to download a specific codec. The DivX Plus Converter lets you to convert your video files in various formats. However the main problem is that the converting speed is slow.

Good:

-the player has a great looking interface
-Transfer Video to Device feature
-Burn Videos option

Bad:

-high system requirements for both the player and converter
-to play the MKV files with sound you need to download a specific codec
-the trial version of the DFX Audio Enhancer is seriously limited
-slow converting speed

Version 8.0 reviewed on: 23 Jun 2011

Publisher's description

Don't just play your videos — play them well. Whether it's a DivX®, AVI, MKV, MP4 or MOV file, DivX Plus Player is built to give you the best video playback performance and media management on your PC.

DivX Plus Player now includes DivX To Go, a new feature that lets you automatically format videos to play on any DivX Certified device. Now you can easily transfer your movies, TV shows or home videos to your DVD player, gaming console or more by easily burning a disc or saving to a USB drive.

n addition to all the features you'd expect from a great media player, DivX Plus Player also serves as a full-featured video library manager. Now you can create video playlists (by genre, date, etc.) as well as manage your downloads, including purchased movies.

Keeping track of what video is in what format and what player supports what extension can be painful. DivX Plus Player works behind the scenes so you don't need to know anything about video files, containers or require an advanced degree in codec technology to enjoy digital video.

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