DivX GejBox redubbed Connected, spotted in the wild

Well, would you take a look at this. That interestingly titled GejBox that we peeked last month has seemingly been redubbed DivX Connected, received a slight facelift, and best of all, has been caught in the wild. According to DivX, "Connected is a digital home platform and interoperability standard for networked media devices, PCs and, online services," and it can supposedly access Stage6, Google Video, and ShoutCast internet radio when not playing back media on any of your networked machines. The boxes are apparently being doled out on a very limited basis and are still marked as beta hardware, but judging by the photos, it features an Ethernet port, built-in WiFi, a USB connector, and a remote to keep you firmly situated on the sofa. You know the drill, check out a few more pics after the jump.

[Thanks, Dave T.]

[dt12345 @ Jul 29th 2007 3:17PM]

I wonder when it will be available to the public? I want one.

[DutchGuy @ Jul 29th 2007 3:28PM]

I wonder why they changed the name? I mean.. for WII the penis-reference resulted in a 500% profit surge!

[malren @ Jul 29th 2007 3:33PM]

I have one sitting in my living room right now. While there are quite a few bugs, almost every flaw is known to DivXLabs, and they are rolling out updates to the beta testers.

It's a pretty cool little box. Handles things WAY better than my Momitsu 880N or the Buffalo Linktheater. Wireless right out of the box. Interfaces with Stage6 (although that needs some UI work, it's hard to navigate), and it will support third party services and plugins. They just released a dev kit for plugins.

Right now, Google Video is broken, but should be one of the next things fixed.

No local storage, BTW, but it does have a USB port that doesn't do anything yet.

My favorite part is that it knows the size of my screen and my files and I never have to choose an aspect ratio. It always plays things in the right ratio for me. That's something my other two media streamers are terrible at doing.

[ben @ Jul 29th 2007 6:10PM]

How does it handle HD content and does it support .mkv files?

[Constable Odo @ Jul 29th 2007 8:10PM]

Can it handle subtitles (.srt or .idx/.sub) files? I'm really looking for something that can handle soft subs for all my foreign movies.

[malren @ Jul 29th 2007 8:13PM]

I only have two 1080P divx files, and they are choppy over wireless, but play well over the wired connection.

No support for Matroska containers yet. I don't see any talk about it either...I'll make a suggestion! :)

[malren @ Jul 29th 2007 8:15PM]

Odo: It handles SRT files. Just added with the last software update.

[ben @ Jul 29th 2007 8:56PM]

Thanks for the info!

[CobraRob @ Jul 29th 2007 3:49PM]

hummm I thought you had pictures of the orange one up for a while now....

Either way had mine about 2 weeks now.. Its not a bad little box does a good job I just wish they had had a more stable converter since not all my files are xvid/divx.. would like to convert a few of the x.264s over to Divxhd...

[CobraRob @ Jul 29th 2007 3:49PM]

dt12345

as I believe it will not be available to public.. it is going to serve as a reference design for other MGF to see what dedicated divx hw can do so they will build it into their devices.

[OverburN @ Jul 29th 2007 5:18PM]

wow... ITS ABOUT TIME

to anyone just completely out of the loop for the past 4 years: modified xbox1's running Xbox Media Center (XBMC) does all of this, except in recent times 720p encodings of tv episodes on the internet require more processing power than xbox1 can handle.

so the question is: can this divx box handle high definition encodes?

[Idaho @ Jul 29th 2007 5:50PM]

Touché

[Brad @ Jul 29th 2007 8:57PM]

This version of the box was on display at the Digital Experience press preview earlier this month. My understanding is that DivX has no intention of selling these boxes to the public. Rather it's a reference design to demonstrate a new software platform.

The company is hoping to partner with set top box makers like cable providers, DVD player manufacturers etc to add this functionality to their boxes.

I didn't get any good shots of the box, but you can see the interface here:

http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/07/13/a-quick-look-at-divx-connected/

[Dan @ Jul 29th 2007 9:26PM]

Oooh! No longer will I have to move to the PC in order to start playing another pirated movie!!!

[Discosis @ Jul 29th 2007 11:09PM]

So Malren & CobraRob ... how did you both come by this little box of goodness? Feel like recommending some more testers? ;)

[CobraRob @ Jul 30th 2007 12:57AM]

Unfortionatly, all of the beta test slots are filled right now.. Most of us have only had them about 2 weeks so far anyway...

As for the questions about the HD content.. no it does not support MKVs and looking at the server side software it looks like it on the fly will change it too 1280x720 for HD content so not sure how those 720p and 1080p rips will look.. I tryed converting a few over to DivxHD with dr. Divx and it would crash after 20-30 min every time...

[Discosis @ Jul 30th 2007 6:47PM]

CobraRob... thanks for the reply :)

I've had no luck getting DrDivx to work reliably in like, well, EVER. I bought RiverPast Video Cleaner, it's pretty good and does what I want without crashing, but I'm not sure if its up to the task of DivX HD.

[Tom @ Jul 30th 2007 4:37AM]

geybox = gaybox ?

[Richard @ Jul 30th 2007 8:53AM]

This is EXACTLY what I want. Considering the number of people who download things like Lost, and want to watch it on the TV, it's weird that there aren't more of these boxes around. There are a few low quality rubbish ones, but none from the big boys.

[Dave @ Aug 31st 2007 5:01PM]

Actually, if getting content from the PC to the TV is your primary goal there are a few slick devices out there. I've played around with an early version of this one and was pretty impressed:

http://www.internetvue.com/

Quality was really good and it worked well with a variety of streamed formats and content I threw at it - YouTube, WMV files, Flash, Movielink.

[KEROLiUKAS @ Aug 1st 2007 5:58PM]

I have one of these boxes too..part of the beta test..The funny thing is that the beta tester that leaked these photos, he used MY photos from my living room (the ones u see) (aka in the wild) without even asking for my permission and he just posted it on totally crap..it irritates me..I'm gonna work on removing those pictures from the site...God..at least give me credit...

[porfitron @ Aug 24th 2007 5:25PM]

I've been running a XBMC off a modded Xbox, so I'm pumped to be part of the beta and having been able to stream HD Divx/Xvid to my TV, which has the device hooked up over HDMI. From what I hear, this solution could be embedded in other devices (DVD players, set top boxes), so anything to reduce the number of boxes connected to my TV sounds even better.