DivX TV: So Easy, Your Mother Can Use It!

I recently set up a new LG Blu-ray player (BD570) for my in-laws (I’m not only a great son-in-law, it also pained me to see them watching VHS movies on their beautiful new HDTV they bought over a year ago). They had recently decided to upgrade to Blu-ray from their VHS/DVD combo player and if you knew my in-laws, you would understand that this sort of technological shift does not come easy. For example, the first hour was spent explaining how to use the remote control.
When everything was finally set up and they were comfortable using their fancy newfangled remote, I decided to show them the net services that were available (including DivX TV — I do work at DivX after all). It became immediately apparent, however, that I would not be able to show them very much. A majority of the services such as Netflix, Amazon and Napster required subscriptions or credit card purchases. Other services such as Pandora still required an account to use. When I opened up DivX TV however, they were able to browse and watch videos instantly. No payments or accounts required. We also checked out YouTube, which was simple, but a site with nearly every video known to man is tough to navigate. You can search on both YouTube and DivX TV, but only DivX TV has all its videos separated into genres (like Humor, Music, News, Technology) so you can easily explore what you like.
Now, I could turn the rest of this post in to a straight-up marketing spiel about how DivX TV is a free service that works straight out-of-the-box with no complicated setup, no registration and no additional hardware required (see what I did there?), but I obviously have too much integrity to do that. DivX TV first launched over a year ago and although a lot has changed in the past year, our goal has remained the same. We want to connect people to entertainment in a way that is simple and intuitive. Even though my in-laws’ computer still runs Windows ME and belongs in a museum somewhere, they can still enjoy Zach Galifianakis’ latest “Between two Ferns” video with just a few clicks of their remote (assuming they can remember how to use it).