Circuit City - DIVX Sales Training Video
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
- In the late 90's, Circuit City created their own version of DVD, a pay-to-play fiasco known as DIVX. I procured this training video from a group of starving Lithuanian nuns in exchange for a wild boar I had shot the night before.
"It's almost impossible to believe that DIVX could go under!"
Oh boy. "TOO BIG TO FAIL" mentality.
DIVX DVD: One the Biggest Marketing FAILs In Retail history and one of the most perplexing, idiotic, and mindnumbingly obtuse proposals ever to be created.
It’s not surprising that it crashed and burned. What’s surprising is that it got made. INVESTORS actually said yes to this.
How and Why investors were stupid enough to green light such stupid shit is beyond me.
Facepalms
Divx is awesome
DIVX? Go outta business? Whattaya nuts??!
@@Tornado1994 hahah yeah. When you have to create a video to train your sales people to defend it right off the bat it's a bad sign
@@dirtpipedan Indeed.
My memory of Circuit City and DivX. I went to a CC in my city to browse for a new DVD player. The poor sales guy approached me and started his spiel. I politely declined and kept browsing DVD players. He again gave me more spiel about how dvd players may be obsolete once DivX becomes more popular. I even told him that’s a possibility, but in the meantime, I already had a few DVDs at home that I wanted to watch and needed a DVD player now. He looked a bit stressed and I saw him looking around towards his manager, who looked like he was nodding at him to keep going. I felt so sorry for the guy. He looked so flustered and I felt so uncomfortable that I left after a bit of browsing and went somewhere else and bought my new dvd player.
Circuit City ordered everyone to sell this harder than anything before in history. I heard if you dared to say anything bad about DIVX, you were fired. I had lots of fun going in and shooting down any attempts to sell me on this. The last time they tried I just said “I don’t want a coin box on my TV.” Though now I have several streaming devices so the joke might be on me.
DVD players may be obsolete when Divx becomes popular. BWHAHHAHAHAHA! Jump to 2023, Divx is not only obsolete we but it’s buried 6 feet under in the Electronics cemetery while DVD players are now almost completely obsolete.
DVD players may be obsolete when Divx becomes popular. BWHAHHAHAHAHA! Jump to 2023, Divx is not only obsolete we but it’s buried 6 feet under in the Electronics cemetery while DVD players are now almost completely obsolete.
@@GannoochDVD players are not obsolete. If DVD is obsolete, then CDs are obsolete. Sorry but your streaming media utopia is a farce
@@johngoldsworthy7135Agreed. The cope is hilarious.
“People are gonna wanna give them away, sell them at garage sales….”
Boy that salesman had it RIGHT.
"DIVX Gold movies will be purchased ready for unlimited play."
So in other words, they're normal DVDs.
That's what I was thinking. What's the point?
No DIVX Gold movies were produced (likely) for this reason. Remember you would have paid full price for those too and they would only play on DIVX players.
The difference in these was that they could be disabled at will. I do have the in store demo disc which plays only on DIVX players and unregistered ones at that.
@@TheMediaHoarder Does it still work? I'd be curious to see what's on that disc. I know that DIVX discs are just regular DVDs (and can be read by a PC DVD drive) but with different files that are encrypted in such a way that they won't play. I would love if you still have that demo disc and can check it out...
@@drfsupercenter Someone else here has a video of it. It has a clip from Tomorrow Never Dies as a demonstration, and the same promo that was on the free VHS tape they sent out, but it’s in 5.1 sound. Wish I had a way to capture that. I have the DIVX player hooked up just to play that disc!
"It's almost impossible to believe that DIVX will go under." - Circuit City salesperson right before the bank foreclosed.
I was working for Circuit City and got a front row seat to this fiasco. Even *I* knew this was stupid beyond belief. THIS is what happens when you let MPAA lawyers design a video format.
Kagami101 how much was the going rate to unlock unlimited plays? Was it comparable to a DVD sale at the time?
@@khuntington I had a friend who had one. It would depend on the movie. Newer ones could range from 15 to 25. Older movies tended to be 15. But all Disney animated were 25. Sucks for all those people who built their collection with these discs. Luckly for my friend he only got a few of them and stuck with normal dvds.
DIVX DVD: One the Biggest Marketing FAILs In Retail history and one of the most perplexing, idiotic, and mindnumbingly obtuse proposals ever to be created.
It’s not surprising that it crashed and burned. What’s surprising is that it got made. INVESTORS actually said yes to this.
How and Why investors were stupid enough to green light such stupid shit is beyond me.
Facepalms
@@deckard97 Yes. Drove them into the ground.
I as well
10:00 "It's almost impossible to believe DIVX will go under! *HEHEHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAEHEHEHAYEHYAHE*
+Piefav2 love your profile icon
Thanks.
to be fair, it still exists.
Where? Divx & Circuit City went down a while ago.
You're thinking of DivX, notices the capitalization. Even then. RG's prefer MKV now.
Wow, after watching this I am running out and buying a DIVX player at Circuit City today!
lol
Havent heard of "circuit city" yet
I'm sure nothing will ever happen to those two stalwart institutions.
@@billygowhoop They've both been gone for over a decade.
@@AAAA-gj7tn r/whoooosh
“They found that consumer demand for [widescreen]’s just not there”
My brother in Christ people paying 400 dollars for a DVD player in the late 90s are the EXACT demographic of people who ARE demanding widescreen lmao. Nearly all the laserdiscs released after 1995 were widescreen for that exact reason!
I remember this. My dad bought my mom a DVD player back in 1997. He had to decide if he wanted the Divx feature. He wisely declined.
i had one they refunded you 100$ when they went out
nobody asked for your life story! smfh
It was a function of the player. So it still would’ve been playing DVDs.
Considering they werent founded until 1999 that's kinda funny...
@@azmrblack Wrong. 1997. Google before you comment, yeah?
I worked on the home audio sales floor for Good Guys when this Fiasco was unfolding. And I was working there when it went under. Even though Good Guys was one of the outlets for the DivX format, within nanoseconds of the announcement of the formats death, the managers could not wait to rush the sales floor to tear down the DivX display. Every one that worked there, right up through management, hated DivX!
the berlin wall of optical disc video formats
I live about 2 blocks away from Circuit City’s old corporate headquarters... it’s now a massive call center for like 2 or 3 different insurance companies . 😂
3:25 Wait, you mean I can *pause* a DVD???? Revolutionary! Thank God DIVX has bestowed this brand new feature to me, the grateful customer
Reverse! Fast forward! Skip from scene to scene! ... Just like you can do on a normal DVD! But hey, don't tell the marketing guys that.
And they considered the proper aspect ratio of a film an unnecessary special feature. 🙄
DIVX & Chill
I worked at Circuit City during this time. The impression I got was Circuit City corporate knew it was a half baked idea, and they just pressured their sales people to force it on EVERY customer that walked in the door, even if they weren't looking at DVD/DIVX players.
DIVX gold means I can play the disc an unlimited amount of times? Wow! So it's just a regular fucking DVD?
Pretty Mich
Yeah but better because DIVX
I'll never forget looking at DVDs and Circuit City and the salesperson telling me that my DVD player was going to be obsolete because of Divx! And I'll never forget seeing him not even a year later after DivX failed haha
What he say
Are you and him still dating?
@@marqterre9058It was a bitter divxorce.
10:21 the slow zoom in on the salesman was the greatest example of foreshadowing ever filmed
I think you'll agree it's gonna be a big hit!
if he doesn't make that sale his family wont eat tonight. Plus coffee is for closers.
This brings back HUGE MEMORIES!!
I was working at Circuit City when this was released and DEFINITELY remember this training video...
When I first seen this, I already guessed it was going to fail but I tried my hardest to get it out there but was EXTREMELY HARD!! :(:(
I went to Best Buy looking for this. They didn't have it or any movies for it. Must be sold out. What a hot product!
9:09
"Consumer demand for [widescreen] is just not there."
Boy that aged about as well as potatoes in sunlight.
I think you mean milk with vinegar mixed in
Honestly in the glass CRT TV era, it really wasn't! When HDTV came along, then yes. But how many people had a widescreen TV in 1998!? They were ridiculously expensive and stupid. And a big part of that was you needed a resolution and technology upgrade, ex: if you picked up a widescreen glass TV, you're know what I'm referring to they weighed about 100 pounds! And they didn't have as big of a screen as a 4:3 old 36" "square" TV.
"The 48 hour period begins when you push play, not when you leave the store. That could be...the next year."
Yeah, about that.
"What if DIVX goes out of business"?
*IT WONT*
Hey, DIVX sounds like the movie viewing format that i know my family is going to enjoy! The best part, theyre available at my favorite electronics store, Circuit City! Why, they are only second banana to Radioshack, i can depend on their sticking around in the electronics market!
Movie studios thought this was their golden goose. A DVD you had to continuously pay to watch
It’s the simple task of watching a DVD but with extra steps. How could it fail.
Divx failed 1 year and 1 week after its launch. 😂 so it’s NOT impossible
"Here's the bottom line... it's almost impossible to believe DIVX could go under" 😆
So basically Divx was just Blockbusters with extra steps.
“But they’ve found that the consumer demand for (widescreen and other features) is just not there.”
Wow. DIVX was completely out of touch with its customers.
They actually found out consumer demand for Circuit City wasn't there.
Yeah that didn't age very well did it? You look at this and then you start to understand why Circuit City went under 10 years later.
@@misterninetyseven2898 DIVX cost Circuit City, EVERYTHING.
I have my Panasonic DVD-X410 siting in my home theater/library right now. And a nice stack of DIVX discs to go along with it! Sure, I can't watch a single one. But I buy them up every chance I get! Thanks for posting this video!
lol, idiot
+Fem Borg well...he did say he has a sickness
Kate Lin why call him an idiot? He’s just collecting something that hardly anyone else wants. The alternative option is sitting in a landfill somewhere in Nevada.
You made my day with your comment. 😂 I remember a person I knew buying a DIVX player and thinking, as a child, it was a terrible idea. Glad to know you're single-handedly keeping the format alive. 🤘
The funny thing is that DIVX DID go under. The format was discontinued on June 16, 1999. DIVX players that were converted still played discs up until June 30, 2001. After that date, all players had stopped playing discs by then. That rendered the whole format totally useless. I do wonder if anyone's come up with a workaround to make players work again, though.
Whoa, DIVX went under?!
and they told every manufacturer to build them DivX players or they'd stop selling their TVs
@@louiemantia Yes
So they can't even play regular DVD's?
Man, was this product so doomed from the start.
If Divx had actually hung in there against all odds, they would have been slaughtered by Netflix.
Actually Netflix was around that time I think, can't remember when their mail ordering Started but I know it has to be close to very early 2000 since it was around the same time before Block busters went under
@@sillerbarly4927 I never claimed that Netflix wasn't around at the time, just saying that Netflix would have slaughtered Divx if it had actually held on.
The mail rental model offered better convenience and selection than Divx but, more to the point, Divx would have been rendered obsolete by VOD streaming.
Like VHS vs. Beta
"What if DIVX goes out of business?"
Salesman could not cover his ass. I would have asked "where the fuck are the DVD players" and leave.
HAHAHA, I just copied the LINK to that time because I laughed so hard!
10:00
I almost died laughing over:
** DivX movies are 4:3 aspect ratio because customer demand for widescreen is very low to nonexistent, HAHAHA NOT!
That's right. I remember not buying DIVX back then because of the 4:3 aspect ratio issue. My roommates and I were video snobs, and we demanded 16:9 even if that meant watching at a worse resolution (given both aspect ratios were playing on the same TV).
"Digital" movie purchases, especially movies being released that way several weeks before they're available on disc, are the new DIVX!
Pretty much. Streaming Services are, effectively, the new Rental System: you can only watch a Movie/Show when it's on the platform for a limited time, and if you don't continue paying the monthly rental fee, you can't watch it at all.
And now many movies don't even release on DVD or Blu-Ray. So for some Movies/Shows you want to have an offline copy of to watch (and it may be because NO streaming service streams it) ... pirating becomes the only option.
Young, naive, optimistic me was looking forward to an age when we could pay a SINGLE 1-TIME FEE for OFFLINE video files of Movies and Shows ... yeah, that never happened.
I heard about DivX once in the nineties and never thought of it again.
People with advanced business degrees thought DIVX would be successful. Let that sink in. The kicker is, there was a market for digital video rental. Once broadband penetration reached a certain point and solutions like iTunes came around, the option to rent a movie digitally for $3 and have it piped to your house over fiber became very attractive. DIVX? Not so much.
I feel bad for people who got one then started a collection and turned most into unlimited play. Man they got screwed big time.
I've never heard of this DIVX technology because unlike Walmart, they don't just put Circuit City or Best Buy everywhere. That's ONE of the reasons it didn't catch on.
It didn't catch on cause people wanted something they could play unlimited times regardless of time.
“DivX is too big to fail.”
- Didn’t you hold my beer, said the Titanic.
It’s almost impossible to believe that DIVX will go under.
I watched the whole video and I still don't know what DIVX is.
Unbelievably confusing.
In that case...You sound like the perfect individual to believe Human Evolution!
ya, because...god. Makes sense.
Ultraviolet mustve bought out DIVX Jesus h what a shit program UV is
Yoshi: It was Circuit City's attempt to enter the video rental market. DIVX was a highly-encrypted form of DVD, with all the videos on it in "fullscreen" format. When you bought a DIVX disc, you could play it for two days after the first time you put it in. You could pay an extension fee and watch it two more days, or pay an "upgrade fee" and completely unlock it. It only worked in a special player that had to be plugged into your telephone line. When the format finally failed Circuit City, being the assholes that they were, simply locked everyone out of their DIVX discs even if they'd paid the upgrade fee on them.
Bet they thought it was impossible for Circuit City to go under too! Thanks for uploading this, heard about this tape back then and always wanted to see it. Circuit City got what it deserved in the end!
They knew, and this was part of the plan in taking down department stores.
Who ever sold this to Circuit City was the best sales person of all time. I worked there and everyone knew this was not going to work. Circuit City was trying to get into a reoccurring revenue business so bad upper management just drank the Kool Aid. And we all suffered for it.
No more DIVX...No more Circuit City.
No wonder Circuit City went belly up, it invested in shit like this.
...and the next week, Circuit City declared bankruptcy, and closed all their stores.
It's the only format I know that self-destructs!
There was Flexplay. same deal, self-destructs after 48 hrs
if I remember right they killed it before any gold movies were offered. I think the training manuals said it was going to be about the same price as a DVD.
Change the X to an E and it spells DIVE. They should have known.
I wonder if these sales guys went on to sell Flexplay DVDs
It still blows my mind that after the epic failure of DIVX that bankrupted Circuit City, another company basically tried the same thing. Which also shockingly failed badly. Company execs are just idiots in suits.
Can't believe I watched a training video for fun
I was thinking the same thing. But I guess it's part of history now.
0:09 "...a product that will forever change how we watch movies at home". No, no it won't.
They amazing part was how the tv screen is working even though no wires are going from DVD player to tv.
Cos of all the science.
The salesman at 6:56 comes off as so disingenuous and phony. I wouldn’t buy anything from this dude.
10:00 What if DIVX goes out of business?
Meanwhile, I look to the right of this video at the next recommended video...... "Abandoned - Circuit City". Ouch!
10:00-- pure hilarity!
DIVX DVD: One the Biggest Marketing FAILs In Retail history and one of the most perplexing, idiotic, and mindnumbingly obtuse proposals ever to be created.
It’s not surprising that it crashed and burned. What’s surprising is that it got made. INVESTORS actually said yes to this.
How and Why investors were stupid enough to green light such stupid shit is beyond me.
Facepalms
DIVX DVD: One the Biggest Marketing FAILs In Retail history and one of the most perplexing, idiotic, and mindnumbingly obtuse proposals ever to be created.
It’s not surprising that it crashed and burned. What’s surprising is that it got made. INVESTORS actually said yes to this.
How and Why investors were stupid enough to green light such stupid shit is beyond me.
*Facepalms*
All they saw were dollar signs. Had the format become popular, much like monthly fee streaming services today, you have a customer base that is always needing to come back to BUY MORE. They can never watch The Shining whenever they want after only a single-time fee had DIVX taken off.
The writing is on the wall: the Media Machine doesn't want you to own anything, they only want you to "rent access". Movies and Shows are going that way with streaming services, and as we're seeing Games are going more and more into the Cloud. Modern Games installed on a Hard Drive will become a thing of the past.
This is how Media becomes lost: when it cannot be backed up, and I'm seeing the writing on the wall daily.
@@names_are_useless Exactly.
i didn't know about DIVX until now and think this is ridiculous. during this time cable scramblers, pay-per-view, and 1-900 numbers were popular, so this was obviously the next step in home entertainment. but too bad they didn't see their downfall and that DVD's would evolve. just pointing out the obvious.
900 numbers lol
90 numbers wtf🤣🤣🤣
killed by the popularity of The Matrix.
i havent had my divx touched since college
I prefer DVDs and Blu-rays over streaming any day and time of the week!
Me too! :)
So I have the movie in my room but I have to pay to watch it? Unbelievable. No wonder it went under.
Viewsk8 yeah it was just a very weird concept but kind of makes sense as a hybrid solution
"disc recycling bins"
Wish I knew where those were. Look at all the electronic waste we have nowadays. DIVX certainly didn't help in reducing it...
They could've had something that made sense because it did make sense right up until forcing the consumers to plugin their player to a phone line. Divx files can be burned and played from a CD which was alot cheaper than DVD both technologically and in terms of licensing. The compression made the files 1/5 of the size of a typical DVD file so they're easier to transfer and store. If they just sold them for $3 without all the other bloat, they would've actually avoided piracy and possibly killed DVD, instead, they made piracy easier because most consumer DVD players could play Divx and most PCs came with CD Burners. People ended up just burning their own Divx files to discs that didn't need to dial home.
Wow thanks for explaining it like that. So you could play a Divx disc in any CD-ROM drive and the movie would load?
Seriously!? I was under the impression DIVX Discs were at least encrypted to avoid piracy ... but you're telling me the files on the disc weren't!?
So DIVX wouldn't have stopped piracy at all even if it had become the new format AND inconvenienced the average viewer at the same time? FFS!
If your DVD player had a Divx logo on it, you just burn a Divx file on a regular ol' CD-R as a data disc and it would work. DVD burners were like $400 back around 2002 and a DVD-R was I want to say almost $4, so Divx on CD-R was the answer. I got my first DVD Burner around 2004 or 2005 for $200 and a spindle of 25 DVD-Rs for around $25 so I was finally able to make nice DVDs with menus, better video quality, and longer playtime. But for the few years before; Divx ruled... Also Xvid was the open source alternative to Divx and worked the same too.
That's DivX, which is not the same as the DIVX this video is about. 2 completely different things. Unfortunate naming scheme.
@@Hyxtryx as someone whom was sued by divx, I can assure you they're the same thing.
Just like Circuit City, Divx is a distant memory.
Thank Arceus that it is as DIVX was an terrible idea with awful execution.
I worked at Best Buy when CC was pushing this. DIVX was such a joke that no one was even concerned about having a competitor.
10:00 ahh my God my side is hurting from laughing. Literally in tears laughing.
I'm ded
8:50 "There will be some resistance"
We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.
Divx was unworthy of assimilation
2:37
This is what those who bought into Divx must have felt afterwards ... burned.
You know...why not just buy a regular DVD? I only need to pay for it once.
UMD videos also used DVD technology for Digital Picture. That's The only Defunct format of Movies that i own .
At least those will still play.
If they would have been up front with people and said, "Sorry, due to piracy we have to do things this way now. Sorry for the inconvenience" I wonder if they would have come out better.
OMG I found the same video at a thrift store across from circuit city! Sold it on ebay fro 14.00 smackeroos!
I love these old videos, the terrible acting is the best .
Paul Hendrick I don't think thier trying to act.
The thing about DVR's is that they eventually fail, need to be replaced, and you have fun loading up the new one. DIVX sounds like a DVR recording that sticks around forever, taking up physical space on your shelf, and eventually pisses you off majorly when the company goes under! Actually...It's kind of like "purchasing" a title on Amazon Instant. If the server ever goes bye-bye, so does your purchase.
Servers have backups.
The entire concept just sounds awful. They want you to think it's good for you when it was designed only to stop piracy
When you think about it, DivX is not entirely unlike renting on most movie apps nowadays, the problem is just that you had to have an approved, physical copy of the movie and a player specifically designed to run said-copy. If it wasn't for the amount of hardware needed and being stuck with an unplayable DVD afterwards, the idea at it's core was actually ahead of it's time.
In a funny twist of irony, DivX potentially ended up being partly an inspiration for the concept of streaming, and may have had a victory, even if it was very much a pyrrhic one.
I had that RCA DVD/DivX player in the video. It cost me $400 and they threw in 5 DivX movies and a $30 credit to pick up Metallica's Cunning Stunts DVD. I only watched one of the DivX movies LOL. Most of the DivX versions were inferior like using Pan & Scan versions of the movies not widescreen and no special features.
I remember how absurdly expensive the DIVX players were; hell they were MORE expensive than regular DVD players. How did anyone think people would pay MORE to play a format that's so restricted? If they'd been smart, they would have sold them for less money than regular DVD players and that would have gotten them into more homes and gotten people curious to try the DIVX discs.
Sounds like you guys got fucked pretty smoothly
did you say cunning stunts or stunning cunts???
I really don’t see how anyone thought this was a good idea at the time. But then again, hindsight is 20/20.
Like someone else succinctly said, “this is what happens when you have MPA/entertainment attorneys crafting home video retail…”
i laughed so hard when i listened to the 8-4 podcast and found this masterpiece at the end
Wow! DIVX is going to be a huge hit and ensure Circuit City is going to be around forever!
For three or four of those disc you could pay for a month subscription of Netflix, Hulu, or other streaming... SMH how far we've come
They really thought this might be the answer to piracy and film copying, yet you need to pay with each 48 hr viewing session (unless you upgrade the disc after the fact, I think.) I can't believe that they thought consumers would just buy into this in the early 2000s.
How was that any different than renting a DVD from a Blockbuster?
@@daltonrandall4348 Not having to return the disc or facing late fees *is* the selling point.
Interestingly, that line about "impossible to believe divx could go under bc of all the studio support" is the same argument that gets made in support of Ultraviolet (which I use through Vudu and Fandango).
well wouldn't you know? lol
What if I like rewinding tapes? I lose that? But I LIKE rewinding tapes. I bought a Corvette re-winder. It's red. I LIKE IT.
Literally lasted only 373 days. Ha ha
7:47
Salesrep: "How does that sound?"
Customer: "Well... so far..." (Gets Cuts off)
Spokesperson: "That sounds great!"
Me: "All right. Where can I find Dirty Harry on DIVX?"
CC Employee: "Well, you can't."
M: "What about Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory?"
CCE: "Nope."
M: "Not even Twister??"
CCE: "Sorry. The Warner Bros. studio doesn't support DIVX."
M: "Why didn't you tell me about this? Fuck this shit!"
So what happens to my library if the company goes out?????? Where is your GOD now!?
This is a Tim and Eric Cinco product.
even though i don't remember much, i kinda miss circuit City
You own it. After just listing all the ways in which you don't own it.
Yes, all I want to do is create my own digital library that is locked behind a pay wall every time I want to watch one of them. What a great idea.
A brilliant standard definition picture displayed on a CRT connected via composite! Just like SuperVHS. Couldn’t tell the difference!,
I was born 40 years ago and I never heard of this. Look at that fat old TV!
I see the little DIVX video logo at the bottom of old videos from 2008 sometimes...
Windows lover, bruh! DivX≠DIVX
I had a DVD player with DIVX and only now do I know what it means
Take a shot every time they say “digital”
I feel bad for the employees it's one thing to have to sell a shitty products but it's another when you need to sell the shitty product to be able to eat for the week.
Circuit City Employee: "It's almost impossible to believe that DIVX could go under
.........Circuit City itself goes under less than 10 yrs later
10:00-10:07 Yeah about that...