PS3 to play DivX

In June, Sony tweaked its firmware 1.8 update for the PlayStation 3 to include AVC High-Profile format video. The file-compression technology allows files to be played using the form-fitting MPEG-4 format, and allows for faster streaming of high-quality video.

Today, DivX Inc. announced that its eponymous technology will also soon be supported on Sony's PlayStation 3. DivX video compression and decompression technology has become a popular medium for transmitting media files over the Internet due to its ability to balance quality with low bitrates leading to smaller file sizes. The functionality will be added to the PS3 "in the future" as part of an upcoming firmware update.

Although PS3 owners were already able to stream videos from their PCs to their PS3s, the latest update will enable the system to view clips in the DivX-encoded format. No specific uses for the codec were noted as part of today's announcement, but DivX did say that support was included in the PS3 software-development kit version 2.0, which was released to development houses on November 2.