As Shift to Internet TV Accelerates, DivX CEO Positions Company to Offer ‘Any to Any’ Solution

San Diego’s DivX has been on something of a roll since June, when CEO Kevin Hell talked about the capability of someday moving television seamlessly from the living room TV screen to the computer screen and to the screens of wireless mobile devices.

The digital media company, which takes its name from the DivX codec standard, has been extending its reach further into consumer electronics, Internet video, and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), which uses the Internet to deliver digital TV service. On one front, DivX is continuing to negotiate deals with consumer electronics manufacturers to incorporate its digital video compression technology in the latest HD televisions, Blu-ray disc players, and IPTV set top boxes. The company already has certified its technology for more than 4,500 different model devices. Meanwhile, on another front, DivX struck a deal with four Hollywood studios on Aug. 26 that enables consumers to download thousands of movies from an online store, FilmFresh.com, and watch them on DivX-certified device.

Kevin Hell
Kevin Hell

Amid this flurry of recent developments, DivX CEO Kevin Hell gave me a fresh take on the company’s strategy in a fast-moving industry, especially as it relates to Internet TV, which he says is undergoing a fundamental shift. “Internet TV has the potential to re-order and revalue the media value chain—at least the way that broadcast TV works today,” Hell says. As digital television moves increasingly beyond standard definition to high-definition—and from broadcast and cable TV networks to Internet-based video content on demand, Hell says, “We’ve positioned DivX as being the friendly, agnostic ‘any-to-any solution’—from any device to any manufacturer.”

Hell joined DivX seven years ago as chief marketing officer, and later served as the company’s president and chief operating officer before becoming CEO in mid-2007. From 2002, when he joined DivX, the San Diego media company has grown from 35 employees and less than $3 million in annual revenue to more than 300 employees and $93.9 million in sales last year.

Hell says DivX is counting on three broad trends: Video content is moving beyond the TV and becoming unbound from

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.