[justsomehnguy]

I've had a talk about that topic recently (in the context of a computer games, but whatever).

In the 1998 the cost of the DVD setup was quite pricey: about $500-800 (ie ~$1000 in current money). In the next years the price dropped quite significantly ($200 in 2001, $100 in 2002), but your run of the mill PC wasn't suited as a home theatre system (no HDMI yet, duh! Only S-Video on some systems) and most people didn't even had the PC in the house, for many the niche of a home entertainment system was filled by PlayStation 2 which costed only $300 (+$100-150 compared to a DVD player) in 2001 and it was hooked to the TV.

So the idea of actually watching the films on the PC wasn't quite popular... except for the quoted DivX ;-) 3.11 codec. Which came to existence in the 1999 and was used only for... un-official releases. By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

So I would agree with GP - nobody watched videos on PCs in '90.

No, VideoCD and RealMedia doesn't count. It was more a self-inflicted BDSM session than enjoying the video.

[hakfoo]

I was always fond of TV tuner cards for the PC, sort of inverting the experience. Got my first one in 1999, thinking I'd attend an out-of-town university, and having one less picture tube around would save dorm space. (Ended up commuting to local school, effort was moot).

The appeal from that side wasn't "here's PC video on your 27" big-screen TV", it was "here's a 4-inch video window on your 17" monitor, so you can consume video content while doing other stuff."

[anthk]

> By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

Yeah, well, early 00's were kinda like 90's. And, yes the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player ever. Still, I'd consider DivX the bridge between mid 90's multimedia PC concept and the modern MP4 and later MKV players.