DivX "for Mac" and Safari -- anyone get it to work on Snow Leopard?

Pardon me for the length of this post -- it's just a very involved question to which DivX has no answers, and I've literally wasted this entire week trying to get the so-called DivX "Bundle for Mac" to work, with absolutely no joy.

27" iMac Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz, 12 GB RAM, OS X 10.6.7

Safari (v. 5.0.5 [6533.21.1])

Safari Extensions:

DivX HiQ 2.1.1.94

DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 <video> 2.1.1.94

As anyone who has used YouTube in the past year or however long this option has been available, many videos, under the regular YouTube control bar at the bottom of the video window, have an additional option: DivX HiQ, with a blue "play" button with black arrow, and in white text on black, the message "Press play for higher quality video." EVERY SINGLE time, until yesterday (about which more anon) I've selected DivX HiQ, the YouTube screen turns into the gray DivX Plus player window for a few seconds, sometimes I get a brief "Buffering…" message (sometimes not)* (see below), then a window pops up telling me "DivX Plus Web Player could not download the video, please check your internet connection." (screen shots on request).

I have DL'd AND installed -- several times over the past few days -- DivX for Mac, version 7.3 (right up-to-date as of 11-30-10 -- great support for the Mac OS), with little or no success or noticeable results. Finally, yesterday, it somehow (I thought) installed correctly: at least instead of nothing whatsoever happening after the install, this time I was whisked magically away to <<http://www.divx.com/en/software/download/installed/mac?os=mac>> where I was rather breathlessly informed "Congratulations! You can now enjoy the highest quality digital video | divx.com." Well, this was something new -- this was the first time I'd ever gotten this far. Then I was shown many movies, promising new marvels:

The first movie informed me "You have successfully installed DivX software." This WAS something new. Then it told me about the "DivX Plus Web Player… Now Featuring: DivX HiQ… Boost web video quality and performance… … Look for the DivX HiQ Button on your favorite video sites… see better quality and performance with a simple click… Try it out on your favorite sites… YouTube. Vimeo. And more.

Then I played the NEXT movie, all about the DivX Plus Player, and here I TRULY saw something I'd never seen before: *a DivX Plus Player window, that actually said " Connecting… Buffering: … " and then -- mirabile dictu! -- an actual video began to play, and actually continued to play, with no stops, fits, or error windows, right up until the end. This WAS something new under the sun. It continued, extolling the manifold virtues of "DivX to go," which was of no use to me. The next video was about the DivX Plus Codec Pack, and the video told me about the wonderful things DivX could do in Windows 7, if I was brain-dead enough to USE Windows 7. Useless info, but that video, too, opened up the way I believe the *HiQ videos are supposed to open up in YouTube, for example: "Connecting… Buffering: …," and then actually opening and playing. BTW, I hate to sound like a troglodytic Luddite, but I have no idea what "MKV" video is.

The final video, which ALSO opened up the way I believe the *HiQ videos are supposed to open up in YouTube, for example: "Connecting… Buffering: …," spoke to me about the manifold joys of DivX Plus converter, which ALSO requires the DivX Player application, and since the DivX Player application (v.7.2 (build 10_0_0_184, Copyright © 2006-2009 DivX, Inc.), which, I was given to understand, was actually a PART of the DivX software I had finally "successfully installed" (according to divx.com's delirious greeting), has never worked, none of what all these videos talked about was going to do me much good. HOW has it never worked, you ask? It has never worked in this way: I click on the DivX Player app icon, the DivX Player window opens, and the Mac OS beach ball spins merrily away, and spins, and spins, and spins -- at this point, I usually go to the kitchen for another cup of the strengthening coffee and the hopefully headache-reducing ibuprofen. When I come back, the beach ball is still spinning, so, resignedly, I go to the "Force Quit" command, where, invariably, I see the message "DivX Player not responding," and, resignedly, I force quit it. Again. This scenario has occurred without variation every single time I've tried to open the DivX Player application. It has never actually opened correctly, it has always shown up in the "Force Quit" window with the comment "DivX Player not responding," and I have always had to Force Quit it.

Now Here's what may be termed the icing on the cake: fairly well buried in the "DivX for Mac" install package is a pdf "read me." Among many other fables is THIS whopper:

"For online video tutorials visit the following URL in your web browser: http://go.divx.com/mac/tutorials"

I did just that, and though the link works, there IS no page on the DivX site for "Mac tutorials." When you click on the link, you get redirected to "http://support.divx.com/faq/view/supportFAQen100/video_tutorials_main." Except for a video tutorial under "DivX Converter_ -- for which I have no use -- entitled "How To Edit Your DivX Converter for Mac Output Settings," and these two: "How To Export To DivX In Final Cut Pro for Mac," and "How To Export To DivX Using QuickTime On A Mac" -- neither of which do me the slightest bit of good, since A) I don't use, nor can I afford, Final Cut Pro, and B) what good would it to to export ANYTHING to DivX when the DivX Player for Mac does not, and has never, done anything but hang until Force Quitted?

A brief digression on that very subject of "hanging:" there's a little section in the obscure "DivX for Mac" pdf that reads:

"5. Known issues

Network connection is lost during download

A lost network connection in the middle of a download may hang the DivX Player For Mac. If this occurs, you may 'Force Quit' the DivX Player For Mac by simultaneously clicking command-option-escape and selecting the application from the list or by right-clicking the icon in the dock and selecting 'Force Quit.' You may then resume the download by re-launching the DivX Player, selecting 'Download Manager” from the File menu and clicking 'Resume.'"

Wonderful advice, if I could ever get to the point where I was actually downloading something, but since MY particular edition of DivX Player for Mac saves me all that bother by hanging immediately upon launch, DivX has very kindly saved me the trouble of having to go through all that "Force Quit" - "Resume" nonsense. Of course, I never get to download anything or use the DivX Player on YouTube or anywhere else, so that's a bit of a downside.

So back to the putative "Mac tutorials" on the non-existent "http://go.divx.com/mac/tutorials" page: other than the three totally non-germane examples I cited above, there is nothing that I can find on the re-direct page (http://support.divx.com/faq/view/supportFAQen100/video_tutorials_main) that is the least concerned with the usage or behavior of any component of DivX on a Macintosh computer. That's certainly not uncommon, but for a company that purports to sell products that actually work on the Mac OS X platform, EVERYTHING about the DivX site is so totally Windows-centric, one would be inclined to believe that DivX is not even aware the Mac OS X platform exists. For example, here's the list of tutorials under "DivX 101 - Learn How" on the page that, according to the DivX for Mac Read Me, was supposed to solve all my problems with running DivX on a Mac:

Featured Video Tutorials

How to register your PS3 for DivX VOD playback

How do I make DivX player my default video player?

How to register your DivX Certified device with the DivX Plus Player

How to stream DivX Plus HD (MKV) files to your Xbox 360

How to use the DivX Plus Converter

Featured Text Guides

DivX Plus Converter for Windows User Guide

DivX Plus Player for Windows User Guide

DivX Codec 5.x User Guide

DivX Codec 6 and Virtual Dub Guide

It's wonderful that DivX has tutorials dealing with XBox360 and PS3, but the Mac seems to have been lost in the shuffle -- I think, from an aesthetic point, the guy in the sideways hat and the emphasis on animé and "blow 'em up" games in what few tutorials are actually there pretty much sums up DivX's idea of their market focus. Maybe they're right, but if this "free" version, that so far I have not been able to get to work as advertised on my 27" iMac, is supposed to entice any Mac user into forking over even the piddling $20.00 for the "Pro" version, the "free" version isn't DivX any "gotta have it" favors.

Now for the final mystery: I have two Safari -- v5.0.5 (6533.21.1) -- extensions from DivX:

1. DivX HiQ 2.1.1.94, which is supposed to allow you to watch videos on YouTube, Vimeo, etc. in the DivX Player for Mac, but refuses to work when enabled: EVERY SINGLE time I've selected DivX HiQ, the YouTube screen turns into the gray DivX player window for a few seconds, then an error window pops up that says "DivX Plus Web Player could not download the video, please check your internet connection."

2. DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 <video> 2.1.1.94, the little blurb in the Safari Extensions window for which says "Increase performance and video formats for your HTML5 <video>

Clicking on the "by DivX, Inc." link in the Safari Extensions window of either of these extensions takes me to http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/web-player

"High-quality video shouldn’t stop at your browser. DivX Plus® Web Player gives you the best web video performance around, even on sites using Flash®. The latest feature, DivX HiQ™ beta, lets you replace the default Flash player on popular sites for improved performance. Of course you can still watch stunning DivX® and DivX Plus HD (MKV) videos right in your browser, and even enjoy MKV features like multiple audio tracks, subtitles and 5.1 channel AAC audio."

That's all well and good, but, not when it doesn't work. I don't know what the story is with these Safari Extensions: a manual (unfortunately the only way you can do it), category by category search of Apple's "Safari Extensions Gallery" turns up NO information about these extensions, neither does -- as far as I can tell -- a search of the DivX site. Am I supposed to use BOTH extensions? Neither? One or the other? Which? So far, if I use them, I get the HiQ option in YouTube (and elsewhere), but when I click on it, I get the error message above, and the window reverts to the usual plain old YouTube window. If I disable the DivX Safari extensions, I don't even get the HiQ option.

Has ANYONE gotten the DivX for Mac Bundle v7.1, or even the DivX Plus Web Player for Mac, v2.1.1, to actually work on a Mac running OS X 10.6.7?

If so, PLEASE tell me how you got it to work.

I'd gladly for over the 20 bucks for this product if it actually worked, but not until it does.

Bart Brown