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DivX Going Open Source - Updated 151

Posted by Hemos from the where's-my-client dept.
JimRay writes "According to this C|Net article, the DivX program will soon be open source. NOTE, this is not Circuit City's failed out DVD rental plan, but a set of programs for lossy compression of digital video. Is this the mp3 for video or what?" DivX is based on MPG4 - and contrary to earlier submissions, Project Mayo has stated they own all copyrights to the code - it is not a knocked off version of Microsoft's MPG4.Update: 01/17 02:52 PM by H :Thanks to paradigm from Mayo for sending this update/correction: "This is a release of our codebase as it stands now, we have cvs, mailing lists, bug tracking, everything set up. We are working towards our current goal of releasing Divx ;-) Deux which will, of course, rock. This code works, but we are making it better. We are developing this code still, not just throwing it to the open source world for the hype, we just thought others would want in...all of our developers are on the mailing lists and activly post in our forums."
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DivX Going Open Source

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  • If this is the case, then even clean-room developing a new video compression format would breach one or more patents.

    Hmm, why is that? I was under the impression that if you could "prove" (however this is done legally) a clean room implementation you could do it.

  • Now, both MS Media Player and RealPlayer will be declared obsolete by an open-sourced player and format that doesn't infringe. What could be better? I'll tell you: if it'll be even better if they don't make the player display the video file on the primary surface. Exercise your god-given right to take screenshots of movies!
  • works well in the video compression... in fact works so well it RoX!!! *QuAcK*
  • I can easily do that too, any wintv [hauppauge.com] card will do. For software, on win98SE: virtualdub 1.4c [geocities.com], very flexible, open sourced GPLed, i use it for both capture and edition, it has many key features as well.

    The capture & compression can be done in real time, my system is an AMD K7 Duron 650Mhz running on a MSI motherboard with 64Megs of ram. I usually leave the audio uncompressed, at full PCM 44.1khz stereo. I also set DivX ;-) low motion codec at 1 sec keyframes, and 6000 (max) kbps. Average compression is 26:1, somewhere near 200 KB/sec. WIth 10Gigs free, it has more than 20 hours left for recording :) I think you could get even more if you also compress the audio, in .wma at 64kbps, but a little bit faster procesor could be needed. Ah yes, the harddisk is just a Maxtor 30G IDE drive, with UDMA enabled.

    I also use a little free scheduler called "Windows Scheduler" [splinterware.com] to do the automated capture (it saves keystrokes), and virtualdub itself can stop the record after certain conditions are met (like, n minutes passed, or only n megs free on disk).

    So yes, your VCR is obsolete already, get a decent CPU and TV Tuner, and have a lot of fun.

    Oh, and hear this tip: do the capture at YUY2 (raw) so you can enable the "noise filter", anything from the default (17?) to below (left) should be okay. You will be amazed of the magic this does with old tapes or not good enough tv signal, then choose the compression at the "compression" menu option, so to be done in real time after the raw capture and filtering.

    Of course install the DivX ;-) lossy codec [divx.ctw.cc], and the very useful free opensource huffyuv lossless codec [berkeley.edu], use the lossy one when you need a long recording time, and the lossless when you need quality above anything else. Same with PCM (raw) audio vs mp3/wma (lossy).

    BTW: Could somebody with the knowledge please take a look at VirtualDub's and huffyuv's source code? Maybe it could be ported to BeOS and Linux, now that we have the DivX ;-) Deux source at hand it could be useful. I hope video4linux 2 is ready :)

    --

  • What space land are you in??? The DivX;-) codec works extremely well in the export & capture process when using it with Adobe Premier 5.1 It seems that the only concern here is if the codec is used for full commercial movie features... it is in fact is a very good tool with the distribution of media online. I look forward to using the codec for the live streaming of MPEG4 in the future. At present we are constrained to low frame rate at 256kbs for 600 x 800 resolution... we see DivX;-) as being a possible improvement to that!
  • Let me try to clarify a method to our maddness. Project Mayo and the OpenDivX code state that the encoder was based on the MoMuSys reference implementation in external documents and in the source code. We absolutely want to give credit where credit is due. The MoMuSys code had so many acknowledgement sections that the DARC team thought it would be a nice gesture (for future community programmers) to move them all to a single file and leave pointers >> cleaner code. It is possible that during this cleaning, some pointers may have been inadvertantly left out... c'mon, cut us some slack, we were working our butts off every night ;). We put an Acknowledgement.txt file with the source code so everyone can see the original authors. So that's what really happened. BTW, we're still making changes as we speak so it's becomming less and less MoMuSys.
  • No... it is another version & is concentrating on smaller, better quality & streamable... BUT... DivX;-) did start this off... & I have used it successfully in the compression & export of both AVIs & MOVs from Adobe Premier 5.1. We need to see more codecs looking along the line of streaming live as darim MPEG2 & such are doing... with MPEG 4 streaming we are looking at 1024 x 768 res at under 256kbs - that RoX!!!
  • The wrapper for Microsoft's DLL is open source. The actual DivX/MPEG-4/ASF algorithm is still licensed strictly to Microsoft and available only in Win32 DLL's, which make it useless in IA64.
  • The original DivX;-) was a Microsoft hack at the binary level, no source code. OpenDivX (encoder only not decoder) has nothing to do with MS, it is from the MoMuSys reference. As for the header tag in the bitstream, it was left off in order to integrate into the AVI format. It can easily be added if needed. I can assure you that the source code on Project Mayo is the new DivX dll code.
  • I don't think you know as much as you appear to about the Internet or Joe Sixpack.
    I'm a college student living on campus, and as such I have downloaded and burned spindles of CDs full of movies, anime, commercials, music videos, etc; all of which were extremely easy to obtain. FTPs, CuteMX, the late ScourEx, FilePool, Gnutella, our college network and BBS are all super-easy ways to find and download movies.

    First, the reason most DivX movies are usually larger than ASF is because the DivX ones are near-DVD quality while ASF is something similar to a handheld camcorder at a $.99 theater. In fact, a DivX rip of the Long Kiss Goodnight (widescreen) is only 470megs, which includes all two hours, 640x416 resolution, 128kbps MP3 sound, and looks absolutely stunning full screen on my 19" monitor. While 12 Monkeys and American Beauty (both two hours long) in ASF are over 500megs and at best get an "okay-poor rating" with their dark, fuzzy picture and static sound.

    Second, if Joe Sixpack cannot download and install a simple divx311codec.exe then how can you expect him to download and install Winamp to play MP3s? (Which he and his few million friends all seemed to acclomplish quite well.)

    Finally, I, nor anyone I know, buys pirated movies. If the person selling it downloaded it somewhere, then so could they. The whole point of pirated goods is that you don't pay for them.

    -AU
  • >Did they use 10 year old Video's as a source or something?

    Who is Video? What of his are we using as a source? Tell this 10-year-old Video person to keep whatever we're planning on using as a source--we're going out on our own.

    Perhaps we'll use something of mine as a source. Sounds like this 10-year-old kid named Video has some shitty content.
  • And call it "Divx ;-)" instead of "Divx"
  • My 800 Athlon (Windows98se) takes 8 hours to rip a 2 hour long movie (720x480 and 128kbps). I ripped a 3 hour long movie in 10 hours, but also had mIRC running in the background.

    And yeah, you can easily fit any movie onto a single CD by notching the resolution down to 640x416 or so and cropping out blackspace (if its widescreen).

    As for downloading- I don't mind at all downloading a movie while I sleep, watching it the next afternoon, finding out it sucked horribly (ala Cruel Intentions or Urban Legends) and glad I didn't spend $20 on the DVD. Or that it was a wonderful movie that I never even heard of (Spanish Prisoner for one) and end up buying the DVD because it was so good. And I don't know if Microsoft has gotten around to removing "Disable Javascript and Images" feature in IE, but doing so is an easy remedy to those pop-ups and banners.

    -AU

  • OpenDivX License Clarification (Score:5)

    by L0g05 ( 306254 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @09:49AM (#501636)
    We want to make DivX as open as possible. The video world is a little weird, so we had to make some concessions. For example, if you want to use the code but put it into a larger application that is closed and you want to sell that application, you can do that. We'd prefer that you don't (for many of the reasons mentioned in the LGPL http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html), but if you must - you can. If you do, however, you can't call it DivX until we get a chance to check it out. This isn't exactly aimed at small open source developers ;) Same thing with the encoded content. We'd prefer that everyone make it open. But if you don't want to, no big deal. Again, however, we reserve the right to ping people who want to close their code as it were. But don't get edgy - this isn't aimed at people like Brandon. Think a bit bigger ;) We are just trying to do our part to keep things a level playing field.
  • Actually, you _pay_ Adobe and Fender for the use of their product so you can create works you can sell.

    You can't _create_ content with proprietary codecs, without paying for that ability (mp3, gif, etc). They are not stopping you from _creating_ content, just profiting from the creation of that content without a kickback to themselves. Although it is not the best stance to take, it is fair.

  • I use divx to convert my dvd collection to a format I can view in any OS, dont realy have much choice in this as still no dvd player for beos/linux

  • I used to use DivX;-) for backups also but I prefer to use VCD or SVCD format instead. The benefit... if your standalone DVD player supports VCD AND takes CDRs then you can watch your backups in a standalone DVD player. So far, DivX;-) encoded movies can only be viewed on a computer.

    I like being able to take home movies (I have a digital camcorder that transfers the film over firwire), convert them to VCD, burn them onto a CD, then watch them on my DVD player. IMO, a much better way to view and preserve home movies.

    VCD info [vcdhelp.com]

    BTW, it's possible to convert DivX;-) into VCD but it takes HOURS. You can get info on how to do it at the above link.

  • I think I have to agree with there. While digital video isn't quite there yet without enough broadband access, but I bet it will when DVD-R's proliferate.

    Remember, Apple got screwed this year because they focused on video too early, without considering distribution. FCP and iMovie are great and good authoring tools, but I had to use my schools DV to SVHS deck to make copies for my friends, and lost a lot of audio nuances in the process. If I had a DVD-R, I could easily burn them, and give them to the friends with dvd boxes.

    Still, I'm all for open codecs, as a video student, since more people will able to view my work.
  • It is.
  • Reagarding the people saying that they still stole it because DivX was invented by someone else, look at the MP3s that you listen on your linux boxes. couldn't one say that XMMS' Mp3s are also stolen standard?
    A DivX player for UNIX would be _amazing_ though. considering what Microsoft's player can do with a 20 meg file (matrix promo movie, 10 minutes, VERY hi-res), theres not stopping what we can do ... with a little help from SDL.

  • Re:DivX ;-) and piracy (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have played about extensively with programs like FlaskMPEG and DeCSS to make local copies of my DVDs. I can fit an entire DVD, using DivX, onto a CD with satisfactory quality video and audio. Of course it doesn't compare to a decent DVD player costing thousands of pounds (check out the rather nice kit made by Meridian!) but on my 17inch monitor it does the business. It only takes about 6 hours too, as opposed to MPEG2 which takes four times as long and results in a much larger file. So compressing 5gb of DVD down to 600Mb Is A Good Thing.
  • In their "license overview" page, they state "if you want to sell the content itself commercially, you have to get permission from Project Mayo first".

    I'm sure it was written by a group of non-lawyers trying to sound all legal and official. Since there's already questions on who owns the IP they've used they're not exactly on solid ground trying to license it out. Of course, anyone attempting to sell Divx encoded content would probably be committing financial suicide anyway unless they had deep pockets and wanted to be the test case.

  • Are you not confusing trolls with spams?
  • Give me a break, my host's colocation facility was shut down by a US Federal Court, and had to move. Did you happen to notice the domain name? Yeah, that's right.
  • I can very well tell you what crack I smoke, PURIST crack. I'm the kind of person who starts throwing things across the room when he spots a blurred transition in a DivX. I'm the kind of guy who encodes all his music at 256kbps because he once heard a swishy song at 192. I'm the bitrate nazi, yes I am.
  • Have you ever seen a DivX-encoded DVD rip? Try making your own. You'd be impressed.
  • There is a big change. In fact, it doesn't use any Microsoft code at all. Not even a little bit.
  • But, see, licenses ARE for nitpicking. I'm confident that they have good intentions, but judges and lawyers don't care about good intentions. If this ever goes to court, it will be nitpicked far worse than I'm doing.

    Absolutely. That's why I said that you should contact *them* about this, rather than spout off about what they are doing wrong buried in the bottom of a public forum. I even said that they have some serious problems with their license and should seek assistance.

    Be pissed off at the tone, but the self-desctuct source code example makes the point far better than "but they could password-protect the source code"

    Nah... I was overreacting. But then, couched in such terms, the authors are unlikely to listen to you: "Well, why the hell should we listen to this guy? He's ranting about icebergs!".

    Seriously: You seem to have picked out some good areas in the license that need fixing. Why not write them up point by point and email the authors?

    My whole point about intention was not to say that having good intentions is enough, but rather that they are looking for the same thing you are... so help 'em out!

    Instead, they decided to write Yet Another Unique License

    Amusing how in the world of Linux, competition is a Good Thing. But they all have to have the same license. I rather liked the Open Source concept of "certified licenses" with a point by point checklist of items.

    --
    Evan

  • This is not a pretty license. It's not Open Source, either because of the restrictions on fields of endeavor. It's also "clickwrap", rather than copyright-based like the GPL.

    Problems:
    You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
    (even the GPL permits further restriction)

    Any Codec or Larger Works created by you must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard.
    (even if you independently write a Sorenson codec, using none of their code, it must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard! And that applies to any program you write, even a word processor!)

    You may copy and distribute the Codec in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 3, provided that you also accompany it with the complete machine-readable source code, or information about where the source code can be obtained.
    (But the information on obtaining the source code can be "The source code is on an iceberg set to autodescruct using a proximity detector")

  • Unfortunately, if a product infringes a US patent, it can (and often is) blocked from being imported into the country. If the US patent holders petitioned them, customs would block any boxed Linux distributions containing infringing code. Obviously customs can't stop downloads, but stopping boxes would probably be enough of a revenue-stopper to prevent the inclusion of such code in the first place.

    Steve

  • >"When a technology gets better, uses of it get more diversified and more prevalent."

    I believe the correct response is "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" ;-)

  • Wow, I didn't think any CPU out was fast enough for realtime DiVX compression, especially seeing as how it takes a 600Mhz CPU to reliably playback a DiVX encoded movie.

    Ok, any good TV-in. If all the card needs to do is capture and there's no compressor codec in hardware, then anything with video in should be fine. I've got an Asus GeForce with video in.

    Then, Virtual Dub takes care of starting that, with any sort of automation program to control the scheduling.

    Ok, the DiVX codec I knew, but the lossless one is a good suggestion for when I want to grab some cool clips from my favorite movies and a few MBs don't matter.

    Here I was planning to have to record uncompressed (or some low-compression lossless) and DiVX later, over a few hours. This'll certainly save temp space on the drive.

    Thanks for all the links, that was a very helpful post!
  • [Insert favourite Florida / Supreme Court joke here]
  • I figured from a few tests that I could fit The Beach into 120MB at acceptable quality.

    Hmmmm... Does that mean you just cut out all the parts featuring Leonardo DiCaprio? That would fit my definition of "acceptable quality". ;)

  • Go into the "Options" area and turn off hardware acceleration completely. You'll now be able to get a screenshot, although regular viewing may not be as smooth, due to the complete use of software to do decoding.

    It's not a conspiracy to prevent screenshots, it's just that to speed up decoding, the Media Player offloads processing to the videocard, which obscures the image from regular software.

  • Ah.

    Would that it were not the case, but I suspect that the video licences are royalty based. This would work fine if RedHat sold each copy of its product, but since any yahoo can download it off their website, that seems to be a real killer (road kill on the superhighway, to torture your analogy).

    Maybe a third party could sell the player, but we all know how well payware fares in the linux comunity.
  • What do you mean failure? All the porn I download is in DivX format. =)
  • 20$ ridiculous ? perhaps if you don't like movies, in which case you can rent it for 2 or 3 bucks and beam with inner pride. However DVD's have a strong appeal to collectors such as myself. I buy 3-4 movies per week. I'm not rich, I just like movies old and new, and I like to see them again occasionally. 20$ for a movie doesn't seem ridiculous to me or most other movie lovers. It's an inexpensive form of entertainment that can be shared by as many people as you can fit in your living room; of course then you'll need lots of beer and munchies, now that could rack up a hefty bill :)

  • I've seen a lot of DivX CDs. Usually CD-RWs :-)
    All the illegal "moviez" are in that format...
  • I doubt that folks like Red Hat could ship DivX without running foul of IP lawyers

    How about SUSE, Debian non-US/non-free neither of which should fall foul of US IP Law! Anyone care to post a list of all the other Linux Distributors who do not let themselves be subjected to US IP Law? This is one of the best reasons why Redhat!=Linux and perhaps the one that will see RedHat either leave the US or simply crumble.

    Now just make sure you all visited petition.eurolinux.org [eurolinux.org]

  • I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.

    For the time being, we don't all have broadband connections, but the MPAA knows that's not to far off in the future. They're trying to kill DivX off now before it gets to widespread.

    Finally, let's say DivX ;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.

    That's probably what the RIAA was thinking when they didn't worry about MP3s a few years ago. Scour may be down for now, but sooner then you think getting movies will be just as easy as getting MP3s is now. Most people won't venture into the slums of New York for bootleg videos, but the beauty of the Internet is being able to access the slums from your very own home.

    Don't think I'm trying to condemn DivX. A tight, high quality video standard has a lot more uses then just video piracy. Plus it's fun to see the Internet community make a better product then Microsoft.

    -Jeff

  • You don't have to download any 600 MB files to get DivX ;-) movies. You need a DVD-ROM drive, a DVD ripper, and a program like FlaskMPEG. Getting a DivX ;-) movie is as easy as going to Blockbuster.
  • They say the program is somewhat hindered by patents. But that only holds in the US, software patents are not allowed in europe.

    How, exactly, is software defined? I think what's been patented here is compression algorithms. Can those be patented in Europe?

  • Um, I'm sorry, but unless there's been a big change in the DivX code, I don't see how they're going to be able to separate it from Microsoft's code (which they obviously cannot Open-Source.

    It's a shame 3ivX seems to have basically failed. It truly is a better codec, but the team was absolutely moronic to release it without an encoder to go along with the decoder. Of course no one will want to use the codec if they can't encode anything to it.
    ----------
  • my hauppage TV/vid capture can compress into DivX in real time, which leaves me with a 30 minute 100MB file with great quality
    Most excellent. A while back, I wanted to roll my own TiVo, but got stuck on realtime compression. I looked into a couple of mpeg cards, but nothin in my price range went beyond quarter-frame mpeg-1.

    What software do you use for DivX ;-) recording?
    --

  • Or, you could do both! When I rent DVDs, I create a high-res DivX ;-) for my PC, and a VCD for my DVD player. Very convenient.

  • Not Open Source (Score:4)

    by Adam J. Richter ( 17693 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:54AM (#501669)

    OpenDivx is not Open Source [opensource.org], at least as opensource.org [opensource.org] defines the term. For example, you are forbidden by the DivX copyright terms [projectmayo.com] to use the software in a way that does not implement MPEG-4, and you are forbidden from using it where "Encoded Content is a primary or substantial product."

    I'm not saying that releasing OpenDivX with a promotional copyright is itself harmful or immoral, but their misapplication of the "Open Source" term to a scheme that shares few of the public benefits that attract developers is misleading.

  • The license is at http://www.projectmayo.com/opendivx/divx_open_lice nse_v10.txt

    Its a non-standard license, anyone care to give a legalese view of it ?
  • You can do this with your Hauppage card? Under which OS?

    I'd be really grateful if you could email me at the above address and let me know how, as this is certainly something I'd be interested in doing myself.

    -Ciaran

  • NOT Open Source (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From the license [projectmayo.com]

    1. You may use the Codec (and any Larger Work created by you) to create Encoded Content, and may use, copy, distribute, display and transmit that Encoded Content, provided that Encoded Content may not be used for direct commercialization, without written permission of Project Mayo.

    6. Any Codec or Larger Works created by you must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard.

    If you cannot use it commercially and you cannot distribute non-conforming derivations, it is most definitely NOT Open Source.
  • IANAL, but, if I recall correctly, patents protect ideas against anyone else using them without a license, even if the non-patent holder came up with the idea independently. Copyright is a whole different kettle of fish (for computers, you have to actually copy code to infringe copyright), as are trade secrets (if somebody else figures out a trade secret, it's tough cookies).
  • Divx, the DVD system, is long dead. There is no reason to think people will be confused about it for long -- few people knew about the system when it was still alive! And I would guess that those few people who knew about Divx already know about "DivX ;-)".

    Tell me, how do you pronounce "DivX ;-)"? "DivX ;-)" is what's referred to as a logo; Divx is the codec's actual name. The same thing goes for "Yahoo!" by the way. Don't take my word for it -- ask the copy editor of the New York Times [theslot.com]. Points six and seven are particularly important here.

    I'll be the first to admit that these Divx people can't choose a good name. First, the name of a failed and despised subscription scheme, then whacko capitalization, and finally a cheesy and pointless smilie-face. I think all the work they did to hack the MPG4 codec was just a ruse to see how silly of a name they could get people to accept. Unfortunately, it seems to be working.

    --
  • I should check my own links sometimes. Bill Walsh [theslot.com] is actually the copy editor for The Washington Post, not The New York Times.

    --

  • The original "DivX;)" was basically 99% leaked Microsoft source for their mpeg4 implementation, with the content header changed so that it was a "seperate codec".

    I can hardly believe they've developed something from scratch on their own, therefore this "new" DivX must still be based on the MS source.

    If that is true, then ALL of this talk about licenses is moot! ANYONE who distributes DivX in the real world (outside of the shadows) is apt to get EATEN ALIVE by Microsoft's lawyers.

    I can't believe anyone is even bothering to worry about their "licensing terms", it's stolen property!!!

  • Another deterrent is the excruciatingly slow encoding process. Ripping an average DVD to DivX takes anywhere between 18-30 hours on my 850mhz Wintel box and the end product resides on 2 cd's. Sure, I've got a copy of the movie, but do I really want to be interrupted in the middle because I need to swap cd's ?

    You're doing something horribly wrong. My Duron 600@900Mhz can encode Mission Impossible: II in about 6-7 hours. A long time, yes, but not 18 hours!

  • $20 is rediculous considering that a VHS tape costs $15 and down and DVD's cost alot less to make. Think about it for a second, if it is possible to produce a Divix disc at 2 - 3 dollars and make a profit (theoretically although if no one buys them I guess its not making a profit) then why should $20 be the standard price tag. Some DVD's cost $25 and $30. I consider myself a movie lover but I do not consider myself a tool of corporations. DVD's could offer a better product (quality and extra features) at a lower price but people like you assume that $20 is fair when in fact $10 would be more than fair because of the extremely high profit margins. Not to mention CSS and all that crap.
  • I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.

    I can't even believe you're halfway serious, or that you got modded up. Dude, do a search-and-replace on your post and replace "movie" with "music" and "DivX" with "mp3".

    You're saying the same things about DivX as people once said about MP3. As more and more people get broadband access, DivX will get more and more popular. Movies are just as (if not more so) attractive to pirates than music. And bandwidth WILL eventually allow more and more people to trade with DivX.

    It's already quite popular at colleges where bandwidth is plentiful Ring a bell? Sound like the mp3 story? God, some people do NOT learn from history even if you beat them about the head with it. Argh.
    http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
  • If you don't want stupid people getting confused - use the full name - DivX ;-) - not that hard
  • Did anyone ever manage to "crack" the (Circuit City) DivX scheme?

    Nope. Once Divx died there was no interest.

  • I'll tell you: if it'll be even better if they don't make the player display the video file on the primary surface.

    Um, turn off your video accelleration and you can take all the screenshots you want. Primary surface has nothing to do with wanting to keep you from screenshots, it's just a lot faster...

    ---------------------------------------------
  • Sure I could, but then I could just as well copy it to a VHS tape and make all you AC's much happier. The point of ripping the movie from a DVD is to preserve the image and sound quality. With DivX (and most other codecs), the higher the bitrate, the longer it takes to encode. I prefer to crank up the bitrate around 2000 kbits/sec and end up with a 1.2 gb file, than leave it at 900 kbits/sec and get something that's only slightly better than VCD in terms of image fidelity, however DivX is much less versatile, requiring a PC and a good chunk of CPU power to play back, compared to a VCD which can be played in many consumer devices, and since it's only MPEG-1 format, its performance hit is quite minimal with a good accelerated video overlay. If I wanted one disc, I'd encode one disc. No thanks.
  • Of course we're getting screwed, but are you going to coordinate a mass of angry consumers and lead them to bring the MPAA down in protest ? If you want to complain, why not bitch about how pornographic videos are twice as expensive as "regular" movies yet cost very little to produce. Or yap about how we pay 10-13$ for a music cd when it really costs about 8 cents to manufacture. Retail pricing isn't solely dependent on production costs, any 15 year old who's been through Economics 101 knows that it's supply vs demand that regulates that sort of thing (and corrupt megacorporate entities of course). The whole point of technological advancements is to product more stuff for less money, that's how businesses turn a profit. I suggest you look into it if you plan on bitching some more.
  • What they're saying is that in the DivX code, there is non-GPL'ed but copyrighted-and-distributable code from real business entities. Using such code for personal or non-commercial use won't be a problem, ala GPL issues, but even if you tried to make a commercial product without or with source available (ala GPL requirements), you'd still be violating the copyright of those business entities. This is not OpenDivX's problem - only those that might exploit the code "for business purposes".

    If there were patents involved, then even just opening up the source without paying massive royalities to the companies in question would be a problem for OpenDivX.

    But patents and copyrights are two distinct issues and that CNet quote is baaaad.

  • Afcourse the divx player/library for linux is here: http://divx.euro.ru/

  • Just to clear a few things up (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding this release, so this is what I've been able to gather:

    The original DivX ;-) codec (as used in all the avi movies downloaded from wherever) is simply a hacked version of Microsoft's own MPG4/MPG3 codecs, and actually adds nothing to them whatsoever apart from allowing their use in .avi files. I believe this was simply a binary hack, the original source code was not used or accessed in any way.

    This new, OpenDivX codec (home page [projectmayo.com]) is an open source-ish implementation of parts of the MPEG4 standard. It was not written completely from scratch though, it is based on another mpeg4 implementation known as MoMuSys [ntu.edu.tw].

    I would assume that the OpenDivX code has little in common with the original DivX ;-) code, which is Microsoft's implementation after all. That would explain the differences in en/decoding speed and quality. From the tests I've carried out, however, it could have a bright future (bizarre license aside).

    That's assuming, of course, that WMV8 [microsoft.com] doesn't crush all competition.

  • Hmm, why is that? I was under the impression that if you could "prove" (however this is done legally) a clean room implementation you could do it.

    Because there are patents out there. That is exactly what patents are supposed to do, protect an innovation. It doesn't matter whether you stole the idea, or discovered it yourself, if it is covered by a patent, it is owned by someone else. (A cleanroom implementation would take care of copyrights, not patents.)

  • I was under the impression that if you could "prove" (however this is done legally) a clean room implementation you could do it.

    Clean room implementation is just a way to prove that you have not created a derivative work of someone else's copyrighted material. So it protects you from losing on the grounds of copyright infringement.

    But it doesn't help with patents at all. That's the problem with patents: you can even completely invent something all on your own without ever stealing/studying/beinginspiredby someone else's work, and you still might infringe on someone's patent. The 10 line computer program that you wrote this morning, might have infringed some patent. Scary, huh?


    ---
  • And the other thing you've got to consider is whether people will actually support movies they like. I genuinely do like buying a movie in its box with a real video inside - which is why i don't tape things off tv that often. I guarentee that anybody that knows enough to look for movies on the net will know a good deal more about how movie-making works, and where the money goes than the man on the street, and will be more aware that they could put the moviemakers they love out of business.
    of course, the studios don't really care about his - they just don't want piracy because it might cut into their ridiculous profits...
  • I don't think you have seen good DivX. As the author above says, from a DVD it is excellent. Also you have to remember what horse power you have. DivX on a P400 is going to be choppy and blocky if set at high quality.
    A lot of the DivX stuff I see on the web is mpeg or old avi's that someone has used DivX to crunch down further. It won't improve quality only maintain it.
    Lastly, I think the effect on the movie ind. is huge. Lot's of people have bandwidth, and more are getting it everyday. Better compression, better quality, lots of bandwidth and in 3 years it is really going to be a drain, not just on campuses.
    I never saw The Matrix at the theater. I downloaded it a few months ago, burned a CD, and have watched it on my laptop a couple of times. Better than TV quality, widescreen, excellent stereo. (Good movie too.)
  • This is not a pretty license. It's not Open Source, either because of the restrictions on fields of endeavor.

    Looks to me like they are trying to do the *right* thing. Lets look at what you don't like:

    You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
    (even the GPL permits further restriction)

    Yes, and they were probably trying to "close the hole" that they saw. They seem to be worried about corporations stealing this from the people via patented and/or proprietary extensions. This train of thought would lead to the next item you don't like:

    Any Codec or Larger Works created by you must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard.
    (even if you independently write a Sorenson codec, using none of their code, it must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard! And that applies to any program you write, even a word processor!)

    Yes, if you read it that way. I'm under the impression that the *intent* of this clause is to prevent both "friendly" splintering of the format and profiteering extensions (embrace, extend, extinguish). I don't think that they meant that it applies to the next command line sed/awk pipe you write.

    You may copy and distribute the Codec in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 3, provided that you also accompany it with the complete machine-readable source code, or information about where the source code can be obtained.
    (But the information on obtaining the source code can be "The source code is on an iceberg set to autodescruct using a proximity detector")

    It's an attempt at an open license. And the *intent* is VERY benevolent. Quite frankly, your sarcastic tone pisses me off: here we have a group attempting to donate time and effort to the community and make sure that it stays in the hands of the community, and here you are trashing them.

    I would suggest that Bruce, ESR or RMS might talk to them about some of the ramifications of the wording of their license, pointing out loopholes or some cases that they might not have thought about, but it *is* their work, and it *is* their right to release it under any license they want.

    Here they are, trying to donate their effort to the public, and you are nitpicking the wording of their license in a public forum just to self-gratify your sense of superiority. Look at the intent, not the "But it could be on a iceberg with a bomb!" cases, and think about joining the project, maybe even to help iron out the license.

    --
    Evan "Hmmm... maybe I should eat something... I seem to be getting a little bitchy" E.

  • Microsoft's Media Player can ONLY display videos in primary mode. Same for RealPlayer

    Yes, by default all video apps use overlays to offload the processing. But if you TURN OFF YOUR VIDEO ACCELERATION (display properties > settings > advanced > troubleshooting > hardware acceleration and set it to "none") you can take all the screen shots you want. Real (and I think QT) even has an option in the player itself to disable advanced video drawing modes to increase compatibility.

    A lot of DVD players won't work at all with overlays disabled but any WMP, Real, QT stuff will play just fine. And most of the DVD players I've seen do have a built-in screen grab function.

    ---------------------------------------------

  • An interesting MPAA quote... (Score:3)

    by humphrm ( 18130 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @05:41AM (#501716) Homepage
    Did anyone else get the significance of this quote:
    "As technology gets better, our concerns get greater," said Hemanshu Nigam, the Motion Picture Association of America's new director of Internet enforcement. "When a technology gets better, uses of it get more diversified and more prevalent."

    I don't recall that anyone in the DeCSS / RIAA case actually admitted that technology scares them. In fact, IIRC, RIAA's response to "this is the way the industry is going, and you're just scared because you're behind" is that it's not about technology, it's about IP. But this guy comes close to saying that it's really about the fact that technology is advancing faster than they can (cough!) control it.

    As a supporter of the DeCSS and similar cases, I've always been of the mind that I don't support the case because I disdain IP (although others do hold this belief); I support the case because it's a hack attempt by an industry that's been caught off-guard by technology, and rather than trying to catch up, they want to squash it.

    Taking this a bit further, it's not hard to conceive that the same guy who would admit that they are scared of being left behind in tech advances might be the same guy who makes the next logical jump and goes on a crusade to get his member's executive boards to put more emphasis on developing technology that competitively answers MP3, DeCSS, and now DivX than to try and squash it.

    Does anyone else think that this statement signals a turning point in that regard? Is it significant?

  • "When a technology gets better, uses of it get more diversified and more prevalent."

    Thank you, Captain Obvious. And, in other news, I predict that the team that scores the most points will win the Superbowl.


  • Hold on son... that doesn't seem so bad.

    If you want to encode 1000 movies, and call them DivX and then sell them, you can't. They own the copyright to the word DivX it looks like. Look at the terms "Open Source" and "FSF" those are copyrighted words.

    You can't call something "Linux" unless Linus allows it (technically).

    They are protecting their codec. If you make something new, encode, don't call it divx, I think you are ok.

    Come on -- ask questions, dig deeper -- don't throw flames!

    justmy $.02,
    -Davidu
  • Microsoft's Media Player can ONLY display videos in primary mode. Same for RealPlayer. And save for all DVD playback software. The reason being that in primary mode, taking a screenshot with the PrintScreen button results in a big black box where the window is. Only the program itself can capture a screenshot if it's configured to do so, and believe me, the programmers aren't gonna do that.

  • Re:Not Open Source (Score:3)

    by davidu ( 18 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @05:58AM (#501724) Homepage Journal


    They are working on ironing out the kinks in the license right now with various "biggies" in the open source world. This is the first open source thing they have ever done, lets just help them and be nice. People on the forums @ projectmayo are really being cool and trying to help make ProjectMayo do the right things. They are into it.


    -Davidu
  • You've got a video card that'll compress into DiVX (in decent quality?) in realtime!? What CPU/etc do you have?

    Please post a link to the hardware. I'd like to stop using VHS for taping shows, CDs would last a lot longer.

  • depends on the player. (Score:3)

    by mushroom blue ( 8836 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @08:15AM (#501726)
    well, it seems that if you have a Shinco DVD Player (or an Apex AD 500/703), there's a few people working on adding support for DivX to the firmware they've been hacking. they've already hacked in the menus that made the Apex AD-600A so famous, and have extra unused space in the firmware, enough space to add mini-dvd support and hopefully DivX soon.

    the page is here [egroups.com]

  • OK, first of all I have tried most if not all of the major codecs out there one way or another and compared size to quality. Regular Divix is very similiar to ASP of course and they are even both accelerated by my DVD decoding hardware - thanks ATI! Anyway 200MB's less? Most of the movies that I have seen could be better in some way, and I think that the ones I have made are better than what I see for one reason or another. I fit The Way of the Gun into 200MB EASILY. I figured from a few tests that I could fit The Beach into 120MB at acceptable quality. I don't know about the new DiviX but I am itching to try it out. As for a new Codec, its a pretty small price to pay to HAVE a free movie instead of paying however much to buy it. I know DVD's have alot of great stuff on them but $20 is rediculous.
  • The MPEG-4 standard contains technology copyrighted by an assortment of companies, and so anyone who uses the Open DivX code for business purposes could be walking into a patent minefield.

    So they opened it, big deal. Regardless of your opinion on IP patents, they still stole it in the legal sense of the term so opening it doesn't help Open Source in any way.

  • Real name (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I believe it's actually called "DivX ;-)"

  • Re:Sure, but they still don't own the IP (Score:3)

    by PhilHibbs ( 4537 ) <snarks@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:21AM (#501736) Journal
    From the article:
    "The video technology space is thoroughly covered by patents, many of which overlap or conflict," the Project Mayo site says. "As a consequence, it is unlikely that any video technology will be created any time soon that is wholly 'free'...Use of the core code in hardware or software products might infringe on existing patents and is done at your own risk."
    If this is the case, then even clean-room developing a new video compression format would breach one or more patents. In this situation the patents become morally unsustainable. They may be legally sustainable, because "they" can afford patent lawyers. Your point stands, though, I doubt that folks like Red Hat could ship DivX without running foul of IP lawyers. I wonder what jurisdictions they have these patents in.
  • But, see, licenses ARE for nitpicking. I'm confident that they have good intentions, but judges and lawyers don't care about good intentions. If this ever goes to court, it will be nitpicked far worse than I'm doing.

    And if it goes to court in this form, someone is going to get screwed.

    This story will no doubt generate a lot of interest in OpenDivX, and it's important that their license is up to scratch, so no one gets screwed.

    There are a lot of different licenses out there. They could have simply applied one of these to their project, and been sure that it was time-tested and lawyer-reviewed.

    Instead, they decided to write Yet Another Unique License, that appears to be incompatible with the GPL (so you can't combine it with anything GPLed), and they didn't even get a lawyer to look at it.

    IANAL, and neither are they. But I'm a programmer, and I can spot a logical flaw in a legal document. If they can't, they're not trying hard enough. And if they don't care, they should use an existing license instead.

    Be pissed off at the tone, but the self-desctuct source code example makes the point far better than "but they could password-protect the source code"

    You missed a few things I don't like. It restricts the things you can do with the output. It restricts the types of programs you can derive from it. These strike me as very bad things.

    It's wonderful that they've made this available. But they're still trying to exercise control in a disturbingly Sun/Apple way. That makes it less of a "donation". I have no doubt that they put far more care into their program code than to did into their license. However, they appear to be working on fixing their license, so things may yet be groovy.
  • What, exactly, did they steal? A disk containing the source code? Copies of relevant patents? Keep in mind that copyright and patent violations are not theft, at least not in any legal sense, no matter how often corporate spokesmen call it theft.
  • What was the main failure for Divx?

    DivX, the Circuit City version, failed for many reasons. The discs were bare, movie-only Pan&Scan versions. You needed to plug your credit card info into the player, the player needed a phone line and had to phone home every time you wanted to watch a moive. You had to pay $5 for every 72 hour period you wanted to view wthe movie. In other words, you didn't actually own anything.

    I've never actually seen a Divx cd before so it couldn't have gained too much popularity

    They look basically like regular DVDs. CC was dumping them for pennies at the very end there. YOu can still find them on eBay for a few dollars (since they're useless to everyone now, even those with Divx players). Here [ebay.com], for example.

    I always kept an eye out for them too, since my playstation was able to play them :-/

    No it couldn't. But I think you're seriously confusing DivX the codec, and Divx the Circuit City movie "rental" scheme. It might be possible for a PS2 (not a PS1) to play DivX codec movies, but I don't think so. It certainly can't play Divx from CC, only licensed Divx players can do that and those were long gone before the PS2 even existed.

  • DivX ;-) and piracy (Score:5)

    by UncleOzzy ( 158525 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:23AM (#501751)

    I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.

    Most people have never even heard of IRC, much less know where to go to get pirated movies. Even if they did, DivX ;-) has two things working against it: file size, and an extra codec.

    First, DivX ;-) movies are, on the whole, quite a bit larger than their ASF brethren. Joe Sixpack doesn't mind the lower quality of ASF if it means he has to download 200MB less to watch it.

    Second, if Joe Sixpack does decide to download "Shaft-DVD-Rip-DivX.avi", he'll get a nasty surprise when he tries to play it: "Codec Not Found". In the age of transparent auto-updates, this is a big problem.

    Finally, let's say DivX ;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.

    As such, I don't see that DivX ;-) is really a major threat to the MPAA, certainly no moreso than Windows Media. Ironic, huh...

  • I've been using the codec for some time now for 'backing up' DVD's. But recently I have found it it's great compression for lots of stuff. I've compressed a few internal presentations at work with it, my hauppage TV/vid capture can compress into DivX in real time, which leaves me with a 30 minute 100MB file with great quality. Nothing I've ever done in DivX has EVER really compared to a low compression MPEG 2 but the size is incredible and the audio is awsome.

    hmmm 6GB -> 1.2GB still watchable? Bring it on!
  • Quoth CNet:

    The MPEG-4 standard contains technology copyrighted by an assortment of companies, and so anyone who uses the Open DivX code for business purposes could be walking into a patent minefield. Silly Cnet: don't they know that copyright and patents are two different things? If other companies have copyrighted their encoders (and they have), OpenDivX does not infringe on their copyrights (unless source code was "borrowed" from non-open source projects. But if other companies have patented a encoding algorithm (and quite few have)-- OpenDivX could concievably infringe on patents. (IANALNALS)

  • I'm a little confused by these things. Is MPG4 a video compression format, a codec, a framework? Is this an open standard? Does this mean that file that is MPG4 playable on something that supports MPG4 or do you still need access to a proprietary codec? Inquiring minds what to know.
  • Strangely enough, most people who buy DVDs don't go to university, and it's going to be a while before broadband is widely available in rest of the western world (for those who defend MS, you should try getting broadband from a monopoly telco).
  • I don't know if any of you have seen this, but Sorenson is making their own MPEG4 codec [sorenson.com]. I was able to talk to the guys while at the MacWorld convention, and they said they are basing it off of the MPEG4 standard, but adding their own benefits. It WILL play on all existing MPEG4 players, so it looks like Linux will finally be able to play Sorenson files.
  • Hey, just want to clear some things up. There are no copyright problems with OpenDivX. All of the code is ours or is useable under the OpenDivX license without any copyright problems.
  • I imagine the lovely UCITA (or would it be DMCA) would make this a BIG problem for "patented" issues, encryption wasn't under patent problems, just the export restrictions! IANAL though so maybe they could get away with it.

  • They own the copyright to the word DivX it looks like. Look at the terms "Open Source" and "FSF" those are copyrighted words.

    No, they aren't. They are probably trademarks .

  • Re:DivX ;-) and piracy (Score:3)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:29AM (#501767) Homepage
    Well people does not need to know IRC to get DivX movies. There are many sites like startdivx.com [startdivx.com] that makes the life easier. (Or maybe harder).

    And ~400MB download takes only a day on an ISDN (not to mention DSL, Cable or T1...). Not now but probably in near future we'll be able to get DivX movies much easier. Than it will be a serious treat to MPAA.

  • ...It already has...?
    Download from this [projectmayo.com] location...
    There is a lot more information on the site...

  • DivX: Better than ever (Score:5)

    by mTor ( 18585 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:32AM (#501769)
    I managed to get all of the project Mayo files last night and test it on a flick. I tried it on a misc DVD I had lying around... All I have to say is WOW!

    The new DivX is awesome! What's amazing about it is that it has support for automatic insertion of I-frames! To do a quality rip with old codec, you'd have to cut your media into low and fast changing scenes and recombine them at the end. Now, that's automatic. VKI is something that was missing before and we got numerous promises that it's gonna be in there and now it's finally reality.

    The second thing that's amazing is better overall image quality without post-processing! That's right, no post-processing. This was one of the bottlenecks in the old design and now it's gone!

    Specks say that new decoder decodes around 80fps on a PIII 700. Well, I have an Athlon 800 and I'm seeing frames whiz by me so fast that I actually believe them.

    After a big flop of 3ivX [3ivx.com], I can say that these guys have delivered... and delivered big.

    As a side note, M$ released their WM8 Encoder Beta 2. Check it here [microsoft.com].

    Let the battle begin!
  • I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.

    DivX already has had a big effect on movie piracy. Like many colleges, my school has 10Mbit/s Ethernet ports in all of the dorm rooms (and the school has mandated that everyone own a computer). Lots of people make movies available through SMB. Most of this stuff is encoded with DivX.


    "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
    (I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)

  • *THEY* control *MY* content??? (Score:4)

    by NewWazoo ( 2508 ) <bkmatt AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:34AM (#501771) Homepage
    Hold it, hold it, hold it....

    In their "license overview" page, they state "if you want to sell the
    content itself commercially, you have to get permission from Project
    Mayo first".

    WHAT???

    So Fender guitars controls my music just because I happen to use their
    instrument? So Adobe controls my web graphics solely because I created
    it with Photoshop? So Mathworks controls the results of my simulations
    simply because they wrote Matlab?

    I've got to be *way* off base here. Tell me I am. Enlighten me. Or are
    things just that fscked up?

    Brandon Matthews
    Co-Senior Lab Administrator
    Information Processing and Transmission Engineering Laboratory
    Florida State University
    (850) 410-6415 - UNX, RX-7 - old-tech, efficient, the both of them

  • Is MPG4 a video compression format, a codec, a framework?

    MPEG-4 is a format, DivX is a codec.

    Is this an open standard?

    MPEG-4 is, yes. The standards docment can be found here [web3d.org].

    Does this mean that file that is MPG4 playable on something that supports MPG4 or do you still need access to a proprietary codec?

    You need a codec, I don't know if there are any non-proprietary ones, there may be.

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