DivX;), The MPAA, The Future And The Past 172
Stibanater writes: "The second part of a 2-parter on Salon about DivX seems to hint at MPAA tolerance of DivX as a good distribution format. Granted, this comes from the mouth of a DivX Network's exec, so salt to taste. Still, the tasty part is the insinuation that the MPAA has learned from Napster, and will move to quickly embrace online distribution instead of 'suing it out of existence.' The first part is an explanation of DivX for the layman and a little bit about the DeCSS case." On a related note, Dan Marlin writes: "Looks like the "Internet Archive" http://www.archive.org has decided to add the DivX MPEG-4 format to it's entire movie collection. This is huge in the way of mass acceptance for the DivX ;-).
It looks like they are still in the encoding process as most of movies are still only available in MPEG-2. But after scanning the collection the past few days, it looks like they are adding more daily."
Not so fast 36hours to encode (Score:1)
So in a year or two years when my grandma has a P500 or above..only then will I convert all my mini-DV homevideo tapes to Divx and pass them around like candy. Bottomline though..is it's coming..just a matter of time..Right now it's just for new unreleased movies not out on DVD yet.
Re:Let's hope the world doesn't accept DivX (Score:1)
I'm sorry to say that I know of no open standard video compression formats out there. We need to back something like ogg vorbis for video, which doesn't exist yet. Someone needs to get the ball rolling on this. Start something up under the BSD or LGPL license and put it up on sourceforge and go.
Re:Let's see a link. (Score:2)
You are an absolute moron. That is what OpenDivX [projectmayo.com], the whole point of projectmayo, is! Open Source.
Who modded this up?
-Davidu
Re:The Difference between DiVX and MP3 (Score:2)
DivX
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
confusion of codecs (Score:1)
Can someone explain the differences between the competing codecs - original DivX, "open" DivX, DivX Deux, OpenCodex.com, 3ivx... Are any of them any better/faster, more cross-platform etc.? The Archive.org files that have been converted so far are in original DivX.
I guess not everyone has the equipment yet, but there are lots of ways to turn (legal) MPEG-2 and DivX from Archive.org into video in another format: video card with composite video out to VCR, convert to DV stream and record over FireWire to DV camcorder, make into a VideoCD using e.g. Nero, or make into a DVD (using Apple's iDVD).
Hacked Codec? (Score:1)
Why would anyone use a hacked MS Codec for this? ISeeLawSuits
Oh please... (Score:2)
DivX;-) is just some hacked codec to begin with so I, for one, will never support it. If the "makers" of DivX (which is technically Microsoft so I should say the "hackers that distribute DivX") really want to do something clever; they should write their own code. (Don't get me wrong; I think a cross platform MPEG-4 codec is a wonderful thing but let's make one without just hacking someone else's -- and yes; I know there are a couple in development.) As for the MPAA, I seriously doubt the MPAA is going to embrace a hacked codec in which illegal screener copies of currently running films are distributed over the internet.
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:1)
Decent wireless transmitters would also be a possibility. But really, if there's a stock format, a reasonably low-cost player will soon follow. If I can cut a CD-R on my PC and then play it on the standalone player, I'm happy.
Also, Pioneer's DVD-writer is ~$1000 today. I remember working with an $8,000 CD writer back in 1995, that wasn't as good as today's $150 machines. You should be able to get a DVD writer for $200 by, say, January 2003.
good distribution format... (Score:2)
The technology is here, the tools are here, the performance gains are substantial, people like it, and people are using it...
the only thing that hasn't caught up yet are the legal implications of using this technology, because of the restrictions that companies and our legal system place on it. Just like mp3.
Therefore, I predict much controversy, and widespread use, and no one getting killed.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
I wouldn't archive anything in DivX/MPEG4/ASF (Score:2)
Re:3ivx works on Alpha (Score:1)
We have 3ivx running on Solaris (well sunos should work too)
We have 3ivx running on BeOS
We have 3ivx running on MacOS
We have 3ivx running on Windows, in Windows Media Player & QuickTime
We have 3ivx running on Linux x86 and LinuxPPC
We have 3ivx running in XAnim
We have 3ivx running in Quicktime4Linux
We even have 3ivx running on Amigas! 68k and PPC!!!
We are working on more
Including V4L2, and PS2
Just so you know
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Let's see a link. (Score:3)
I'm aware of a bunch of projects which have promised to release an open source DivX codec Real Soon Now, but don't currently have line 1 of code in public CVS. I'm aware of things like avifile which make DivX usable in Linux through an open source wrapper... but an open source DivX implementation? Where?
ANYTHING is better than Win Media Player (Score:2)
--
For that matter... (Score:2)
--
Re:Let's hope the world doesn't accept DivX (Score:2)
Acceptance of a hacked MS-MPEG4 codec is good? (Score:4)
Seems to me that we should be helping Project Mayo get its codec solid and stable and using that, instead of the DivX ;) hack.
Re:It's not the format, it's the use (Score:1)
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:1)
Re:The Difference between DiVX and MP3 (Score:1)
I fully expect the quality problem to be fixed but distribution won't be fixed. Who wants to download 700mb to find that the movie freezes, the voices are not synced properly, etc. I for one would gladly pay $5 for a decent release from a studio that was in a better format than DivX ;).
Re:Bandwidth?? (Score:1)
Re:Not so fast 36hours to encode (Score:1)
Re:Oh please... (Score:1)
ProjectMayo.com [projectmayo.com]
Re:Napster? (Score:1)
Re:good distribution format... (Score:1)
Personally I'd recommend the P2P file sharing services. Just search for "divx", "dvd", "avi", etc...
Re:It's not the format, it's the use (Score:1)
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:1)
a) have the fridge next to the computer
b) use bad printouts as toilet paper
c) have wireless keyboards nor mice
d) fall asleep at the computer
Television is basically full of crap unless you subscribe to cable and then you get even more crap with at least some decent content. My TV is 13", my monitor 19".
It sounds like your friend had a shitty TV-out device... You can have you movies accessabled over the lan (what? you don't have a linux-based samba server?).
Going to the movies here is about $8-$10 bucks (Chicago).
Re:good distribution format... (Score:4)
Open DivX ;) (with some other crap attached to the name, go check it out to find out the details) is a open source version of a new DivX ;) protocol which is incompatible with the old one - basically the DivX codec released before and in widespread use is an illegal binary hack of the Microsoft codec so even if the DivX group wanted to release the code they could not as they don't have the code.
projectmayo.com [projectmayo.com]
mydivx.com [mydivx.com] etc...
Re:Let's hope the world doesn't accept DivX (Score:1)
How does that make it irrelevenat? Even if DivX is still open source it still sucks as a format.
I wasn't able to get a clear-cut answer, but is the Project Mayo OpenDivx codec backwards compatable with DivX? Or is it a whole new codec. I then get back to my orginal questions. Does it us the crappy
Perhaps it's time for me to do my own research.
---------------------------
Let's hope the world doesn't accept DivX (Score:3)
So what do we need? We need a video file format with BETTER compression. We need to move away from Microsoft file formats and support open standards (for example, MPEG4). And that brings us to the last point, wait for MPEG4 compliant codecs. MPEG4 gives you many advantages over DivX. Look them up for yourself if you want to find them. Better file format, better scalability, even some better compression.
I understand that DivX was simply at the right place at the right time. But here's to hoping that the format does not become another
---------------------------
MPAA support MPEG-4 not so far-fetched (Score:2)
The reason is simple: with the addition of some form of digital rights management, MPEG-4 will allow the movie companies to distribute movies extremely cheaply. It may not have all the fancy menus and extra features of DVD, but an MPEG-4 formatted movie disc does not require the far more expensive mastering equipment used on mastering DVD's--it can be mastered using current audio CD mastering equipment. This could allow for very cheap duplication of movies, since packaging costs for a CD nowadays is likely going to be less than that of a VHS tape, and with proper handling they'll last a long time, too.
Essentially we'll end up with DVD's for the high-end market and MPEG-4 encoded discs for the low cost market. We'll have a case where DVD's sell for around US$25-$30 and MPEG-4 encoded discs go for US$10-$15.
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:2)
However, given the dirt-cheap costs of creating quite complex ASIC custom chips nowadays, once production starts a single chip that can decode MPEG-4 in real time should be pretty reasonable to start with. And because MPEG-4 discs doesn't require the tolerances of DVD drives (it can use standard CD-ROM drives), the total cost of a player could be way, way below that of a DVD console player.
Indeed, I can foresee players for these new MPEG-4 encoded discs going for as little as US$80 because you can use current CD transports.
One thing though, I think the MPAA may ask that the resolution of these discs be limited to around 330 lines of resolution, unlike the 500+ lines of resolution of DVD discs. However, given the limits of most TV monitors nowadays, that still will be far superior to standard VHS tapes.
Re:Sure! It worked soooo well for audio CDs. (Score:2)
Because MPEG-4 discs are going to be like regular VHS tapes, they will lack the extra features of DVD discs, which means mastering costs are going to be way lower. That means the studio can sell it at US$10-$15 per disc and still make a very tidy profit from it.
Re:MPAA support MPEG-4 not so far-fetched (Score:2)
I do agree that for now, decoding MPEG-4 files are still fairly expensive, but you are forgetting that modern ASIC chip design can very likely get the entire decoding circuitry for MPEG-4 files into a single ASIC chip pretty soon.
Given that MPEG-4 files will probably require at most a 24X speed standard CD-ROM drive, that means a player could be built at very low cost--US$80 or less. Right now if you want a decent DVD player they start at around US$160 and go way up from there to over US$1,000 for the best models.
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:2)
Re:ARRRRGGHHH! Stop calling it "Copy Protection"! (Score:1)
Re:It's not the format, it's the use (Score:1)
It's not the format, it's the use (Score:3)
That said, this is still news for nerds & stuff that matters. :)
I don't believe it (Score:1)
A major cabal of multi-million dollar corporations doing something that just plain makes sense?
I'll believe it when I see it.
Re:Wrong point (Score:1)
Or you could just have them there on your hard drive to queue up in half screen or 1/4th screen mode when you're doing something else...
The possibilities are endless...
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:5)
Remember, it is not about what is, it's about what will be.
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:2)
I know people that have high-quality tv-out boards that only cost them a few hundred bucks (no different than, say, a good 3d card for gaming)
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:1)
-Willki
Comment removed (Score:5)
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:1)
Also, as DVD-RAM becomes available to the general public, you'll probably see people converting movies back to a DVD-player accessible format (like the mp3->CD conversion)
Divx usability.. (Score:1)
Colin Winters
Re:Divx usability.. (Score:1)
Furthermore I don't think all that many people, even "l337 h4x0rs" would be willing to trade 600-1200 Mb files for 5Gb+ files.
Re:ProjectMayo not GPL'd (Score:2)
So its like the old BSD license that required your program to mention the source when the program starts up? Not a major issue, if thats the only one.
Re:Let's see a link. (Score:1)
Re:Criteria (Score:1)
Otherwise, you are what we call in the trade a SKOF (Special Kind Of Fuckwit).
Incidentaly I don't think that the GPL vs other open models is a big issue. Richard Stallman put a lot of his personal politics into the GPL, it is not possible to use GPL code in a commercial project. Apache and Linux are far more 'open' in my view, they are certainly less restrictive.
Ummm ... lemme see here ... errr ... Linux - the unix-like kernel released by Linus Torvalds and released under ... the GPL !!
Re:Let's see a link. (Score:1)
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:1)
Can you watch Sorenson Video 3 encoded movies on Linux? -- No
Would you be able to watch Sorenson MPEG-4 encoded movies on Linux? -- Yes
Why? -- Because MPEG-4 is an open standard.
Get it???????
Re:kind of annoying (Score:1)
I don't see the OpenDivX effort as really being good for open source causes, since it's not GPL'd.. you couldn't legally take their enhancements and incorporate them into a GPL'd project (of course it'll happen anyway, but...).
Second, as a Linux user all I want is to be able to play whatever digital media is available, and to be able to compress to those common standards also. Even if there's a great open source alternative to MPEG-4, I still want to be able to play MPEG-4 if (as it seems) it's going to be widely adopted. Given the MPEG-1/2 situation, I don't see any reason to believe that MPEG-4 licencing fees will be pursued from end users, and if I ever got to the point of wanting to commercially author MPEG-4 movies I wouldn't begrudge them the licence fees.
Re:Acceptance of a hacked MS-MPEG4 codec is good? (Score:2)
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:2)
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:2)
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec.h
One source for the original "3.11 alpha" DivX
http://www.projectmayo.com/index.php
Home of OpenDivX and run by divxnetworks.com. OpenDivX is based on the MoMuSys MPEG-4 source code, and unlike DivX claims to be MPEG-4 compliant, albeit using AVI rather than MPEG-4 file format. This encoder is S-L-O-W and also incompatible with DivX
You can play, and encode(!) OpenDivX movies with the awesome mplayer media player for linux:
http://thot.banki.hu/esp-team/MPlayer.html
http://www.3ivx.com/
A commercial company producing a free MPEG-4 decoder, and about to announce an encoder at CeBIT. Quality and decoder speed are good. An xanim plug in is available, as is Windows etc support. Uses Quicktime as a file format
http://rachmaninoff.ti.uni-mannheim.de/sampeg/
A work-in-progress GPL'd MPEG-4 encoder from Dirk Farin, the guy who wrote the impressive SAMPEG-2 MPEG-2 encoder. Actually uses MPEG-4 file format. Sounds very promising.
http://sparky.sourceforge.net/
Not quite MPEG-4, but GPL'd and competetive in terms of compression. From the guy who wrote the avifile win32 CODECs on Linux library. Currently slow, but an impressice start for a real open source CODEC.
http://www.opencodex.com/news.html
The guys who ran the original $50K DivX for Quicktime port competition. Web site keeps claiming good things, but nothing is getting released... It turns out the CODEC is H.263 based abyway, not true MPEG-4 (although MPEG-4 and H.263 are quite closely related - they use the same quantizer).
The story that
It sucks that
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:3)
Check out the flames forum at:
Project Mayo [projectmayo.com] (aka divxnetworks.com).
OpenDivX is [u]incompatible[/u] with DivX.
DivX is the hacked Microsoft CODEC.
OpenDivX is based on the MoMuSys source, claims to be MPEG-4 compliant (aside from using an AVI vs MPEG-4 transport), and is incompatible with DivX.
I just got a
*sigh*
ProjectMayo not GPL'd (Score:3)
http://www.divxnetworks.com/aboutus.html
The "open source" licence is not GPL - it requires you to do stuff like adding some kind of "made with divxnetwork" header to your movies.
Re:DivX or DivX ;-) (Score:1)
While DivX is based off of MS Mpeg4 codec, that doesn't mean it's the same thing. I think it's pretty obvious just how different they are when you compare quality.
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
Re:DivX or DivX ;-) (Score:2)
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
Re:ProjectMayo not GPL'd (Score:2)
Yes, it is. Imagine if you were making a movie on your PC using the Quake engine, the GIMP, OpenFX, Broadcast 2000, and DivX
Article 5 is also unreasonable - what if some part of MPEG 4 is patented, and you can't afford a patent license for it? I don't know if this is the case, but it happened with MPEG 1 and 2 (the sound format was MP3...) What if you need to modify it to work with a certain streaming server? What if MPEG 4 can't take advantage of some new compression technique you like?
This license does not fit the Open Source Definition, and it's not a Free Software license.
Re:It's not the format, it's the use (Score:1)
Most trading I've done in the last few months has been via FTP. Specifically, finding companies with tons of bandwidth and minimal security on their FTP servers. Upload a movie and post to a bulletin board the location of said movie. Other users download the movie, spiking the bandwidth usage on particular server. Admin notices usage, finds unauthorized files, deletes them, and tightens security. Find new server with no security. Repeat until you have more movies than you can watch.
Not that I've participated in this ethically questionable practice. And I don't have over 200 movies I haven't seen yet.
Napster? (Score:1)
--
Patrick Doyle
divx and the law (Score:2)
BTW, did you see the 60 Minutes piece on Tivo last night? Nothing new for us, but a good explanation of the technology and some of the legal issues for the layman.
Wrong point (Score:1)
I'm not saying if its technically possible, I'm saying that its more of a physical limitation.
People have their computers set up so only one person can use it, at a small distance. Not the optimal way to watch a motion picture.
Re:Not quite true... (Score:2)
Movies are different than music singles (Score:3)
I really like how they intend to distribute movies on line. But how much good will this do?
The movie will be 2 hours long and only playable on your computer monitor. The average person doesn't have a good enough setup (monitor size, seating) for it to compete with you tv in front of the couch.
MP3/music is different. Its short ( 5minutes for a song) and you can burn a CD and them play it anywhere you would a normal CD.
Not so with full length movies.
Re:It's not the format, it's the use (Score:2)
I dunno, being a USENET admin where they're posting 700M files isn't much fun either ;-)
Re:Movies are different than music singles (Score:2)
Yep. Great example for the "where's the innovation" article.
DivX ;-) is another bit of "evolution" - but it (and MPEG-2, and MPEG-1 before it) had to wait until CPUs were fast enough to decode the compressed video on-the-fly.
Just like (early Microsoft .AVI formats) we had to wait for I/O channels to handle the bandwidth of 160x100 uncompressed video.
I look back at my '286 with the 40M hard drive, and realize I have individual songs that exceed that drive's capacity.
(To say nothing of my Apple ][ and its 128K of RAM, 64K of which could be accessed at once by bank-switching... ah, 143K on a 5.25" diskette! For only $7.00 per disk!)
Re:Still-born (Score:2)
I think you've got it backwards.
1) The "hacker-kiddies" ain't gonna sue for trademark infringement, and more importantly:
2) Without the name-recognition of the geek set, where are you gonna generate the "buzz" required for a successful financing?
Re:Wrong point (Score:2)
Yay! (Score:3)
I'll just hang out for a while and see what the Ogg Vorbis people come up with...
This makes sense (Score:2)
Plus, as the popularity of the rental and pay-per-view markets have shown, people don't NEED a fancy theater and many would rather watch on their home theater and then not have to pay $40 for snacks too.
Plus, the current distibution network is already non-secure...anyone can smuggle in a camera and again as the sales of bootlegs have shown, people don't always care about quality.
Plus, the movie industry is a lot more records driven than the music industry. You have another multi-platinum album and people yawn. You have a movie that did X dollars on opening night and its a record people remember. Imagine if they could spin add downloads to those box office statistics.
Plus, right now there is no real name brand for movie sharing (unless you count IRC).
The studios were forced to divest themselves of their theater holding because the governement thought it would be a bad idea for them to control both content and distributions. Using the Internet the movie studios have a chance to regain that control again.
If they price it in the range of home pay-per-view but offer first-run movies hotels pay-per-view, I think it would be something I'd buy.
- JoeShmoe
CPU Power or hardware decoders? (Score:2)
In theory, once there is a true MPEG4 standard, hardware decoders should not be far behind.
It's about time... (Score:2)
So do what you can to support them and we'll be one step closer to an internet that truly is multimedia compatible.
--
Why the geeks matter... COLLEGE (Score:2)
Good thing two, because the following year (about 1.5 years ago), a freshman with a hobby for trading movies showed up. He managed to gather dozens of movies over our school provided T1, and he would share them across the house.
Forget that he would get them, it isn't worth it for most people to get them. But if one person acquires the movies (and keeps the archive on CDs to loan out) and makes them available to 40 friends... well...
Now make these 40 people all college kids with disposable income, and you've hit the target market. That's why they hate this. College kids are a big part of their market. High school kids are as well, and they are the most likely to get a DSL connection at home AND have lots of spare time.
Alex
Re:My take on the whole online video thing (Score:2)
Not really. The number of people who have a good movie in them isn't that large. Look at film school demo reels, or underground video showings, or public access TV, and you'll see what I mean. Access to the technology is not the problem.
San Francisco has several organizations devoted to getting technology into the hands of wannabe filmmakers, but what comes out mostly sucks.
Now if only this was happening with vorbis (Score:2)
x-box (Score:2)
So put a Duron or Crusoe in the decoder (Score:2)
The most expensive part about producing a stand-alone player that can decode an MPEG-4 encoded disc is the decoding circuitry itself.
Unless the decoding circuitry is just a CPU (such as Emotion Engine, TI DSP, AMD Duron, or Crusoe) customized for DSP. It would just read encoded data, decode it, and blast it to the framebuffer.
All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
Advertising before the movie? It's worse on DVD. (Score:2)
For $15 you can get the barebones edition with stereo audio and no special features (plus a load of pre-movie advertising like on VHS). Then for $30 you get
Even more pre-movie advertising that you can't even skip. DVD has a "legal notice" function (designed for displaying FBI Warnings) that disables fast-forward while it is set. Some DVDs start with ten minutes of commercials and mark them as "legal notices" so you have to either watch them, turn off the TV, leave the room, or use some DeCSS-type software.
All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
Fix these problems with the installer (Score:3)
They won't understand conceptually what it is
What part of "It's an add-on to Windows Media Player that allows it to play full-length motion pictures" wouldn't Joe Sixpack understand?
They have to go and find it and download it.
Same thing for Winamp, to play MP3 audio.
There's no paper manual
File | Print... (The only paper manuals you need are those for your computer and printer.)
and no tech suport number to call.
Ever try calling Microsoft tech support?
And when they install it, no "DiVX" icon appears on their desktop leading to a screen with a colourful and intuitive user interface.
So have the codec's installer make a shortcut to WiMP and label it DivX. WiMP 7 is colorful enough (but I wouldn't say all that intuitive). Who'll know the difference?
All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
Why not: (Score:4)
--
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:2)
Re: divxnetworks.com (Score:2)
http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/
Instead of a codec, they're doing the other necessary stuff like a player and streaming server.
(/. rejected a story about this, too.)
My take on the whole online video thing (Score:4)
I sort of suspect that the real reason there is so much noise about this is for the same reason napster got hit so hard - to prevent the establishment of a system through which independant artists can reach a large market. Control is everything. The MPAA probably is not keen on the idea of a worldwide team forming to do a movie across the internet, or any other challenge to their rule. Formats are merely a minor part of this fight, and to my mind not a terribly important one. Copy protection can't come from formats as long as they are eventually displayed in a form the human eye can observe. So develop new business models or remember that computers weren't designed for movie watching. These guys aren't stupid - I'm sure they've already spent far more protecting their copyrights online than they could have hoped to have gained from forcing a few geeks to pay for their movies. They're after something else. That's what worries me.
Please don't support DivX! (Score:2)
To name some 'facts'
Look it up if you want confirmation.
MPEG4 != DivX
The original DivX hacked a Microsoft implementation of the MPEG4 *draft* and created their own format.
So don't support the Microsoft version, and don't support the DivX version!
What's the alternative? MPEG4! OpenDivX is supposedly MPEG4 compliant, but it does not support the MPEG4 file format (go figure); Windows, hopefully, will support the real thing, and not just ASF/WMA implementations, as should Quicktime 5. Don't settle for DivX; it would be like settling for RealAudio when mp3 is just around the corner...
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Psst, where are the good divx sites? (Score:2)
And then I tried to explain the porn banners to my wife, ouch!
Re:MPAA support MPEG-4 not so far-fetched (Score:2)
The Difference between DiVX and MP3 (Score:2)
For for DiVX, even installing the codec can be too technical for most people, let alone encoding the movies. Not everyone has a DVD drive or the hard disk space, patience, and knowhow to do it. Therefore, unlike mp3 which was accessible and relatively easy to use, DiVX still languishes in relative obscurity. Therefore the MPAA doesn't see it as an enormous threat.
In additon, movies and audio are fundamantally different. With mp3, you just play the song and do whatever you're doing while listening to it. With DiVX, you play the movie and all things are on hold while you're watching it. I'm listening to mp3 right now, but I couldn't be typing this post if I was watching DiVX.
Listening and watching are two fundamentally different activities. And it would be another revolution completely different to mp3 if DiVX became mainstream. And the MPAA would fight tooth and nail keep it from happening.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
WHY IS EVERYONE WINKING AT ME? (Score:2)
ARRRRGGHHH! Stop calling it "Copy Protection"! (Score:3)
There is NO SUCH THING!
MPAA, RIAA... Release your DENIAL!
The absolute BEST you can hope for is "Copy Encumbrance" or "Copy Inconvenience" or "Copy Reduction". But NEVER will your digital content be "Protected".
Digitize it, and they will crack.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
Re:Divx usability.. (Score:2)
The main reason some of us like DivX is because it allows you to backup a whole DVD to a single CD while maintaining acceptable quality. MPEG2 can't do that._ __
_______________________________________________
Still-born (Score:2)
Re:The Difference between DiVX and MP3 (Score:2)
Isn't that what they thought about DVD/CSS? What's the difference? Won't the same thing that happened to CSS happen to DiVX?
MPAA clueful? (Score:2)
I've downloaded a few DIVX videos, the quality is not bad but its not great either. I still want to be able to purchase DVD's of movies I'd like to own. (No, decss will not make me boycott DVD any more than sweat shop labour will stop most people from buying clothes)
If the MPAA is smart they'll jump on the bandwagon soon. In my opinion the infrastructure isn't really there yet. Most people don't have broadband, and the broadband we do have isn't broad enough. Even given that its still important to be there first and get people used to the technology (and kill off the "if I had some legal way of getting movies online I would" argument)
kind of annoying (Score:4)
Now, don't get me wrong, the actual coding work the DivX people are overseeing is great for open source causes, but they are using some subversive self-promotion as of late to make it seem like they invented all of this stuff, and pushing the 'Divx' brand-name (which is actually quite a stupid name since it causes much confusion with the failed Circuit City format), as the be-all end-all of MPEG-4, which is just not true.
Also, supporting DIVX/MPEG4 because there is a good open source implementation is short sighted. Please do some research into MPEG4 and realize what a patent nightmare it is. Just because the source is open doesn't mean you can use it without violating patents.
Criteria (Score:3)
1: Is it patent encumbered.
MPEG4 like GIF is patent encumbered up the wazoo. Forget GPL on the code, if the patent holders won't give a free public license the spec can never be open.
[Incidentally MP3 has this problem, the Fraunhoffer Institute owns the patent and charges royalties on it. The GIF UNISYS patent was pretty despicable, the patent was only published after Compuserve had adopted the algorithm thinking it was an open algorithm.
2 Is the code open?
This is not the biggest issue for me, if the spec is interesting and useful an open code verison is likely to follow. Point (1) is much bigger
Incidentaly I don't think that the GPL vs other open models is a big issue. Richard Stallman put a lot of his personal politics into the GPL, it is not possible to use GPL code in a commercial project. Apache and Linux are far more 'open' in my view, they are certainly less restrictive.
3. Is there actual code
No code, no use. Starting an open source project is fine but until you have a release it does not do anyone much good.
So far DVIX/Project Mayo loose on 1 and probably on 2 but win big on 3. Lots of folk win on 1 and 2 but loose on 3.
The real problem is that nobody can ever know if they are safe on 1 in the US. Submarine patents can be filled and kept in progress for decades.
Re:It's about time... (Score:3)
Re:Still-born (Score:2)
"DivX
See, it was given the name by hacker kiddies as a jab against the DivX format. Funny, huh?
How the hell they can form a company, get $5.6 million in venture funding, and still keep the hacker kiddie name I just don't get.
Embracing Div-X is a bad idea... (Score:4)