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Media

DivX 6.0 is Out 366

Posted by timothy from the now-about-the-content dept.
mattspammail writes "DivX 6.0 is out. Even Tom's Hardware has an article on it. According to TFA, this should be a big step up in compression and features. DVD-style menus are now an option."
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DivX 6.0 is Out More

DivX 6.0 is Out

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  • Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by XanC ( 644172 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:14PM (#12825366)
    One of the reasons I convert my movies is to get straight to the feature, and skip the gawd-awful menu crap...
    • Yes, but now I'll be able to get subtitles for all those pirated Chinese-language movies that I've been watching on mute!

      • Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ProfaneBaby ( 821276 )
        To make a LOT of money, DivX needs to start moving in the direction of a 'real' corporate video provider - DVD menus, subtitles are good, DRM will get more attention.

        DRM is good, and it's bad (OK, mostly bad), but given its roots, DivX should be able to do DRM without pissing off the millions of existing users.

        DivX encoded DRM'ed video for websites would be very, very nice from a provider's point of view.
        • DivX encoded DRM'ed video for websites would be very, very nice from a provider's point of view.

          Yes but then you will need a propritory binary , windows only decoder to watch them

          • Not nessesarly, there are a lot of new DRM schemes in which you purchase rights over the web which give you a key to unlock the format. If it used an open encyption standard this could potentially be done right. Of course its still possible to break all DRM.

            • Re:Nooo! (Score:4, Insightful)

              by pegr ( 46683 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:05PM (#12825869) Homepage Journal
              Of course its still possible to break all DRM.

              That is precisely correct. The typical encryption scenerio is described as Sender (A), Receiver (B), and Attacker (C). The trick is how to keep the secrets from C. With DRM, B and C are the same person...

              Game Over

              • Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Insightful)

                by |/|/||| ( 179020 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @03:01PM (#12826460)
                Exactly. That's why the only practical way to implement DRM is to make Receiver (B) a different entity from Attacker (C). Right now they are the same person, but if we're not careful then pretty soon (B) will be DRM hardware. You will end up being the "attacker" (C) trying to get at your own data.

                The only solution? Don't buy it. Of course, if everybody else buys it then you're screwed. Judging from my observations of the behavior of my fellow Americans, you're going to be screwed (probably regardless of what country you live in). :(

      • Re:Nooo! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:42PM (#12825643) Homepage Journal
        The Neap0litan XviD-Ogg-MKV Walkthrough [thebeardofze.us] is totally awesome and shows you in a step by step manner how to create an XviD/Ogg/MKV from a DVD complete with subtitles, it is beyond awesome.
    • That's whay they are an OPTION !

    • Yessss! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by crow ( 16139 )
      I often copy borrowed DVDs to my hard drive to watch and delete later, but space is limited. I like to keep all the special features until I'm done, so I just do a raw copy now, but this will give me an option to keep all the menus and features, without consuming nearly as much disk space.

    • Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MisanthropicProgram ( 763655 )
      I would have said, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

      For you folks pointing out that its an "option". "Option" == "must implement" to us programmers.

      I for one hate DVD menus. For one, I don't wan't to watch a repetitive scene over and over and over again just because I clicked on "> More" or " Back". I just sit there and and dream of strangling the programmer of the menus.

      Is this done for performance? IN other words, are the programmers kicking off a thread to show a scene while the other menu loads

      • >I think DVD UI devs are morons.

        I think your anger is misplaced. It's the suits. Need I say more?
      • No it's not to hide loading menus... and it's usually not the programer's choice.

      • Re:Nooo! (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )
        Do you spend a lot of time stoned staring blankly at the screen? I can't say irritating menus bother me that much because I don't spend much time on them!

        Anyway, the things are put together by creative types, not programmers, and least of all, *computer* UI experts. Menus are often just another bit of MPEG2 video. Nothing is going in the background. I suspect the creative types and studio suits think it all adds more panache and makes the thing better. Functionality is just an inconvenience ;)

      • Re:Nooo! (Score:3, Funny)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        Is this done for performance?

        Your typical $30-$50 standalone DVD player doesn't have nearly that level of sophistication... Preloading? Hah! They can't even buffer enough to get deinterlacing and layer breaks right!

        No, the annoying menu effects have always existed for one reason and one reason only - To prepare us for the overwhelming quantity and slowness of scene change effects in Revenge of the Sith. Lucas has known for years that they would annoy us, so he used his substantial Hollywood influence

    • Re:Nooo! (Score:2)

      by Malc ( 1751 )
      That's not a very compelling reason to convert. Why waste CPU time and lower quality, why not just stick with MPEG2? DVD Shrink can make this all very easy, as well as allowing you to put it on a single-layer DVD+/-R/RW to play back on a settop box. IIRC, it can remove the UOPs so you can go straight to the feature - maybe it also allows you to reauthor the menus or make the main feature the first play PGC (instead of the menu). Any users here who can clarify?

      I'm guessing you're really converting it to
    • It doesn't do all the manu crap, you can just play the main feature with no trailers, FBI warnings, adverts or anything. Now, on the rare occasion that I'm forced to use a normal DVD player, I hate it.
    • DVD menus are absolutely horrible for handicapped users. They should be optional with a required logical declaration as to what titles on the disc are for what. Maybe some sort of XML document that declares the main feature, soundtracks, subtitle tracks, etc.

  • Direct Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by zoloto ( 586738 ) * on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:14PM (#12825367)
    http://download.divx.com/divx/DivXPlay.exe [divx.com]

    ANyways, this has been out for not too long and it really is a great new release unlike many past versions.

  • Compression (Score:3, Funny)

    by bodester17 ( 892112 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:15PM (#12825381)
    Who needs to compress video anymore? Just put it on a new blue-ray disk in HighDef.

    • Re:Compression (Score:5, Insightful)

      by keeleysam ( 792221 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:18PM (#12825396) Homepage Journal
      Divx is used for transfrerring over the internet, so the smaller the file is, the better.

      Even with many pipes over 500KB/second, it still is not enough to stream in 1080i.

      • Re:Compression (Score:4, Informative)

        by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:05PM (#12825875)
        Divx is used for transfrerring over the internet, so the smaller the file is, the better.


        Then use H.264 instead of DivX. It's smaller. It's also supported in QuickTime 7, Nero Showtime uses it, ffmpeg and vlc (beta) use it, and there's even a windows codec floating about (Moonlight-Elecard).


        Me, I like DivX/Xvid better because it doesn't take as much CPU as H.264 (AKA AVC/Mpeg 4 part 10) - also, my DVD player can play DivX/Xvid just fine.

    • Re:Compression (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:18PM (#12825400)
      Who needs to compress video anymore? Just put it on a new blue-ray disk in HighDef.

      Is this before -- or after -- you've shipped it across the Internet?

  • DivX (Score:3, Interesting)

    by commo1 ( 709770 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:16PM (#12825386)
    I hope this release addresses some of the problems plaguing previous versions. It is time to concentrate on a single codec that has interoperability options to it that allows for better tweaking to a media stream's needs so that we can forgo this silliness of multiple codecs and file formats.

    • Re:DivX (Score:3, Informative)

      by no haters ( 714135 )
      That will never happen. The article doesn't go into much detail aside from the press releases from the DivX group, but as far as I can tell, it still doesn't support multiple audio streams, like OGM and it's not open source either.

      There will always be multiple codecs and file formats that correspond to different uses. DivX will be great for what the company is positioning it to do, which is provide a smaller, easier to transfer format with enough bells and whistles to cut into the highly-profitable DVD

    • MP4 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 )
      It is time to concentrate on a single codec that has interoperability options

      I agree; that's why the industry should standardize on the multi-vendor, open MP4 [mpegif.org] standard.
    • DivX 5 was an MPEG-4 codec. As are XviD, 3ivx, ffmpeg's MPEG-4, QuickTime's MPEG-4, and lots of other codecs. They are all interoperable (if you don't enable extravagant mpeg features).

      Divx 6 turns out to be just another proprietary video codec that nobody needs. I'm sure it will do better than h.264 since it doesn't comply to any spec. And they where able to look at lots of perfectly working "sample code" [videolan.org].

  • Decoding DivX (Score:5, Informative)

    by paul248 ( 536459 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:17PM (#12825392) Homepage
    I've always found ffdshow [sf.net] to be a much less crapware-like codec for watching DivX video. Not sure how it handles the new v6 stuff though.
    • What scares me is that everyone is going to be using this new fancy codec right off the bat and it might not be compatible with my standalone player. Philips hasn't updated their DVP642 for quite some time and hopefully this won't break anything.

      Not that I download pirated movies encoded by strangers or anything...

  • DirectX 6.0... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:17PM (#12825393)
    Fuck. I just stared at the screen for five minutes thinking "DirectX 6.0? What the hell, it's not April Fool's day, why are we getting bad satire"?
  • Download sizes are big enough as it is... do we really need to be adding layers of menus? This would be more easily accomplished via a right-click listing of chapters and such...

  • Compatibility? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by failure-man ( 870605 )
    One thing that TFA doesn't appear to go into is compatibilty with previous versions and third-party (ie ffmpeg) decoders. Anyone have information about that?

  • Divx 6.0 (Score:4, Funny)

    by Enrique1218 ( 603187 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:19PM (#12825407) Journal
    Ah the next revolution in porn is here!! :)
  • VLC [videolan.org] is probably the best movie viewer for windows that I've ever seen, just because of the fact that it plays practically everything you can imagine without having to download random codecs here and there (most of the time anyway). Can DivX 6.0 do the same?

    • VLC is probably the best movie viewer for windows that I've ever seen, just because of the fact that it plays practically everything you can imagine without having to download random codecs here and there (most of the time anyway). Can DivX 6.0 do the same?

      Well, I will agree that videolan is probably the best movie viewer for Windows, and I'd add linux in there too :).

      But, DivX 6.0 is entirely different then VideoLan. DivX 6.0 is a codec, not a viewer. The company called DivX does make a player also

      • If a movie is encoded with menus, etc. will any player other than DivX's player be able to view it?

        I have the DivX 5.2.1 codec on my Powerbook so I can watch movies with the Quicktime player. It doesn't have a clue, however, what to do with other container formats such as ogg or mkv. Those sometimes play, but if there are subtitles in a separate bundled file, there's no way to access it to turn them on.
      • Except, on first glance, it looks like the only way to get 6.0 is through a "Player Bundle" rather than just a codec. There doesn't appear to be any way of getting just a codec without their own player too.
    • I've always found vlc to be extremely slow on my windows. Is there a trick to do it right?

    • Re:Recommend your alternatives here (Score:4, Informative)

      by m50d ( 797211 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:50PM (#12825731) Homepage Journal
      The flipside of that is that if it doesn't support something (IIRC it can only do one of mms and rtsp streams) there's no way to get it to. I prefer media player classic, then just get the k-lite codec pack. Probably comes to less download over all.

  • Uggghh (Score:4, Funny)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famous&yahoo,com> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:19PM (#12825411) Homepage Journal
    I thought Circuit City gave up on those "watch once" DVDs years ago [amateurhometheater.com].

    • While obviously that's a completely different Divx from DivX, I'm surprised that they're able to claim trademark status on DivX. Did they actually buy the rights to it, or are they on thin ice?

      • Re:Uggghh (Score:3, Informative)

        by gbulmash ( 688770 ) *
        While obviously that's a completely different Divx from DivX, I'm surprised that they're able to claim trademark status on DivX. Did they actually buy the rights to it, or are they on thin ice?

        Digital Video Express abandoned their trademark on DIVX [uspto.gov] after the format went dead.

      • In the US, if a trademark isn't enforced, it's up for grabs. Circuit City dropped it like a magma potato and didn't want to hear anything more about it. Using it as the name of the hacked MS codec was originally a joke, and nobody ever complained about it.
        • Of course the fun happens when I sell my old Divx player to some sucker, and they try to play DivX movies on them :)

          Of course if circuit city or any big name tried this to unload old stock they could be sued into oblivion.

  • DMF? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cortana ( 588495 ) <samNO@SPAMrobots.org.uk> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:21PM (#12825424) Homepage
    Do we *really* need a new container format, or is this just a case of "not invented here" syndrome?

    We already have AVI, Ogg, Matroska, Quicktime, ISO MPEG, Real and ASF. Why do we need Divx Media Format (DMF)?
    • As I understand it:

      AVI is pretty much obsolete, or at least can't copy with some of the features of modern codes (something about frame sizes and multiple video/audio streams - I don't know much about it)

      Ogg doesn't have a general purpose container, only works for their stuff

      Matroska seems like a Good Thing but I haven't seen much adoption for it (not sure if it's just the usual momentum or something else)

      Quicktime is proprietary

      ISO MPEG - is this even a container?

      Real and ASF - well, no comment.

      • Re:DMF? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:44PM (#12825667)
        Quicktime is proprietary

        Not really. The container format is pretty well documented, especially since it is part of the MPEG-4 standard. Sometimes you might encounter movies that use a Quicktime container but use a proprietary codec (like Sorenson), but that doesn't make the container itself proprietary.

        ISO MPEG - is this even a container?

        Yes, the MPEG-4 standard defines a container format, based on the Quicktime format (see above).

      • I'm not sure about the correct name for ISO MPEG, but it's a standardised media container based off Quicktime. It seems to be able to do everything DMF can do, but without stupid trademarked feature names beginning with X. ;)

        I thought Ogg was general purpose, and could contain anything, but I might be wrong about that.
      • Yes we definately need something to replace avi. The two glaring things off the top of my head is that vbr mp3 is a hack in avi and it can't stream.

        I remember reading about matroska ages ago but it seems nothing has caught on yet. We really need a standard hammered out for containing mpeg4 content (or other video content as well) that allows for the above, and has a specification for menu's, slideshows with audio, dealing with non 4:3 aspect ratios, anamorphic etc, and I don't really like the idea of div

  • Wow, i downloaded divx 6.0 this morning and didnt even realise its this fresh off the press.

    After a quick play around with it, there didnt seem to be any noticable diffrence in encoded quality but the file size did drop a bit

    • After a quick play around with it, there didnt seem to be any noticable diffrence in encoded quality but the file size did drop a bit
      Therefore if you still have e.g. 700 meg to fill you can increase the quality settings to get a better picture, methinks that may be part of what they were after. DMF sounds like their main new feature this time around.

      Damien

  • Looks like they have abandoned linux (Score:3, Informative)

    by vivek7006 ( 585218 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:22PM (#12825433) Homepage
    The last linux version was 5.05 http://www.divx.com/divx/linux/ [divx.com]

  • Tom's Hardware is slipping. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Adam Zweimiller ( 710977 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:25PM (#12825473) Homepage
    I was immensly disappointed with the Tom's Hardware article. It was incredibly shallow and vague, a significant change for them. It was more marketing/press release than it was informative and objective review or introduction. If I wanted that I would read the information on divx.com. For those of you who want a mor technical and in-depth discussion, look no further than the Doom 9 Forums [doom9.org]

  • XviD (Score:4, Informative)

    by nukem996 ( 624036 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:26PM (#12825479)
    If I recall correctly XviD is the OpenSource version of DivX. Im wondering how long untill they are fully compatible with DivX 6.

    • Re:XviD (Score:4, Insightful)

      by glwtta ( 532858 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:39PM (#12825622) Homepage
      I'm not sure how much it is a "version" of divx, rather than an open source implementation of MPEG4.

      The answer to your question - very long (as in "never"). Xvid and DivX (as well as the other MPEG4s) are not "fully compatible", in theory they should play each other's datastreams, but each has features that the other doesn't understand.

  • I felt a disturbance in the force... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Winckle ( 870180 ) <mark&winckle,co,uk> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:29PM (#12825508) Homepage
    As if a hundred MPAA executives cried out in pain and were suddenly silenced.
  • No mention in the article and Google just turns up a few scattered, barely relevant comments. I've already been blown away by what H.264 can do at low bitrates--should I prepare to be blown away again? Anyone got a comparison, or is it too early to ask?

    • I've already been blown away by what H.264 can do at low bitrates--should I prepare to be blown away again?
      I doubt it. Divx doesn't attempt to be a good codec at low bitrates. Comparing Divx to H.264 is like comparing an SUV to a hybrid. If you value low bitrates, H.264 is your man. If you value high quality, Divx will beat H.264.

  • Yawn (Score:2)

    by Dwedit ( 232252 )
    Wake me up when DivX can catch up with H.264.
  • Even Tom's Hardware has an article on it.

    Even Tom's...? Pretty funny considering SlashDot is linking to it.

  • Surround Sound (finally?) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by larsoncc ( 461660 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:41PM (#12825632) Homepage
    Now, I know that there were some "hacks" to give you surround sound [divx-digest.com] with DivX before, but this release's best new feature is the MP3 surround sound support (in my book).

    With MP3 surround sound, we'll no longer be wasting space with AC3 files (at 120MB per hour!)- meaning that the days of the 2CD rips could be over!

    Well, I guess I can't say that - I don't know how small the new format can do surround sound, but I'll sure be looking for it. And... we'll have to wait for hardware support, I'm sure...

    I'm willing to bet that the new method of encoding files is far more friendly and less time consuming as well. Just a guess...

    Huzzah! Go progress!
    • this release's best new feature is the MP3 surround sound support

      Why does DivX have any relevance to sound? I thought it was a VIDEO codec.

      Or maybe it's a container format now?

      Or is it a media player application?

      I swear, DivX seems to be getting as bad as Apple is with "QuickTime", or Microsoft with ".NET". Nobody can tell what the hell it is anymore unless an excessive amount of context is provided.
  • My DVP642 standalone DVD player handles most DivX-type video files, and has regular firmware updates. Does anyone know if this new menu format will be possible to support as a firmware update, or if it can only be supported in new hardware? Also, will it at least degrade gracefully and play like a normal avi, or will we need some kinda utility to rip out the data stream and put it in a package older players understand?
  • Since XviD is open source MPEG-4 codec (implying it's easier to get free tools to encode and decode)... what major advantages does the commercial divx have over xvid? They would reall have to blow away the competition in space savings to really make it worthwhile right?

  • I HATE DIVX (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by TempusMagus ( 723668 ) *
    I've been using Nero's encoder over DIVX recently for a variety of reasons. 1) It looks better and the files are smaller for comparable settings. 2) The mp4 files I burn with it run *perfectly* on my Mac and on my PC without needing extra software. 3) DIVX itself intentionally *BORKS* standard conforming Mp4. In fact people sometime synonmously use mp4 with DIVX - which bothers me immensely.

  • Gach! More amateur website baloney (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:55PM (#12825775)
    How can anyone take the Tom's Hardware article when he starts out with rubbish like this:
    Historically, DivX 5 format videos were best shared over the Internet by first wrapping them in ZIP files for better compression. In my tests with the new DivX Encoder--a tool scheduled to replace the company's Dr. DivX--I could re-encode DivX 5 files as DivX 6, with the resulting file size not much larger than the ZIP-compressed DivX 5 file.
    If he's getting more than a percent or so additional compression by zipping up the divx encoded file, he's doing something wrong during the divx encode to begin with - and what little amount he might get it is going to de due to compressability of the container format, not the encoded video.
    This implies a compression scheme that is just about as capable as the most aggressive Lempel-Ziv algorithms available.

    LZ is a lossless alogorithm and no matter how "aggressive" LZ is, it can't come anywhere near the compression ratio of a properly configured divx encoding because the divx encoding is lossy - it throws out data.

    If LZ somehow were "just about as capable" then everyone would be using LZ in the first place and all these preceptual lossy compressors would have died off long ago.

    Heck, I can write a "compressor" that produces a file of the exact same size as the original and that LZ will make bigger rather than smaller. All you have to do is make the encoding random enough (like something along the lines of xoring it with pi).

    So many of these "hobbiest" websites like Anandtech and Tom's are just the blind leading the blind with gross misrepresentations that end up being taken as gospel by those who don't know any better.

    There ought to be a disclaimer before each "article" on sites like those with a warning that - "author is just another schmoe with no real expertise and is prone to make stuff up if it sounds good."
    • Ha ha ha. You should try reading the Anandtech forums sometime. You read some truely silly stuff in there.

    • he COULD be right... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by katharsis83 ( 581371 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:24PM (#12826061)
      "LZ is a lossless alogorithm and no matter how "aggressive" LZ is, it can't come anywhere near the compression ratio of a properly configured divx encoding because the divx encoding is lossy - it throws out data."

      It's possible that even after divx is done encoding a file, there's still a certain amount of "order" left. Divx encodes using perceptual quality as it's perogative; it's not a source-coder, which is the reason it performs so much better on video files. However, it IS possible that LZ77/whatever year, is able to squeeze a little bit more size out of it, since LZ is a general source coder.

      I don't think Tom is saying that LZ is as capable as divx at compressing video files, he's just saying there's enough "order" left over in the file after divx to make a 1% difference after using LZ, which is entirely possible. Almost ANY given bit-sequency that's not entirely random will have a 1-2% compression margin if you use LZ on it, depending on your window size, etc. On a 700 MB file, it's not inconceivable that more than a few long-sequence matches will occur.

  • Possibly not an Information Theory major (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tim Browse ( 9263 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:58PM (#12825803)
    In my tests with the new DivX Encoder--a tool scheduled to replace the company's Dr. DivX--I could re-encode DivX 5 files as DivX 6, with the resulting file size not much larger than the ZIP-compressed DivX 5 file. This implies a compression scheme that is just about as capable as the most aggressive Lempel-Ziv algorithms available.

    Er...ok.

    Mercifully free from the ravages of scientific method :-)

  • DivX 6 is Out...for Windows 2000/XP. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @01:59PM (#12825806) Homepage Journal

    Everyone else is currently left out in the cold.

    We're hard at work on the DivX Create Bundle for Mac and the DivX Play Bundle for Mac. Rest assured that we'll let you know the second they are ready for release. In the meantime, please continue to use DivX 5.2.1 or DivX Pro(TM) 5.2.1 for Mac OS X.

    (Ref: http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/divx6.php [divx.com]).

    No word on versions for any other platform either.

    Personally, if I had my way more people would just use H.264, and then I wouldn't have to care.

    Yaz.

  • I've been using xvid for ages now and I'm very happy with the quality. Now, it's not like one blows away the other but with what happened with divx in the first place that gave birth to xvid was enough to get me curious about xvid in the first place.

    Haven't read the article yet so maybe 6.0 is bringing something big to the table (besides menu's obviously), but I can't see me leaving xvid anytime soon.

    • Re:Does anyone still actually prefer divx over xvi (Score:5, Informative)

      by coolsva ( 786215 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @03:15PM (#12826637)
      FYI, what the parent says is the history of Divx. An open source project called OpenDivx was started to extend/enhance the 'illegal DivX:)'. Once it reached a critical mass and a good code base, DivxNetworks apparently decided to allegedly take up the code base and convert it to a closed source Divx codec. In theory, OpenDivx was left to continue beyond version 4.0Alpha, but it never did. People rather started a GPL version and called it XVID
      As of now, Divx vx Xvid is like BSD vs Linux. Both are equally good, neck in neck. Only difference is, Xvid cannot, by law, distributed as executable. MPEG4 is patented and Xvid is only distributed as source (except by good folks like Nic & Koepi)
  • Great, a week after buying a Philips DVD player that supports DivX 3,4 & 5 we are getting version 6.

    Anybody in the know about those hardware devices out there that play one form or another of DivX?
  • Whee. Another locked-down, proprietary codec. Yeah, my pants are frickin' aglow with joy right now.

    Me, I'm still hoping that Dirac [sf.net] turns out well. It's on v0.5.2 now; I haven't given it a shot, but I've heard good things. Also, y'know, it's unencumbered. Give me Dirac (or whatever shows up as a promising, free next-generation video codec) and Vorbis in a Matroska package any day.

    --grendel drago

  • questions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:20PM (#12826011)
    So, it sounds like this is both a new format and a new compressor.

    Well, the immediate questions are:

    * How good is the compressor? Say, relative to Xvid, for example? Is it still fully MPEG4 compatible?

    * Is the DMF format open, closed, or even patented?

  • Just tested a DivX 6 file on my DVP642 (Score:5, Informative)

    by kennedy ( 18142 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @02:41PM (#12826210) Homepage
    Ok, so i downloaded the clip of that star wars fan film from the divx site, burned to a cd-r and tossed it into my philips DVP642 - it decoded the video with *no* issue, however it did skip past the menu that you will see on a windows system with the DivX Player.

    no need to worry!

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