DivX

Maintainer:	DivX, Inc.
Latest release:	6.3.2 / September 19, 2006
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Media player / Codec / Media format
License:	proprietary
Website:	www.divx.com

DivX is a video codec created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc.), which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality. DivX uses lossy MPEG-4 Part 2 compression, where quality is balanced against file size for utility. It is one of several codecs commonly associated with ripping, where audio and video multimedia are transferred to a hard disk and transcoded. As a result, DivX has been a center of controversy because of its use in the replication and distribution of copyrighted DVDs. DivX Video This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... In software engineering, software maintenance is the process of enhancing and optimizing deployed software (software release), as well as remedying defects. ... A software release refers to the creation and availability of a new version of a computer software product. ... September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A cross-platform (or platform independent) programming language, software application or hardware device works on more than one system platform (e. ... A media player is a piece of application software for playing back multimedia files. ... A Codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Website - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... A video codec is a device or software module that enables the use of data compression for digital video. ... DivX, Inc. ... Video compression refers to making a digital video signal use less data, without noticeably reducing the quality of the picture. ... A lossy data compression method is one where compressing data and then decompressing it retrieves data that may well be different from the original, but is close enough to be useful in some way. ... MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard (ISO/IEC 14496-2). ... This page is a candidate to be copied to Wiktionary. ... Ripping is the process of copying the audio or video data from one media form, such as Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) or Compact Disc (CD), to a hard disk. ... Methods and media for sound recording are varied and have undergone significant changes between the first time sound was actually recorded for later playback until now. ... Video is the technology of capturing, recording, processing, transmitting, and reconstructing moving pictures, typically using celluloid film, electronic signals, or digital media, primarily for viewing on television or computer monitors. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ... In telecommunication, transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion from one encoding scheme, such as voice LPC-10, to a different encoding scheme without returning the signals to analog form. ... This article is becoming very long. ...

Many newer "DivX Certified" DVD players are able to play DivX encoded movies. However, "DivX" should not be confused with "DIVX", an unrelated attempt at a new DVD rental system employed by the US retailer Circuit City. The winking emoticon in the early "DivX ;-)" codec name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the failed DIVX system. This article is about the video codec DivX. For the pay-per-view DVD system, see DIVX. DivX® is a video codec created by DivX, Inc. ... This article is becoming very long. ... United States is the current Good Article Collaboration of the week! Please help to improve this article to the highest of standards. ... Circuit City (NYSE: CC) is A Fortune 200 with company with over $10 billion in sales. ... An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of ordinary printable characters, such as :-), xD, d:), -_-, (^_^), :-(, or a small image, intended to represent a human facial expression and convey an emotion. ... Sarcasm is the making of remarks intended to mock the person referred to (who is normally the person addressed), a situation or thing. ...

History

DivX ;-) 3.11 alpha refers to a hacked version of the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 video codec, extracted around 1998 by French hacker Jerome Rota (also known as Gej). The Microsoft codec, which originally required that the compressed output be put in an ASF file, was altered to allow other containers such as AVI. From 1998 through 2002, independent enthusiasts within the DVD-ripping community created software tools which dramatically enhanced the quality of video files that the DivX ;-) 3.11 Alpha codec could produce. One notable tool is Nandub, a modification of the open-source VirtualDub, which features two-pass encoding (termed "Smart Bitrate Control" or SBC) as well as access to internal codec features. Hackers are sometimes portrayed as mysterious and strange. ... The Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual sales of US$44. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Advanced Streaming Format (or ASF, later renamed into Advanced Systems Format) is Microsofts proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media. ... A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data, compressed by means of standardized codecs. ... AVI, an acronym for Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992, as part of the Video for Windows technology. ... Smart Bitrate Control, commonly referred to as SBC, is a technique for achieving greatly improved video compression efficiency using the DivX;-)3. ... VirtualDub is an open source video capture and linear processing tool for Microsoft Windows. ... Smart Bitrate Control, commonly referred to as SBC, is a technique for achieving greatly improved video compression efficiency using the DivX;-)3. ...

In early 2000, Rota created a company (originally called DivXNetworks, Inc., renamed to DivX, Inc. in 2005) to improve DivX and steward its development. This effort resulted first in the release of the "OpenDivX" codec and source code on January 15, 2001. OpenDivX was hosted as an open source project on the Project Mayo web site (projectmayo.com). The company's internal developers and some external developers worked jointly on OpenDivX for the next several months, but the project eventually stagnated. In early 2001, DivX employee "Sparky" wrote a new and improved version of the codec's encoding algorithm known as "encore2." This code was included in the OpenDivX public source repository for a brief time, but then was abruptly removed. The explanation from DivX at the time was that "the community really wants a Winamp, not a Linux." It was at this point that the project forked. DivX took the encore2 code and developed it into DivX 4.0, initially released in July 2001. Other developers who had participated in OpenDivX took encore2 and started a new project—XviD—that started with the same encoding core. The company released a clean room version of the codec as DivX 4.0 in July 2001. DivX, Inc has since continued to develop the DivX codec, releasing DivX 5.0 in March 2002. In software, a project fork or branch happens when a developer (or a group of them) takes code from a project and starts to develop independently of the rest. ... XviD is an open-source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ... Clean room design is the method of copying a design by reverse engineering and then recreating it without infringing any of the copyrights and trade secrets associated with the original design. ...

The latest generation, DivX 6, was released on June 15, 2005 and expands the scope of DivX from being just a codec to including a full media container format. DivX 6 introduces a new file format called "DivX Media Format" (with a .divx extension) that includes support for the following DVD-like features: Image File history File links DivX_6_container. ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data, compressed by means of standardized codecs. ...

• Interactive video menus
• Multiple subtitles
• Multiple audio tracks
• Chapter points
• Other metadata
• Multiple format

While in previous generations video encoded with DivX was analogous to video formats such as MPEG-2, in its 6.0 generation the new DivX Media Format is analogous to media container formats such as Apple's QuickTime. In much the same way that media formats such as DVD specify MPEG-2 video as a part of their specification, the DivX Media Format specifies MPEG-4-compatible video as a part of its specification. However, despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is simply the AVI file format by another name. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them. Of course, the traditional method of creating standard AVI files is still supported. AVI, an acronym for Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992, as part of the Video for Windows technology. ... VirtualDubMod is an open source video capture and linear processing tool for Microsoft Windows. ...

DivX and Spyware

At one point, DivX Networks offered for download an "ad supported" version of their DivX Professional product free of charge to users who were willing to view advertisements. The ads in question were delivered by the notorious Gator adware software. While this attracted much criticism at the time, it should be noted that users had to manually select the "ad supported" download rather than the for-pay professional version or the free version. Additionally, users were informed during installation of the ad-supported version that the Gator software would be installed on their PC and were presented with a license agreement to which they had to consent in order to continue the installation. Unfortunately, the Gator software would still install parts of itself without the user agreeing to this installation, and was notoriously difficult to remove after installation; this raised considerable consternation amongst DivX users, causing many to turn to its Open Source rival, XviD. The latter is freely available without installing adware and has been demonstrated in independent comparisons to produce better quality output (see section on Quality below). Malicious websites may attempt to install spyware on readers computers. ... Claria Corporation (formerly Gator Corporation) is an advertising software company based in Redwood City, California. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... XviD is an open-source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ...

Due to the generally hostile opinion towards spyware on the Internet, DivX Networks announced on the DivX.com web site that, from July 15, 2004, no further DivX software would incorporate any adware [2]. Free versions of DivX Pro before 5.2 typically contained spyware. From 5.2 onwards, including version 6, no spyware was included. When accessed in March 2006, the Professional version of DivX was only available in the form of a paid release or a 6-month free trial with no adware included. July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Current Version

The current version of the DivX Community Codec, which is the same for all platforms, is version 6.4, available from DivX.com. The latest version of the DivX package for Windows 2000/XP (which contains DivX Player 6.4.?, DivX Community Codec 6.2.5, and DivX Web Player 1.0) is version 6.4, and the latest version of the DivX package for Mac OS X (which contains DivX Player 1.0.3, DivX Community Codec 6.2.5, and DivX Web Player 1.0.2) is version 6.5, released May 25, 2006. In addition, an unofficial DivX for Linux codec update has also been released at version 6.1.1. The DivX codec and DivX Player are available for free at the DivX website. Paying customers can access additional features of the DivX codec in the registered version, known as DivX Pro, and can also use DivX Converter, a one-click encoding application as a revamp of Dr. DivX and associated encoding tools (such as the Electrokompressiongraph™, or EKG, which helped increase the viewability of highly compressed high-motion scenes). The latest version of DivX Converter for Windows is 6.2, and the latest version of DivX Converter for Mac is 1.1.1. Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K or W2K) is a preemptible and interruptible, graphical, business-oriented operating system that is designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor (SMP) 32-bit Intel x86 computers. ... Windows XP is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ... Mac OS X (officially pronounced Mac Oh-Ess Ten) is a line of open source graphical operating systems, with proprietary higher level API layers, developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently shipping Macintosh computers. ... May 25 is the 145th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (146th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a Unix-like computer operating system. ... DivX Player is a standalone media player for DivX encoded video. ...

Recently DivX have also released the DivX Web Player 1.0.1 (formerly known as the DivX Browser Plug-In Beta) via the DivX Labs website, demonstrating 720p HD playback live inside major browsers for Windows and Mac OS. Dr DivX 2 OSS, an Open Source DivX transcoding application, is available from SourceForge.

An open source version of the codec—called OpenDivX®—was released by DivX in early 2001, and this version served as the basis for the open source XviD codec, the source code of which is maintained by an independent group. XviD is an open source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ... XviD is an open-source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ...

The main competitors in the for-license video compression software market are Adobe's Flash 8 (using ON2's VP6),Microsoft's Windows Media Video series, Apple Computer's QuickTime, and the RealNetworks RealVideo series. Windows Media Video (WMV) is a generic name for the set of video codec technologies developed by Microsoft. ... Apple Computer, Inc. ... QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Computer, capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and several types of interactive panoramic images. ... RealNetworks NASDAQ: RNWK is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Seattle, United States. ... RealVideo is a proprietary video format developed by RealNetworks. ...

DivX Profiles

To group the various MPEG-4 options in a different way than what is specified in the MPEG-4 standard itself to create a DivX-specific device certification process for device manufactureres, DivX has defined many profiles. These are sets of MPEG-4 features as determined by DivX. ^[1] DivX's profiles differ from the standardized profiles of the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 international standard.

Quality, alternative MPEG-4 ASP implementations

While DivX has long been renowned for its excellent video quality, its open-source equivalent XviD, also based on MPEG-4 Part 2, now offers comparable quality. In a series of subjective quality tests at Doom9.org, the DivX codec was beaten by XviD in the 2003, 2004, and 2005 tests. XviD is an open-source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ... Doom9 is a website featuring information on digital video encoding. ...

The open source library libavcodec can decode MPEG-4 video encoded with DivX (and other MPEG-4 codecs, such as XviD or libavcodec MPEG-4). Combined with image postprocessing code from the MPlayer project, it has been packaged into a DirectShow decoding filter called ffdshow, which can be used with most Windows video players and reportedly achieves higher image quality while generating less CPU load than the DivX codec^[2]. libavcodec is an open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data written in the C programming language. ... MPlayer is a free media player with support for more multimedia formats than any other media player. ... Logo of the DirectX Media SDK - the first time DirectShow was distributed under its current name. ... ffdshow video decoder configuration ffdshow is an open source DirectShow and VfW codec for decoding/encoding many video and audio formats, including DivX and XviD movies using libavcodec, XviD and other open source libraries with a rich set of postprocessing filters. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of media player programs. ...

Since the standardization of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, a new generation of codecs has arisen, such as x264. Despite being at a relatively early stage of development, these codecs out-performed DivX in Doom9's 2005 quality test, thanks to the more advanced features of MPEG-4 Part 10. Part 10's advanced features come at a cost: they are two to three times more CPU intensive than the relatively lightweight algorithms used in the DivX codec. It remains to be seen whether DivX will release a new codec based on the newer specification, like the XviD team did with their XviD AVC codec (not yet released to the public). H.264, MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC, for Advanced Video Coding, is a digital video codec standard which is noted for achieving very high data compression. ... x264 is a free library for encoding H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video streams. ...

References

1. ^ [1] DivX Profiles from support forums
2. ^ ffdshow review from afterdawn.com, accessed 17 August 2006

See also

• List of multimedia codecs
• Comparison of container formats
• Xvid

The following is a list of codecs. ... This table compares features of container formats. ... XviD is an open-source MPEG-4 video codec originally based on OpenDivX. XviD was started by a group of volunteer programmers after the OpenDivX source was closed in July 2001. ...

External links

• DivX.com The official DivX website
• DivX Labs Community DivX website, with betas and ongoing projects
• DivX resources at the Open Directory Project