RSSDivX 6 Format Offers Alternative to DVD
By Nate Mook | Published June 15, 2005, 4:38 PM
DivX on Wednesday unleashed version 6 of its digital video platform, which enables the creation and playback of highly compressed media files. The company also introduced the DivX Media Format, which standardizes DivX content using the .divx extension and adds the same interactive capabilities found in DVD.
The DivX format has been extremely popular among content creators due to its ability to compress video into files 10 times smaller than standard MPEG-2 used in DVD, without compromising quality. DivX has also recently been adopted as a supported standard in numerous hardware DVD players, further spreading the technology.
At the same time, widespread adoption of DivX has been limited by the format's lack of interactive features, such as menus and scene selection. DivX 6 aims to change all that with its DivX Media Format, adding support for multi-language subtitles and alternate audio tracks.
Content owners can also author user-controlled menus for navigating between scenes and bonus features, or configuring audio and language settings - just like on a real DVD.
"DivX 6 offers a transformative digital media experience for consumers, content providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and multimedia software companies," said Jordan Greenhall, DivX CEO. "Most importantly, users will be able to create video files with new DivX features that are interoperable with millions of DivX Certified DVD players and other devices."
Beyond its outward feature set, DivX 6 adds high-definition enhancements and 20 to 40 percent better compression over its predecessor, company officials told BetaNews. DivX has also changed how version 6 will be distributed, dropping the Free and Pro designations in favor of two "bundles."
The free DivX Play Bundle offers basic playback functionality and support for the DivX Media Format. The DivX Create Bundle is priced at $19.99 USD and includes DivX Converter to convert existing media files to DivX and the DivX Pro codec for creating new DivX files. Only Windows 2000 and XP are supported by DivX 6; Mac releases are forthcoming, but Windows 9x and Me users are out of luck.
Despite just releasing version 6, the company has also offered up an alpha release of the next DivX codec code-named "Helium." According to DivX Labs, Helium "demonstrates our latest research into processor optimization, achieving encoding times up to twice as fast as DivX 6 in the highest quality (Insane) mode when run on dual core, HT and SMP CPUs."
Existing DivX Certified DVD players will be able to play the primary video and audio track of a DivX 6 file, but an upgrade will be required to take advantage of the interactive menues and chapter points, DivX spokesperson Tom Huntington told BetaNews.
"Firmware upgrades that enable devices to support the full DivX Media Format will be available eventually from some of our partners," Huntington said, "and DivX Certified devices that natively support all the DivX Media Format features are expected to hit the market early next year, with a new logo that clearly identifies each device."
the divx 6 is great but the create bundle software is crap! no options and to buggy erro after erro, you should have posted that software on this site before you released a final version.
just look at the fourms on the divx.com site ...
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okkk
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I just burned The Incredibles (my personal retail copy) to CD and played it on my Yamaha DivX-certified player on my TV.
The picture is beautiful, but the audio is low—I have to turn the volume WAY up to achieve normal levels. I know Dr.DivX had a way to boost the audio; does the new creator have preferences that can be set?
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There's already work being done on an open source container that can handle pretty much any codec (divx, xvid, mpeg1/2, quicktime's sorenson, etc) that has subtitles, chapters and menus. It's not complete yet, but it's coming along. It's called Matroska, http://www.matroska.org/ .
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In the spirit of DVD -> DiVX ripping programs ... I'm waiting now for someone to create a program that converts DVD menus to DiVX. It would only make sense for software authors to try this method... it would certainly allow users less restrictions with their DiVX Menu authoring applications ... and allow independent movie creators the ability to easily transfer their content to DiVX (right? -- can't possibly think of any better use right?) =)
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What about the VP62 codec, i have found that its a very good codec...but not popular.
VP62 (300kbps) ==== Divx (600kbps)
It shows better results at lesser bit rate.
You should try this...
VP62 comes in klite codec pack... www.free-codecs.com
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Its Excellent! Download the sample Divx6 media files on their website.
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I have never understood why didn't they choose .dvx as the default extension for DIVX files.
I agree with Banquo that it's annoying getting an AVI file and not knowing what it is.
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The .divx extension has been around for a while but people haven't been using it.
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Check out some of the new DivX media files:
http://forums.divx.com/e...f/201101651/m/354106352
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Any one else find it kind of ironic you need a bit torrent client to download these files.
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"The DivX format has been extremely popular among content creators due to its ability to compress video into files 10 times smaller than standard MPEG-2 used in DVD, without compromising quality."
You mean without compromising much quality. ;) Is this a press release or a news article :p
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I'm glad they are moving to using their own extension. I hate having an AVI file and not knowing what format it actually is.
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AVI is a media container (a FILE format), not a MEDIA format. You can throw quite a bit into AVI, including DivX and any form of MPEG4, MPEG(1/2), etc...
.divx files are a different container format. But the actual video/audio data is compressed the exact same way.
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Yea but his point was with an .AVI file it can be any of a few thousand things. And with a .DIVX file yer pretty well assured it is a DivX media format movie.
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Heh...I once found an AVI file that contained an IMAGE.
Useless movie. :P
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get a GSpot dude, it detects codec needed to play the audio and video of an avi file.
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
and FFDshow too, a codec pack that plays all without harming-your-file-system/configuration issues that KLite does.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow
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Last time I heard I thought it's Xvid that dominates the MPEG4 format.
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XviD never has been and never will be anything in the commercial sector. It only dominates in piracy. DivX is a commercial format that you can buy a full move in and you wont be breaking the law in doing so.
DivX isnt dominating anything either but it stands alot more chance then XviD. Right now WMV-9 and h.264 would be the dominating formats.
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I recall using divx, and being really excited about it, in like 2002. The problem was that nobody had the player I sent the encoded files to (business use,) and they couldn't be bothered to download and install it. We never used again. Chicken and egg.
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Re: moonie
yeah, like the people who are illegally distributing movies and use divx to begin with will care if it's free or not... the percentage that uses divx legally is probably quite small.
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I like ratDVD for compressing DVD movies.
For video that needs to be sent over the web I use .wmv since everyone I know uses Windows.
Otherwise I recommend xvid.
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Awesome. DivX is one of the few rock-solid codecs. Most others go screwy on my system.
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Yeah, I tried it out. It's awesome.
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Well, The thing nobody remembers to tell people here is that the new version no longer offers any free encoder...
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Guess we'll have to wait for an equivalent port to XviD with a free encoder. Wishful thinking maybe.
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The new version absolutely includes a free version!
In fact, we've improved the free DivX Codec so much that the non-Pro version of DivX 6 codec now produces equivelent quality to DivX Pro 5.2.1!
If you just want the free version, during installation of the DivX 6 Create Bundle expand the "DivX codec" box on the components selection screen and uncheck the box for the 6 Month DivX Pro Trial. Voila! You have the free version!
On the other hand, if you choose to enable the 6 Month DivX Pro Trial (which is on by default), you can use DivX Pro 6 free for 6 Months with all the features. You don't have to accept any additional offers, you don't have to fill in forms, you don't have to give us your e-mail address, just leave the box checked when you install.
Can't say fairer than that ;)
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Yup 6 months is very fair for an uncripled trial version even if you don't have much time to spare with 6 months you got more than enough time to make sure the program does what you need it to do.
More software should be like this uncrippled with a good amount of time to see if it meets your needs unfortunatly not many companies will do this because there are to many freeloaders out there that will just bounce from site to site so they never have to buy software or just download a crack to keep the full version after the time has expired.
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