Divx Goes Open Source

[bonkers325]

The developers of hacker video technology DivX are going public, opening up much of their work to the open-source community.

DivX, which has no relation to the failed Circuit City DVD player, has spread quickly in underground computer circles as a way to create and send extremely high-quality video files online. While no DivX programmers have been sued, the technology has featured prominently in other antipiracy cases brought by the movie industry.

Link

 

[madthumbs]

Divx is a form of movie compression that is based on a hacked version of Windows media player from what I hear. It is also considered mpeg4. Divx can take a DVD movie and compress it to fit on a normal cdr and still have comparable quality. Divx is an exciting technology. I've always wondered wether DVD was needed this early on in technology. I have a DVD rom but have no use for it other than watching movies on, and that I could do with a 2xDVD rom for $30. I only bought it because it was cheap.

 

[Soccerman]

interesting.. I wonder how this will change things currently..

 

[Stephen24]

DIVX is pretty poor quality right now. I've watched a few and I found that they weren't that good. Hopefully they can improve it.

 

[Davegod75]

cool...this is usually good news for us. better quality and smaller files

 

[PistachioByAzul]

DIVX is pretty poor quality right now.

Doesn't sound like you watched a DVD rip then.

 

[bonkers325]

divx rules

 

[Sohcan]

<< DIVX is pretty poor quality right now >>

The quality is not related to the codec, but the bitrate at which the movies you watched were encoded. At lower bitrates, DivX, just like any other video codec, will look crappy. At higher bitrates, up to 6 mbit/sec, DivX looks identical to DVD/MPEG2 video. The great thing about DivX is that it produces great quality (better than VHS, slightly worse than DVD, when done properly) at medium bitrates, such as those which fit 2 hours of video on a CD-R.