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DiVX ;-) was first "project mayo" (codename) - mayo because its difficult to make, and pretty much hit or miss - divx was first a hacked mpeg-4 codec (m$ .asp actually - really ment for streaming high quality video over broadband, hacked to work offline and "standalone"), and contained "hot" code. so divx 3.11, the version that really first took off, was illegal. the codec really exploded with the file sharing boom namely morpheus and kazaa. next release , they got rid of the stolen code, and all was good, the codec had even better quality and many of the audio syncing problems had been taken care of. by this point i had ~150 gb of video at ~300 hrs.

then, with the next release (5.x), and even more popularity, divx went commercial, and at first, i was upset, but they were pretty good about it, they had 3 versions, the one with no ads, but "play only", one with adware + encoding, and then the full $30USD one that let you do everything without ads. i thought, well these guys deserve some money for all the work that went into this great codec.

xvid was one of the spinoffs from projectmayo, and has become my favorite codec since i started using it. it seems to have the best "feel" to it, and is really really really good for animated films (to be fair, divx and the rest are really really good at animated films too, most codecs do, easy lines for the encoder to pick up and even out between frames). there are two main developers for xvid (its open so there are different builds) kopei, and nic. they both have their pros and cons, but you would be hard pressed to find them "in real life."

most of this info can be gathered from the mentioned sites, with a little digging. if im wrong about any of this, meh. its pretty right on, though. some great resources for these codecs are the forementioned www.doom9.org is really one of the best collections of encoding how-tos and other doodads. should be required reading for any video DIY noobs. another great resource is www.divx-digest.com you can get all kinds of codecs and players there, try em all, its the best way to learn (divx-digest is a sister site to www.digital-digest.com) like i said, i really dig xvid, and divx's commercial ventures are really starting to pan out (featured in a couple of computer games/video games (lord of the rings pc maybe?), hopefully soon will be built in to dvd players- think 2+ movies in hi-res on one dvd!). please please please dont use wmv. i cant play wmv, as many non M$ people cant, and they take more cpu to decode (looks pretty and is easy though).

before divx was known as divx, there was another company that released a project by the same name, where you would rent this cd/dvd disc thing and buy it to unlock it and watch it whenever you wanted, neat idea, poor execution, i only knew one persone that used it. they came in these little cardboard jewel cases. (before dvd players were all over, you had to get one that could play this divx )

batteries not included, bad grammar and spelling included. see side label for details

There are certain aspects of Palm OS software that could definitely use some work... I've never seen a decent photo editor for the Palm OS...

The Palm OS is also lacking in several neat features. PocketPC *dominates* on the multimedia front... and last I checked, the only 2 (3?) Palm OS SSH clients didn't support Hi-res, so they were a bitch to read... I would love something as good as sshCE on a Palm.

And PocketPC games can't be beat ;-)

Oh! And don't forget ports of FTPD, Perl, Apache, XFree86, emacs and Vim ;) (among others)

Check out Project Mayo. A free, open source DivX player for PocketPC devices, AKA Pocket DivX.

It does work.

Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4.
Isn't that precisly what DivX is?

Link to OpenDivX for Zaurus

Supposedly Quicktime 6 supports MPEG-4... but that is presumably in the QuickTime file format.

Any word on whether it will play back MPEG-4 movies in the AVI file format (aka DivX 4 and 5, OpenDivx, etc)? Those are quite common, and I have many.

I'd like to use the QuickTime player rather than the WindowsMedia player on Windows, and this support would allow me to do that...

Dreamcast can play DIVX and standard MPEG4.

Check out PocketDIVX at Project Mayo

You sound somewhat like I did 3 years ago... At that point, there was good reason to dislike MS. Win98 had finally begun replacing Win95b, and while it was much better... it still sucked. We used to have competitions in the dorm as to how long a person could keep AIM connected (as both AIM and Windows were flaky). The longest ended up being over a month, mainly because the person left their machine on over break. Anytime you did any sort of multi-tasking, your computer would crash badly.

Win98SE fixed many of those problems. Fullscreen games ran properly, and you could actually break out of them, do something small, and go back into the game without any errors being thrown. So, reasons to dislike MS subsided somewhat...

At about the same time, our core CS classes switched to MS Visual Studio, since it had a complete version of STL implemented (I believe one of our profs did some extensive research in STL, and templating in general, so he wanted to teach using it). As a side note, here, I like STL as a teaching tool, and as a programming aide... Not wonderfully optimized yet, but still good. Anyway, the switch from the former UNIX-centric (AIX, I think) CS program to MS was odd, but turned out well enough...

The UNIX servers are still in place, and the CS servers are all runnning various BSD and Linux distros, so those professors who wanted to teach in the older style (or in non-MS languages) had the opportunity to do so. Those who wanted to tap in to MFC and STL could do so. After the first 2 years, I don't think I've had a language dictated to me by a professor. We're told to get the project running, use whatever we want (normally... on occasion, we'll be restricted to 3 or 4 languages so the TAs can be able to help if we have trouble).

So... All of that as background, freshman year I wanted to get away from MS as much as possible. It simply wasn't a decent work platform, but I didn't have much choice as the core classes were Visual Studio. I got used to the inconsitsencies of MSVC++ and did what I needed to pass... And I learned Perl and Java on the side.

Everything I learned about MS made me dislike it a bit more. Various attidues regarding Open-Source, predatory market practices, ridiculous naming conventions, buggy software. Trying to write code for windows was painful without the pre-generated code chunks from the wizards... and the wizard code was nearly impossible to read effectively (at the time).

As time went on, I learned a lot more about the whys of MS' practices, and I began to care less about it. The naming notation makes sense (eventually), the bugs have slowly been worked out... and in the end they produce good software. I suppose if I ever had to pay for it, I might think less of it... but the academic liscenses available through the school computer store make it cheap enough to be worth using.

That opinion might not have changed as much except for one release... Win2k. By this time I'd started getting Linux functioning on my computer, but I hadn't really had time to hack it or tweak it much... I still played too many games to make it a dedicated Linux box, and I didn't have the funding to get a second machine. About this time I was ready for my semi-annual Windows reformat and reload... So I figured I'd try the new version, and I ended up removing Linux entirely shortly thereafter. I think I've had Win2k crash once, mainly because I was tinkering in bad ways with DirectX and other things... Other than that, my (now 4 years old) machine has run perfectly well on Win2k with no problems.

I'm not going to defend any other MS OS, mainly from lack of interest in switching. XP sounded good, but I haven't heard the best things about it from other programmers (non-programmers seem to like it just fine). ME frankly sucked.

In the end, I use Visual C++ as my IDE for when I do C++, Eclipse for my Java and a generic text-editor for perl. I know several other languages, but generally don't bother using them. And so... I'd be perfectly happy coding in an MS environment or out. And, in fact, I wouldn't mind working for MS itself, albeit, in a game developer position rather than Apps.

To summarize my rambling... Frosh year, I ended up not liking MS. By around Junior, I realized that it really wasn't all that bad (from a CS standpoint). The legacy code support and addition of requested 'features' lends itself to bloated code. At the end of senior year, I'd be happy to work with MS, or without it. It really doesn't make a difference.

And, in more direct response to a few things...

Media player runs fine for me, though I generally use Zoom Player and Playa (for Divx) due to the additional features in them...

Product Activation is a stupid idea, IMHO, but... The price may not have gone down, but it also didn't go up.

I'm still running the same machine I entered college with using MS products, so I'm not feeling your pain in regards to needing the latest hardware to get reasonable speed.

If your machine requires a full minute for Word to load, then you have something very badly configured (Linux can take a half-hour to load, if you don't configure it right). Word loads in a few seconds for me, and I'm on a 400 Mhz, 128 MB RAM machine... Your inability to tweak Windows is not MS' fault.

The previous release of DiVX was based on a hacked version of the MS MPEG-4 (actually an interesting story, I believe it originated in a beta version of a MS media encoder program that had MPEG-4 encoding support, but was later removed in the final version). The major issue with this was the fact that it was done without any licensing, meaning the entire DiVX format was illegal. That being said, paying the royalties per encoder or hour of commercial video distributed was the least of the developer's concerns. This with was fixed with the new Open DiVX/DiVX 4.0+ which supposedly were completely re-written and NOT based on the original MPEG-4, therefore bypassing the licensing technicalities. Although the original DiVX 3.11 is still much better than the newer versions, OpenDiVX is open source.

Anyway, divx.com says "DivX is the most widely distributed MPEG-4 compatible", which I take to mean it is similar to MPEG-4 but is a completely different codec.

I could be wrong, but that's what I've gathered from what I've read on the web. If anyone knows more about this, feel free to correct me.

One thing I haven't seen asked is how does this affect DivX? That is MPEG4, right?

But MPEG4 algorithms are independent of the particular implementation. If the licensing terms for MPEG4 do not permit licensing end-user products as free software, then open DivX as we know it will cease to exist in the United States, and some of the developers will move on to Ogg Tarkin.

Just a freely developed version

That doesn't matter. Unisys has publicly declared that it will not license the LZW patents to developers of free software: "For example, the typical Unisys license for standalone software does NOT permit copying, modification, resale, use on a server or in a network, or use for Internet/Intranet/Extranet or Web site operation."

-1 redundant, I know

but the Amiga can play divx

of course it could.

If you have a Pocket PC, check it out. It's kinda useless, but it's still fun...

There are quite a few open source projects involving MPEG-4 already.

One that looks quite promising is MPEG4IP, a project to create an entire open-source system for using MPEG-4.

Also note that the OpenDivX project is producing an MPEG-4 compliant open-source audio/video codec for windows, linux, and any other OS imaginable. :)

Many people don't really understand what DivX is. There's the DivX ;-) codec, which was a hack of the Microsoft MPG4V3 codec. This allows you to stick MPEG 4 inside AVI files - the MS version only lets you do WMVs and suchlike. There's also the OpenDivX project over at Project Mayo. This is an opensource, cross-platform effort, and hopefully will Take Over The World (tm).

I've been looking into streaming MPEG 4 video off a Linux server and it's still rather immature. FFMpeg looks like it might be getting there, but I quote from the FAQ: "New developments broke ffserver, so don't expect it to work correctly. It is planned to fix it ASAP."

It would be nice to find a good OpenSource (pref. Linux) solution for streaming MPEG 4 content (from a Video4Linux BTTV device). Does anyone know of one?

Many people don't really understand what DivX is. There's the DivX ;-) codec, which was a hack of the Microsoft MPG4V3 codec. This allows you to stick MPEG 4 inside AVI files - the MS version only lets you do WMVs and suchlike. There's also the OpenDivX project over at Project Mayo. This is an opensource, cross-platform effort, and hopefully will Take Over The World (tm).

I've been looking into streaming MPEG 4 video off a Linux server and it's still rather immature. FFMpeg looks like it might be getting there, but I quote from the FAQ: "New developments broke ffserver, so don't expect it to work correctly. It is planned to fix it ASAP."

It would be nice to find a good OpenSource (pref. Linux) solution for streaming MPEG 4 content (from a Video4Linux BTTV device). Does anyone know of one?

One of the eventual goals of OpenDivx is backwards-compatibility with movies encoded in the illegal 3.x codec...

so that we can watch all of our illegal movies with a legal codec. :)

I'm relatively sure that the DivX that could ever be legit is not based off of MS's MPEG4 v3 codebase.

The version of "DivX ;-)" called "3.x" was built off of this code, and is extremely illegal to have/use/download/etc. because it's stolen from Microsoft.

The version of DivX (no smiley, I think...) called "4.x" or known as "OpenDivx" is completely legal to use, and is probably the one that is "going legit."

Interesting to note that OpenDivx (4.x) aims to be completely MPEG-4 ISO standard compatible, whereas M$ MPEG4 v3 is not by any means. :)

When I first saw the article, I thought the discussion would include the (lack of) "openness" of the codec.

I think it did not make many noise, but they have closed the codec, and halted the open version. Proof?
their post on their forum!

Well, let's realize this. The used idealist open source hackers to make their closed source codec and also money. Their license was less acceptable even than the darwin license!

What did they do? They make a "reference" implementation open. It contained all the features needed for MPEG4 except any optimizations. But then they did learn how to make a codec, they made another indoor version (which we do not know to contain code from open version). And they made it "faster" and "more reliable". ... The open one? it's a joke now! Disgusting, but true...

http://www.vcdhelp.com/
This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or
DVDs from sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded
movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM and ASF.

http://zor.org/svcrunderground
StreamBox VCR is a Download Manager for Microsoft Windows.
It is specifically made to facilitate the recording of streaming audio and video media.

http://www.projectmayo.com/
DivX ;-) Galore

It does not end here. There is also ffmpeg (also on opendivx site). it supports video capture, playback and "streaming". It supports major formats (MS MPEG4: Windows Media, DivX, MPEG1, MPEG2, Open DivX, Real).

The problem is not "having" the tools ready. The problem is making companies "install and use" them.

(By the way I did not like the way you beg for karma :)

The point about sorenson video not being licensed is tragic, but in case you didn't know, Sorenson doesn't even measure up to DivX. Despite its popularity, DivX is not a very good codec, playing it on macs is barely possible due to microsoft crippling, and there is no encoding option.

Fortunately, besides the new Sorenson 3 codec which should be improved, and an MPEG4 codec which should become available sometime soon for QT5, there are also several 3rd party codecs coming out which have much better performance. On2's VP3 codec is already available for multiple platforms, and there VP4 codec is due soon. VP3 is an excellent codec. Better yet, the folks who made the mac DivX player are now working on their own codec called 3ivx, which so far is already more advanced than many commercial codecs. They even are working on the OpenQuicktime project, which is meant for all *nix environments, and are developing the codec for as many platforms as they can, even the PS2! Beyond that there is also Project Mayo's open source OpenDivX, FastVDO's Allstream technology, and probably dozens of others.

Quicktime is the best multimedia file architecture which unfortunately has been hampered by slow codecs and a late start to streaming media. But don't assume sorenson is the only codec out there.

cryptochrome

MPEG-1 is a bit older and not as efficient as the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats. So why not use MPEG-4? Project Mayo is working on OpenDivX, the an Open Source MPEG-4 codec. It'd seem to me that they should try to marry the two together, to use the OpenDivX on this streaming server. Unless there's some technical issue that I don't know about. Remember that MPEG-4 can reduce a DVD (~4.7GB?) down to a CD size (~700MB-800MB) with only a little degradation in quality and possibly size of the original image.

Yes, the move the digitize everything and convert it is a somewhat time-consuming one. But there's some cheap software for converting them, and a fairly willing volunteer force. What about the licensing though? Would PBS or the CPB support or brand their own version of a P2P alternative? It could be a decent solution since most of PBS's "customers" seem to be in the higher income brackets, and therefore more likely to have good servers. It's a different twist on the "move to digital" but I think it might be worth exploring. And a simpler tip-jar might help to cut down on the begging. ;-)
--

What you say only applies to commercial products that include content encoded with DivX.

If you're making money off a product encoded with DivX then I wouldn't consider such terms ridicuous at all.

If you're making encodings for private or non-commercial use, there's absolutely no requirement to provide such markings or notices.

The full license may be viewed here.

-
"There is no off position on the genius switch." --Dave Letterman
-

Using Project Mayo as an example, we see that we don't need to rely on big corporations to feed us what the new multimedia format is going to be. Microsoft, in their actions, are just going to get more developers into working on new, open, and hopefully free multimedia formats which will have a better compression than current technology. It's not a step back, it's Microsoft unwittingly pushing us, as developers, forward.

Also, Microsoft's limitation is only in their own MP3 codec which will come bundled with XP. Using other mp3 codecs will allow users to continue creating MP3s in higher-quality format.

On a side note, the world of Windows XP is getting more and more darker, in my own eyes. With subscription-based license and now active attempts to stop MP3 files from being produced on XP, I can't help but ask when will Microsoft's attempt to control what I do with my own computer end?

Ultimately, it's going to make me move to alternative OSes as the solution rather than continuing my use of any Microsoft product.

If only we could get the *NIX world to pick a defacto GUI standard, then 9/10ths of my reasons for not moving to Linux or one of the BSDs already would be eliminated.

The other 1/10th taken care of already with the announcement of Tribes 2 for Linux shipping. ;)

-
"There is no off position on the genius switch." --Dave Letterman
-

If you want sorta-open streaming now, though, check out OpenDivX streaming.

You are an absolute moron. That is what OpenDivX, the whole point of projectmayo, is! Open Source.

Who modded this up?
-Davidu

www.projectmayo.com, theres your link... :)

>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.

Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't want to give the authors credit for their hard work or anything.

I think it's a _really_ small "price" to pay. And a price that any goodhearted citizen should be willing to pay.

Here's the sections of the license I think you're talking about:

2a: In each instance in which you attribute ownership or authorship of the Codec you will include an acknowledgement in a location viewable to users of the Codec as follows: "This product includes software developed by or derived from software developed by Project Mayo." In any event, the origin of the Codec must not be misrepresented; you must not claim sole authorship in the Codec.

3b: You include an acknowledgement in a location viewable to users of a distribution of a Larger Work as follows: "This product includes software developed by or derived from software developed by Project Mayo."

Viewable doesn't mean it has to be pasted over your movie; It means your helpfiles/license/credits/manuals should show that text. Whoopty, it'll add seconds to your average 300 baud download... And besides, it's like "We Used Panavision Lenses" in movie credits. It makes your software cooooler!

7: For Encoded Content used for a commercial purpose, you must prominently display the "Encoded in DivX" logo on the package of any Encoded Content in a manner immediately visible to viewers and you must include the "Encoded in DivX" video logo at the beginning of any Encoded Content when the means for such display are reasonably available.

This is somewhat more forceful, but if you are going to benefit from the developer's work (remember, if you are coding, you aren't making content, this is for the actual moviemakers themselves), well, I think this isn't a big price to pay either. Again, it is just like the "Filmed with Kodachrome film" you see in movie credits.

If you ask me, sections 5-7 are the most annoying, and they certainly wouldn't put me off developing for it. It ain't GPL, but if you ask me, it is open.

ProjectMayo.com

divxnetworks.com is the company behind "Project Mayo" and "OpenDivX".

Check out the flames forum at:

Project Mayo (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 /. article rejected today where I explained all this plus gave links to all the free MPEG-4 implementations and the Sorenson MPEG-4 press release.

*sigh*

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
mydivx.com etc...

Seems to me that we should be helping Project Mayo get its codec solid and stable and using that, instead of the DivX ;) hack.

---

I saw Antitrust yesterday and of course I went to check out skullbocks.com, skullbocks.net, and skullbocks.org when I got home. It looks like MGM hasn't thought of a good idea for what to host there. (At the time of this posting they have a generic "under construction" page posted at all sites)

Then I had an idea... I wondered what would happen if somebody like Jon Katz posted an open email to MGM with some of the following ideas:

• Use the skullbocks.* sites to promote open source by open sourcing the code to be used behind their "Innovative Digital Media Distribution Website".
• Take some proceeds from ticket sales from Antitrust and donate some to EFF to help support the DVD Case.
• Take some proceeds from ticket sales from Antitrust and donate some to Project Mayo (DivX).
• Post the source code to DeCSS on the skullbocks.* sites.
• Create and seed fund the cerebellum-project. The cerebellum-project would be an open source project to build a server to archive and search digital video. A joint search engine and archive. MGM should also seed the archive by releasing old movies under some audio/video GPL.

Just an open idea. What else can you think to add?

thanx, chaim

The guys from Project Mayo have released their newest native library(decoder core) & Xmps have already support for it.

The guys from Project Mayo have released their newest native library(decoder core) & Xmps have already support for it.

The guys from Project Mayo have released their newest native library(decoder core) & Xmps have already support for it.

The original DivX ;-) codec (as used in all the avi movies downloaded from wherever) is simply a hacked version of Microsoft's own MPG4/MPG3 codecs, and actually adds nothing to them whatsoever apart from allowing their use in .avi files. I believe this was simply a binary hack, the original source code was not used or accessed in any way.

This new, OpenDivX codec (home page) is an open source-ish implementation of parts of the MPEG4 standard. It was not written completely from scratch though, it is based on another mpeg4 implementation known as MoMuSys.

I would assume that the OpenDivX code has little in common with the original DivX ;-) code, which is Microsoft's implementation after all. That would explain the differences in en/decoding speed and quality. From the tests I've carried out, however, it could have a bright future (bizarre license aside).

That's assuming, of course, that WMV8 doesn't crush all competition.

From the license

1. You may use the Codec (and any Larger Work created by you) to create Encoded Content, and may use, copy, distribute, display and transmit that Encoded Content, provided that Encoded Content may not be used for direct commercialization, without written permission of Project Mayo.

6. Any Codec or Larger Works created by you must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard.

If you cannot use it commercially and you cannot distribute non-conforming derivations, it is most definitely NOT Open Source.

OpenDivx is not Open Source, at least as opensource.org defines the term. For example, you are forbidden by the DivX copyright terms to use the software in a way that does not implement MPEG-4, and you are forbidden from using it where "Encoded Content is a primary or substantial product."

I'm not saying that releasing OpenDivX with a promotional copyright is itself harmful or immoral, but their misapplication of the "Open Source" term to a scheme that shares few of the public benefits that attract developers is misleading.

...It already has...?
Download from this location...
There is a lot more information on the site...

http://www.projectmayo.com

Enjoy...

just to throw this out there too... the DivX ;-) people are supposedly working on DivX deux, Project Mayo. The site doesn't give much in terms of details yet though.

Here at Project Mayo, we want the job done right. Project Mayo is the heir to DivX ;-). Our members include the creators of DivX ;-), and we're using that talent to solve the problems standing between today's Internet and where broadband video ought to be. Some of the technologies we're developing are a Big Deal and will take some time. So be patient. But soon, we will start releasing tools and applications for the community to kick around. Then, when all the pieces are in place, we will launch our official site and our true identity, and there will be much rejoicing. Stay tuned.

Doesn't look like it's going to be open source, but it could definitely cause some troubles for 3ivx if it competes.

3. Of all the groups working on a nice MPEG-4 codec, we have seen many die, fizzle, or simply lie. OpenCodex.com is pretty much off the face of the planet and now their website is just some virtual hosting site. 3ivx has said they have a supperior product, and that it will be open source, so far both have been false. That leaves it to ProjectMayo -- the group started by the creator of DivX. They haven't released anything yet but they sure seem to be the most professional. Perhaps we can appeal to them to become open source.

You seem to have missed Heroine Virtual as an opensource alternative. They are the programmers behind XMovie, Broadcast 2000, and a new MPEG library that rivals MPEG-4 in it's bitrates and quality. Currently they are only supporting *nix OSes, but the program and lib sources are there if anyone wants to port them to other desktop dominant systems.

Ok, lets see here

1. What we want is a REAL open source codec. We don't want an open source player, API, or "framework" -- we want a true MPEG-4 open source codec.

2. The 3ivx website has released a closed source codec that integrates into quicktime but from what they have released so far, it doesn't compete with Windows Media Format or Sorenson AT ALL. I sure hope that they will release something of decent quality soon.

3. Of all the groups working on a nice MPEG-4 codec, we have seen many die, fizzle, or simply lie. OpenCodex.com is pretty much off the face of the planet and now their website is just some virtual hosting site. 3ivx has said they have a supperior product, and that it will be open source, so far both have been false. That leaves it to ProjectMayo -- the group started by the creator of DivX. They haven't released anything yet but they sure seem to be the most professional. Perhaps we can appeal to them to become open source.

No matter what happens, the community is ready for a REAL MPEG-4 codec that does not just have some open player, it needs to be fully open so that it can be ported to all OS's, optimized, and hacked to be even better than a small group of developers could imagine.

just my $.02,

-Davidu

But with DivX ;-), isn't QuickTime dead? Sorenson or any other codec? OK, the AVI / DivX ;-) combination is not streamable, but for Star Wars trailers, TV show episodes or movies you don't really need streaming anyway. I hope the promised 2nd generation will come up with something easy to use that is *free* and available on all platforms. No more closed codecs...

dix+ programming, with a freenet mozilla based client that has a pop up tivo(tm) style digital content listing so when you click the link it launches your mayo client inside your mozilla browser on your television set. Dix+ will allow content producers(talk show host, movie makers, etc..) to embedd advertising/e-commerce capablities into the works they upload to freenet.