DivX Support Under Linux?

Sesse writes: "XMPS 0.1.1beta is out, with experimental DivX support for Linux (by thunking to the Windows DLL). It's still buggy, but it seems to work! Sounds like good news for bringing multimedia another step away from Windows-only systems :-)" XMPS driving force Damien Chavarria has placed a screenshot on this page about the DivX support. Can anyone comment on success with this, name files successfully viewed, etc?

Comments

Re:Some questions

[FigWig]

Divx is just an implementation of mpeg4, a low-bitrate compression that is intended for streaming video over low-bandwith lines like 56k6 modems. mpeg1 and 2 are still better, but also a lot bigge

Dude, you are just so wrong! DivX is a hack of MS MPEG-4 candidate code. It has been changed to allow it to be used in AVI files (MS only wants you to use it in ASF due to copy protection stuff) and adds in the Fraunhofer mp3 encode for audio. I believe it is VBR. This hack was possible because the MS code was available under an NDA and 'escaped'. DivX (and MPEG-4 in general) whup MPEG-1,2 ass! A standard VCD is 1374 kbits/sec, fits about an hour of 352x240 video on a CD, and looks terrible. MPEG-1 caps out there while MPEG-2 can do higher resolution/bitrates, but still aint great. MPEG-4 can easily fit about 45 minutes of 640x480 (resolution I sometimes use with TV captures) on a CD. Check out some DivX trailers and you'll see what I mean.

A lot of people claim DivX is better than a DVD (MPEG-2), which is true. Just don't expect to see than when you are stuffing the same video on one or two CDs instead of a DVD. It still looks great though.

One other thing, this increased compression is traded off with greater processing power to decompress. You could do MPEG-1 with a pentium 133 or something, but I wouldn't suggest MPEG-4 without at least a pentium 450 or equivalent.

DivX and MPEG-4 resource page

[Oscarfish]

http://www.digital-digest.com/ dvd/support/mpeg4.html

This is an excellent resource for more information about the DivX codec as well as MPEG-4 compression in general. Now, if only FlasK could be ported to Linux...we'd be made in the shade.

damn. too late.

[Bad_CRC]

crap, I REALLY wanted to try this, and it's already slashdotted with only 10 replies.

People should remember that this DIVX isn't the same DivX as the stupid dvd pay-to-play clone thing, it's just a video codec.

since DIVX and ASF are supposedly based off the same mpeg4 codec, is there a chance somebody can also hack the .asf format to play on linux? Microsoft has boasted that .asf is based on open Mpeg4 technology, therefore it should, in theory, be possible to hack out a decoder for linux.

One of the main things I find lacking in Linux compared to doze is video support. I have a lot of asf and divx files I really want to play, and I haven't been able to get media player to even run in wine, so native support for these would be a HUGE milestone (from my perspective) in no longer needing to rely on windows for video.

________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"

only one question

[mcc]

ugh.. in my opinion, anything that allows this unholy format to become entrenched even further only hurts us all in the end, because if we do not allow it to sink quietly and naturally into the night it will torment us for years with its presence. But i shouldn't have just said that, becuase i fear i will start a flamewar. Ah well.

however, my question is: since DivX is, in some bastardised way, related to MPEG-4, once the real MPEG-4 is finalised will it be possible to adapt the XMPS code as a base for an MPEG-4 codec? Seems like if this is the case, then the time spent developing the DivX codec will have been very very useful. I can't access the page; what liscence is it released under? GPL or LGPL i assume? [go lgpl!]

<font size=-2>note: i'm sorry if i've offended anyone who thinks that DivX is a very useful and effective format for pirating movies or whatever. if you've gotten good use out of the codec, i'm happy for you. i just myself have no use for the thing and think you'd be better off reverse-engineering .doc or trying to apply political pressure on apple/sorensen to let xanim NDA or something. </font>

[and now watch as slashdot, in its typical fashion, responds to everything in this post _except_ the one thing i _want_ responded to..]