DivX ;-) Deux Update

Epitaph writes "The author of the DivX ;-) codec (a high-quality MPEG4 codec used quite heavily by DVD pirates to recompress movies) has recently released more information about his next-generation codec: DivX ;-) Deux, or Project Mayo. MPEG4 is the future standard for internet video, and since DivX ;-) Deux is going to be free, this is a very interesting project to keep an eye on. There's now an 'Ask Gej' section where you can ask the author questions, or suggest new features for the future codec. He's also looking for coders, so help the guy out!"

Comments

Re:Where does it state that it will be free?

[.pentai.]

I don't think they can, because from what I understand DivX ;-) is a hacked MS codec, and MS lawyers like eatting developers for breakfast, lunch, mid-day snack, dinner, and perhaps a midnight snack as well...them gluttons...err.ya

Anyways, ya, my guess is because it's a hacked codec they want to get away from any extra hassles that *might* appear

Re:Another hack?

[jon_c]

quoting from the WSJ...


Microsoft released the software last year, intending it only for software developers. But Jerome Rota, a 27-year-old French film buff and video engineer who goes by the Internet nickname of "Gej," worked with a German hacker named "Max Morice" to rewrite the software so that anyone can use it to create compact DivX movies

So ya bassicly it's Microsoft's MPEG4 codec.

from the projectmayo website..
DivX ;-) Deux will maintain the high quality of DivX ;-) while adding some kick ass features that are optimized to the way you use the technology. In other words, it will be wicked fast at doing the things you want it to do. Let us leave it at that.

More importantly, we are building some awesome technologies on top of DivX ;-) Deux that will flat out rock. We will announce our plans in due time. (muhahahAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!)


these new "awesome technologies" I imagine will be performance related, and maybe a little quality related. But as you mentianed, they most likely don't even get deal with the actualy video compression side of it. judging from the muhahahaha part, i would think they are really trying to be the "cool" pirate video guys..

the Microsoft MPEG4 codec is about a year old now, they are now pushing Microsoft Video 7, which to my untrained eye does look smother and crisper. It's also comparable to Real Video 8, which is really pretty amazing. it's hard to belive MPEG4 ISO is actually outdated.

-Jon

Re:Another hack?

[Stonehand]

A TechWeb article from late July (Click 'about mayo', and then mayo in the news) states that the new version does not use any MSFT software. Not quite the same thing as saying that it's written from scratch, and it's not from the horse's mouth, but there it is.

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[David A. Madore]

Wait 'till they start using Unicode characters which you don't even understand or know how to type.

Like "ACME" (if your browser supports Unicode and you have the right fonts you should see a smiling face after "ACME"), or "Esterica" or "Fbar" whatever. (Not to mention that artist whose name used to be "Prince" and who changed it to some unspeakable hieroglyph.)

Then, with I-DNS they can even have domain names with their weird and untypable characters. Yuck.

Sure does

[GenetixSW]

DivX ;-) the codec was named as such (and with the smiley) deliberately to make fun of DivX the secure movie player. DivX (player) had encryption detection algorithms built in so that it could only play authorised movies. DivX codec deliberately avoids encryption, sort of.

More than anything, the name of the codec is a parody on the name of the technology, since they're in effect one-uping Circuit City...

Re:Sure does

[ahuimanu]

Thanks for the clarification. Was confusing as I thought somehow that travesty had resurfaced. I think the original concept would have been hacked severely, plus who was going to tie up an extra phoneline to feed the beast? -A

Re:What kind of moron...

[funkycat]

well you COULD say the same thing about Intels Pentium !!!(3) (Take a close look at those procesors, those arent roman numerals)

Same Goes 2 fi'zi:k

[Egorn]

I don't see to many "Geeks" Mountain Biking but there is a saddle company (a good one mind you) whose name is fi'zi:k the problem for me is that how the fuck should I know what the domain name for a company like that is? fiiziik.com or fizik.com it's actually fizik.it, but still: what the hell.. go to yahoo!.com and you are fuct.. We take for granted that we would never dream of doing something so stupid as this, but think of the countless cyber-illiterate people who are on hotbot because they couldn't get to yahoo!.com
END RAMBLE

Re:Actually...

[Nullsmack]

uh, maybe you don't understand.. in C an exclamation mark means not. ie, != means not equal to..
now go reread the post you replied to..
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[Jeremi]

The latter, by the way, has caused a lot of grief from a security point of view, because virus scanners generally come (or came) with default settinga that make them scan .doc, but not .rtf files.

I believe the grief was caused by the writers of the virus scanners, who made the false assumption that a file's three-letter-extension necessarily implies something about the contents of the file.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Fred Ferrigno]

There is too a way to convert AVI/DivX/MPG to VCD and SVCD!

However, I see little need for VCD anymore. If you really, really, really need to see your illegal bootleg screeners on your TV, why not just get a video out card? If you must balk at the cost of a video out card, then why do you have a computer? a burner? a DVD player? VCD will die whenever they start releasing DivX--or better yet, MicroDVD--capable hardware players.

In any event, for all this time and effort we spend on this, we could just go buy a hardware DVD player and buy the titles legally.

--

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[cgadd]

Well, the VCD format is supported by most DVD players.

But you run into problems because many DVD players can't read CD-R discs. This is due to differences in the laser wavelengths.

The higher-end players often mention "dual laser" or "dual head", where they have two different lasers, one for DVD, and one for CD/CD-R.

Re:Circuit City?

[aenea]

No. It's just unfortunately named.

the reason

[gtx]

the reason i like divx ;-) is that it is in no way related to that shite proprietary DVD format that required you to hook the player up to the phone.

(russian accent)WE PISS ON BIG BROTHER!(/russian accent)

Wavelet Compression?

[Taos]

Has anybody heard of Wavelet compression? If the DivX guys really want to do something revolutionary, check out the theories behind this. There was a company at SIGGRAPH that showed off some awesome capabilities using this technique and the format blew the doors off of anything MPEG I've ever seen. They are relatively new theories and would probably be a chore to implement. However, the payoff would easily revolutionize desktop video.

Taos

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[Pope Slackman]

I kinda like '!nnovation' - I read it as 'NOT Innovation'...

--K
---

Re:It's use

[los furtive]

Ironicaly enough I first got it while surfing the net for pr0n.

http://www.awesome-movies.com was distributing it with their weekly movies months ago!

Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[VValdo]

I'm just a little confused. Is DivX software a pirated and hacked version of M$ software?

Or is it a pirated/hacked version of the MPEG group's softare? Or what?

ie, how "open" is it? How legal is it? (I mean the format/codec, etc. not the content that may be encoded)

W
-------------------

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[pen]

That appears to be true, until you try setting your virus scanner to scan all files, and not just by-extension. Then, you realize that it really slows things down.

Besides file extensions, Microsoft's software also ignores other file content indicators, such as MIME types, user-specified info, etc.

--

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[Frac]

it's hard to say it's "pirated", since it's free with the Media Player 6.x and 7.x (although I guess it is pirated since it doesn't come with the EULA).

It's definitely hacked. The rationale for DivX is that ever since AVIs have been disabled to use MS-MPEG4, DivX unlocks that hack (among other things), and renames it to a different FOURCC code, so the divx dll won't conflict with your Media Player codecs. That way, Microsoft can stealthy update your codecs all they want, but divx codecs will not be overwritten.

Of course the problem here is that you need to install the DivX codec in order to watch DivX, and that new tweaks in the MS-MPEG4 doens't get rolled in automatically (DivX updates are usually newer hacked versions of MS-MPEG4 codecs).

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Divx codec is just hacked version of Microsoft's MPEG4 codec. Main differences are support for AVI format that's lacking from released version of MS-MPEG4 codec and access to various controls like decoding quality and screen brightness that were hidden on original MS release. There's also high motion and low motion versions of Divx codecs that produce different quality and size of files when encoding movies. High motion is even older beta of same MS-MPEG4 codec. Divx package contains also WMA (Windows Media Audio) and MP3 codecs that are used to compress audio tracks of Divx AVI's. There's also other hacks of MS-MPEG4 codec floating arount. Try nAVI and SMR for start. All of these are illegal hex edited beta versions of same MS-MPEG4 codec. Some of them contain also other illegal software like Fraunhofer MP3 encoder.

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[jon_c]

It's definitely hacked. The rationale for DivX is that ever since AVIs have been disabled to use MS-MPEG4, DivX unlocks that hack (among other things), and renames it to a different FOURCC code, so the divx dll won't conflict with your Media Player codecs. That way, Microsoft can stealthy update your codecs all they want, but divx codecs will not be overwritten.

for those wondering what the FOURCC thing is It's "A Four-Character Code used to identify Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) chunks. A FOURCC is a 32-bit quantity represented as a sequence of one to four ASCII alphanumeric characters, padded on the right with blank characters. RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) is a specification used to define standard formats for multimedia files and to prevent compatibility problems that often occur when file-format definitions change over time. Because each piece of data in the file is identified by a standard header, an application that does not recognize a given data element can skip over the unknown information."

From MSDN. Bassicly multimedia formats are typically "layered" files, the RIFF format has each sublayer identified with a FOURCC, all this mean is that each sub part of the the file has a label that uses four charaters.. in the case of WAV it's actually WAV(space) or for your C guys,

char *four_cc = {'W', 'A', 'V', ' '};

Actually these days MS wants you to use a GUID for identifing the approiote codec (spelling.. bla!!). anyway, just a technical rant. In the past i've had to deal with AVI's. AVI's are just like video versions of WAV's. as in that they are codec independant media formats. WAV's are PCM RIFF files, they start with WAVE, but can tell the client what codec to use, thats why you've seen MP3 files with .wav extensions. and MPEG-4 videos in .AVI's, or really any codec.

I'm not sure but I think the only reason MS uses extensions like .asf and .asx is A: marketing, newer extensions=new (better) tech. B: work into a more propietery arena, plenty of programs can play .AVI, but how many can play .asf? only one Microsoft (brand) Media Player. actually anyone could write a .asf player. the freakin program is just a big (fat) ActiveX object. it even has a low level COM API if you want to get more into it.

The funny thing is that the old sk00l .AVI API is a LOT easyer to work with then the new sk00l .ASF (WMP4) API, .AVI actually has functions like GetFrame(), while the .ASF is more like PleaseAskForFrame(a, y, x, s,w ,er,) CanIPLEASEGetFrame(fuck, me, up, the goat, ass), FuckOffAndDie(arg), anyway, that's how I remember it, i think the actualy functions names are a little different.

btw: I'm a contracter at Microsoft Research, here we have something called a "Vitrual Kichen" it's a big 4 way live video confernce projected on the wall next to all the free pop. I spoke to the fellow who developed it, I was asking him about using ACM (Audio Compression Manager SDK) for MPEG compression, he told me that ya, it's a bitch, and that to "really" use it you need some magic (licence) key. he mailed me later with some code for a class that makes it easyer to work with, and the key... maybe I shouldn't have told yall that... oh well.

I better stop before i get modded down to OT..

late,
-Jon

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[Sir Frag-A-Lot]

I'm not sure but I think the only reason MS uses extensions like .asf and .asx is A: marketing, newer extensions=new (better) tech. B: work into a more propietery arena, plenty of programs can play

Actually the extensions are pretty interchangeable - try it yourself! Rename any .asf/.asx file to .avi or even .wav, and the Mediaplayer will still play them!
Amazingly the same isn't always true for the other direction, avi->asf/asx. Some Files only play sound, but don't show the video stream.

thomas k.

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[pen]

It's more due to the fact that Microsoft software generally checks the file type, regardless of the extension. Try the following:

• Rename a .jpeg to a .gif and then insert it into HTML via an IMG tag. Open it with Internet Explorer.
• Rename a .doc to an .rtf and then open it with Winword.

The latter, by the way, has caused a lot of grief from a security point of view, because virus scanners generally come (or came) with default settings that make them scan .doc, but not .rtf files. (Just embed some macros into the .doc, and then rename it.)

--

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[harmonica]

I'm not sure but I think the only reason MS uses extensions like .asf and .asx is A: marketing, newer extensions=new (better) tech. B: work into a more propietery arena, plenty of programs can play .AVI, but how many can play .asf? only one Microsoft (brand) Media Player. actually anyone could write a .asf player. the freakin program is just a big (fat) ActiveX object. it even has a low level COM API if you want to get more into it.

But one of the new things about ASF is that there is no more limitation imposed by 32-bit file size values (= no more 4 GB maximum size of a video file). And wasn't there some (pseudo) suggestion by MS to make ASF an open standard (back in '98)?

A question: What keeps MS from checking the FOURCC for DivX ;-) and refusing to play the video?! They can't be really happy about the hack.

One more question: Do you know about an ASF reference manual online? Microsoft did something like that for AVI, but I can't seem to find it for ASF.

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[MrBogus]

Microsoft might not be real happy about DivX, but they probaby aren't too unhappy about it either. After all, it has made their player #1 in the critical markets of porn and pirate movie delivery.

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[jon_c]

But one of the new things about ASF is that there is no more limitation imposed by 32-bit file size values

ya know I really wasn't aware of this and don't really understand why that would be true. If it was a file size that would be the choice of the FS be it FAT/FAT32/NTFS whatever. If it's streaming how would it really know how big the "file" is anyway? doesn't cnn have like 24 real time streaming or something?


A question: What keeps MS from checking the FOURCC for DivX ;-) and refusing to play the video?!

Cuz Microsoft isn't god. if you open a file in some "DivX" happy program it'll play. They could refuse it in Windows Media Player, but they arn't now.


more question: Do you know about an ASF reference manual online? Microsoft did something like that for AVI, but I can't seem to find it for ASF

hehe, ya nethier can I. What I do know is some guy wrote a program called "ASF Recorder", and judeging from the source code he figured it out pretty good. Id look at that before asking Microsoft to help you out.

-Jon

Re:Is divx *PIRATED* M$ software?

[harmonica]

Thanks, ASFRecorder was a very good hint! It comes with C source code that runs under Win32 and various Unices. I found its homepage to be here.

Viability of CD-Rs as a legitimate backup material

[Forkenhoppen]

I'm sorry to inform you of this, but CD-Rs weren't made for this sort of use. While the data can be stored temporarily, you're going to have a horrendous amount of trouble in 5+ years, whenever your CD-Rs become unreadable.

CD-Rs are made using an organic dye that will degrade after a certain period of time. This makes your CD-Rs a rather poor choice as a backup medium, considering that it has a short lifetime. And as far as storing Babylon 5 and Sliders episodes, I suspect that it won't work so well for that either, considering how often you'll probably wish to watch an episode.

If you're planning on remaking your entire backup library every 5 or so years, then go for it. Otherwise, I suggest using backup tapes or going with a commercial data-backup vendor solution. (Those DO exist, right..?)

James

Re:There's more of us than there are of you

[benrg]

Most of the algorhythms I play with only use 8 bits, so they would have to be some pretty dumb terrorists. :)

So you play around with encryption that can be trivially broken? How does that enhance people's privacy? It seems like it would just give naive users a false sense of security. I hope you don't plan on releasing your code.

My point is that one of these things (encryption) is really designed to enhance people's privacy while the other (the codec, at least at this point) is designed to take away intellectual property.

This kind of attitude makes me very sad. This attitude is why the MPAA is winning.

If this were a battle between the artists who create great movies and the pirates who would deprive them of their source of payment, I would side with the artists. But it is not about payment; it is about control. And it's not even about control by the artists; it's about control by the large movie studios. If they succeed in getting the U.S. government to grant them that control, then the studios' shareholders will benefit, and everyone else will suffer -- artists most of all.

If we do not have a free video codec, then we will have only a proprietary video codec, legally playable only using commercial players made by the big studios, or by companies who have signed a strict licensing agreement with them.

I don't know if "Divx Deux" will amount to anything; personally I'm more inclined to place my bets on the Ogg project. But someone needs to do it, and it needs to happen as quickly as possible, before MS MPEG-4 becomes too entrenched.

For more on this topic please read my essay on digital media and the DMCA.

Re:Another hack?

[Garbagehead]

AFAIK the source code to the M$ MPEG4 codec IS on the net... as well as the ISO source code. i dont think the M$ mpeg4 source code is meant to be on the net, but it (allegedly) is.

dyvx for linux.

[Synomymous Coward]

seems like their website is either slashdotted or not working properly. Anyone know an alternative site where I can download it ?

Re:dyvx for linux.

[NumberSyx]

The main link for DivX is here. There is a Linux player available, but a better one can be found here. The first one plays very badly on my Duron 600, while the second one has much lower hardware requirements and works very nicely. Both players work the same way, they use the DLL loader from the Wine Project to load the Codec, and they both require you to have the Windows binaries.

Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

ISO MPEG 4 Source Code

[AftanGustur]

Mpeg 4 is a ISO standard, and as with all of those standards you can get sourcecode for a working program (Codec in this instance).

Here we go: All the sourcecode you need to write your own DivX :-)

And yes that includes the Microsoft sourcecode.
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

Death to Pronounciation

[OlympicSponsor]

People who put punctuation in their product names ("DivX ;-)", ":CueCat:", "!nnovation") should be shot.
--

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[pallex]

DividePeriod. Its a cool website, full of IT related stuff. I`d give you the URL, but i dont have it to hand.

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[pallex]

Isnt TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsPonce partly to blame for this?

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[revengance]

How about names like says C#?? or even C++?

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[enneff]

That should read:

for (DivX ;-)) = ...

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[chiz]

I believe they added the ;-) to the name so that people wouldn't confuse it with DivX, the failed DVD rental scheme.

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[willfe]

Uuuuh....... /. Anyone? What is this "/." thing? I read "Slashdot", as the name at top-left shows (those big letters above "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.").

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[smash_phase]

Exactly, even Creative with it's "SB Live!"...

Now everyone thinks I'm a Creative freak, which
I might be, anyway...

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[Anonymous Coward]

People who put punctuation in their product names ("DivX ;-)", ":CueCat:", "!nnovation") should be shot.

Uuuuh.......

/. Anyone?

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an objective test:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int DivX ;-);
for (DivX ;-) = 1; DivX ;-) <= 10; DivX ;-)++)
printf("Hello world\n");
}

If this doesn't compile, then you need to go back to the drawing board and design a new name.

Re:Death to Pronounciation

[aardvarkjoe]

No kidding. "Yahoo!" and such are annoying enough. ("This morning, Yahoo! announced that they are the web search engine of choice for 90% of all Arabian Llama breeders." Wait, This Morning, Yahoo! isn't a full sentence ... oh, right, it's just a 'clever' name.)

Then, we have such abominations as :CueCat: and so forth (I would come up with some new ones, but can't think of any off hand.) I suppose that at least they can't be mistaken for actual punctuation, but it's still extremely difficult to read. And I bet that bunches of Perl scripts throw up or get confused when trying to parse text with such crap.

But "DivX ;-)" really has to be the worst one yet. It's completely impossible to read past without spasming mentally for a moment. I really hope that none of the corporate idiots pick up on this. I really don't want my computer to have a logo on it that says "e :-)", or a "Dry ^-^ Cleaners" on the way to work, or a law firm named "!@#$% %$#@!" advertising that they can help you rip off insurance companies.

Actually...

[OlympicSponsor]

The original name (yes, there is one) that I stole that example from had an upside-down !. No, it wasn't a lower-case "i", it was an upside-down !.
--

(Super) Video CD

[crow]

Well, there's Video CD and Super Video CD.

Both are essentially just an MPEG on a CD.

Video CD uses a fixed bitrate so that it plays at the same speed as a standard audio CD. Hence, you can get 74 or 80 minutes per CD-R. I believe that it's MPEG-1. It's been around for a while, and is quite popular in the Far East.

Super Video CD uses a higher and variable bitrate, so you only get 35-45 minutes per CD. If you buy the 80-minute CD-Rs, then it should be fine for archiving TV shows (a one-hour episond minus comercials tends to run 42 or 43 minutes). Obviously, this is higher quality than standard Video CD, and I think it uses MPEG-2.

My DVD player supports both formats, though most only support the original Video CDs, as that has been around much longer. (I have the Raite DVD/CD/MP3 player, purchased for $150-ish at Egghead.com.)

Now if I could get some good Super Video CD authoring software under Linux, I would be set!

Re:(Super) Video CD

[64.28.67.48]

I thought of doing the VideoCD thing, but I was looking at investing money for new CD mastering software for making VideoCDs, and a DVD player that supports VideoCD. The downside was that the quality is about the same as VHS or worse (though Super VideoCD is better), so using it to master from was questionable, and the max of 45 min per CD was not ideal. I decided to save the money until better technology is available.

-------------

Re:It's use

[Stonehand]

Makes sense, I guess.

DVDs seem to suffice for 2-hour movies right now, so a new codec probably matters most for movies sent over the network.

And those are... what --

* movie trailers
* short-and-strange movies (such as http://www.myboot.com/movies.html)
* demos (both in the sense of product and technical-competition)
* pirated H'wood movies for those with REALLY high bandwidth (a DVD's capacity is, what, in the 4+ GB range, no? So even with the fastest DSL this would take a while...)
* porn

and I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that the last category has the greatest traffic of 'em all.

But anybody who wants to transfer a 2+-hour DVD probably will be REALLY interested in a good space-efficient codec, while those dealing in short clips need not care that much...

Then don't put your name on it

[sips]

Then it works well.

Let's sue sips....hmmm well send the lawyers to rural Siberia and make him pay!

If you have something objectionable you don't tell them where you live.

Re:It's use

[Alioth]

Firstly, there's 409: The Movie (someone else posted a link to this already - I don't have it to hand). If you watch 409 then look at the size of the file, you'll have to agree that DivX is awesome.

I personally want to use DivX for my camcorder. I'm not putting anything I tape onto VHS it's all going straight onto my computer - using the Firewire link on my Sony camcorder and some inexpensive software, I can store my home video in a number of formats: MPEG-2 so I can use my Dxr-3 card to watch them on a TV, or if I want to give the video to a friend, I can get a hell of a lot of good quality video on a CD-ROM if I turn it into DivX. Or even email shorter ones.

And this means I'm not constrained by PAL-vs-NTSC either (which is an issue for me, since I have lots of friends who are in PAL countries). If I send them a CD-ROM of stuff DivX'd instead of on VHS, they can still watch it.

Re:Where does it state that it will be free?

[pallex]

"Among all the penis bird postings, perhaps one
can ask a serious question: "

Or you can browse at 1, or 2. I`ve not seen one for weeks!

Re:Great news

[revengance]

MPEG-4 uses wavelets? That's news to me. The last I know, they are still using DCT. And that is after the last last last last I know when they were still considering matching pursuits for their very low bitrate core.

TV rec.

[cookieman]

Hi!
Just for the record, I use this codec to record TV movies.
The Codec is pretty cool. I'm very satisfied with it, but it wouldn't hurt upgrading my little CPU :)
Is that pirating right ? I tought so....

Re:Death to Pronounciation - d'oh!

[enneff]

arrgh! What the fuck am I smoking. It was right the first time.

Re:What a wonderful world...

[enneff]

Well, I'm glad you couldn't think of any legitimate uses for it.

Well, considering that the single biggest use for the "DivX ;-)" codec is video piracy, I'd say that slashdot is justified in making a statement like that.

Hell, I find it refreshing to see slashdot telling it like it is. You're being naive if you believe that the biggest single purpose of DivX is for piracy.

What a wonderful world...

[MenTaLguY]

...a high-quality MPEG4 codec used quite heavily by DVD pirates to recompress movies...

Well, I'm glad you couldn't think of any legitimate uses for it.

Maybe we should make it illegal to write or distribute CODECs without appropriate copy protection facilities?

In practice, this means cryptographically signed drivers, with the OS under the control of a single vendor who will honor the wishes of the MPAA/RIAA ... which is just what Microsoft does in W2K. "copy-protected" content can't be used with unsigned drivers.

Realistically, though, people are going to manage to get copy-protected content out somehow.

This means that it will also eventually be necessary to disallow drivers from displaying/rendering content that is not digitally signed by an approved content provider (who can presumably be trusted not to distribute pirated content).

With sufficient legal protection and penalties (e.g. making the use of operating environments that cannot effectively implement these protections illegal (e.g. Linux and any pure Open Source OS)), this will effectively eliminate most piracy.

Thank you, Slashdot, for providing one more implicit argument for such a world.

And so what if it is?

[Pope Slackman]

A CODEC is just a tool.
So what if it can be used to illegally distribute video?
I can just as easily use it to compress and distribute content *I* created.

If I smack a trick with my crowbar because he beat up
one of my ho's, did the crowbar manufacturer assualt the trick? No. I did.
Likewise, if Bobby W4r3z D00d rips his parent's DVDs,
and uses DivX to encode them, did the DivX people violate copyright? No. Bobby did.

--K
I better get an extra karma point for the pimp analogy.
---

Re:And so what if it is?

[wolf-]

I use the Divx codec to encode movies of my kids to send to family. Makes them smaller, cleaner and thus easier to distribute.

Why is it hard to believe?

[MfA]

Actually I think its amazing how well MPEG manages to keep up with progress given the amount of delay inherent in the standard process.

No, not necessarily

[SamCostello]

As Project Mayo will readily admit, DivX ;-) is mostly used for piracy these days, but their goal is to be something a lot more than that. There was an article a while back in the WSJ about this, and I also did one not too long ago (which you can find here, if you want). While DivX ;-) is just a piracy tool now, thanks to its MPEG roots, it's close to the up-coming digital television broadcast format. If what PM says is true, we ought to expect to see more of DivX ;-) on screens other than PC screens. Sam

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[JanKotz]

The things you see on store shelves are ancient technology -- set-top consumer electronics moe at the pace of Debian.

If you want cutting edge technology, you need a PC that will fit in with the home entertainment center. Give it a Duron/Celeron, 64MB RAM, and a motherboard with IDE RAID -- stripe up four IDE drives for up to 300GB of MP3 and video storage, and run it through a video card with TV out to run it on your TV. A remote control interface would be nice, too, and once you lap on a modem/NIC to let that puppy download software updates, programming info, and new files from the LAN/Internet, it is then that you would have the ultimate console/TiVo/MP3 jukebox.

All the hardware _and_ software to do that is available NOW, but only for Windows. Why?
--

Re:Pirating

[substrate]

There's reasons other than pirating movies for good CODECs. For instance I'd love to be able to download sequences from my digital camcorder, encode them and put them on the web for friends and family.

A C compiler can be said to aid and abet copywrite violation, so can a XEROX machine. They've both got legitimate purposes.

Re:It's not open source if it involves MPEG patent

[SpinyNorman]

That all applies equally well for MPEG-2, but that hasn't stopped that "open source" libraries and players such as libmpeg3 and xmovie.

It seems that the MPEG video patents are currently (in paractice) being treated as "pay for commercial use, free for individual use".

I don't really understand the point of an "open source" MPEG-4 implementation, since there used to be a freely available implementation from the MPEG-4 industry forum, also at first glance that appears to have been removed. Althought the imlpementation was free of any licencing, you'd still have to liceence the patents to be able to *use* it, as would be the case for any other implementation (since the patents are believed to be broad enough to cover ANY implementation).

http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4 .htm

http://www.m4if.org/

There's more of us than there are of you

[MfA]

Why? You would rather Slashdot would be hypocritical and ignore the fact that the majority of its readers do in fact pirate software? (including mp3's&movies)

That crypto algorythm of yours could turn out to have helped terrorists plan a bombing raid unchecked, costing the lives of masses of people. Better video compression is not inherently bad, it does facilitate pirating... but then so does wideband.

Re:There's more of us than there are of you

[Fervent]

So you play around with encryption that can be trivially broken? How does that enhance people's privacy? It seems like it would just give naive users a false sense of security. I hope you don't plan on releasing your code.

Have you ever hacked out an encryption algorhythm? It can be inordinately complex. DES with 8-bits (my version that I call sDES -- simple DES) works with 4 S-boxes to manipulate the bits. Regular 64-bit DES works with something close to 32. That's 32 matrices of code that needs to be computed exactly correct -- one typo and the thing falls apart.

I have released my code (as I do with all my programs). An 8-bit code amounts to a single letter of encryption: it's essentially a substitution cipher.

The point of releasing it, however, is academic. My code is modularized so that if you wanted to release something with stronger encryption all you would have to do is hack out those matricies. As it stands right now, sDES can be broken quickly but also encrypts things extremely fast. I was able to encrypt all of /bin/local in a little under 2 seconds -- on a Pentium 100 (my laptop). It's not amazing security, but it gets the job done for simple tasks.

If this were a battle between the artists who create great movies and the pirates who would deprive them of their source of payment, I would side with the artists. But it is not about payment; it is about control. And it's not even about control by the artists; it's about control by the large movie studios.

See, but there's a flaw in your thinking. By pirating movies you hurt not only the studios but the artists themselves -- you take away money from both.

It's akin to laying down a smart bomb that kills not only the military of the enemy, but also several thousand ordinary citizens.

Unless you can find a way for artists to be compensated -- and I mean all artists in a motion picture; cast, crew, scriptwriters, stuntpeople, catering, etc -- then your idea fails.

Re:There's more of us than there are of you

[Fervent]

Most of the algorhythms I play with only use 8 bits, so they would have to be some pretty dumb terrorists. :)

My point is that one of these things (encryption) is really designed to enhance people's privacy while the other (the codec, at least at this point) is designed to take away intellectual property.

Re:What a wonderful world... fuck!

[enneff]

You're being naive if you believe that the biggest single purpose of DivX is for piracy.

s/is/isn't

Another lesson, use the preview button.

Re:Viability of CD-Rs as a legitimate backup mater

[Mitaphane]

I'm sorry to inform you of this, but CD-Rs weren't made for this sort of use. While the data can be stored temporarily, you're going to have a horrendous amount of trouble in 5+ years, whenever your CD-Rs become unreadable.

I'm just curious where you got your information. Most things I've read about the durability of CD-R's put their lifespan 10-20 years. Besides 5 years down the road(or less), Hard Drives will reaching the TB range and DVD-Burners are going as cheap as CD-Burners. CD-R's will be phased out by new technology long before they degrade to the point where they are unreadable.

If you're planning on remaking your entire backup library every 5 or so years, then go for it. Otherwise, I suggest using backup tapes or going with a commercial data-backup vendor solution. (Those DO exist, right..?)

I don't like the idea of using tape drives to back up data. They're usually based on propritery(sp?) technology. What happens if the company that makes the tape drive goes out of business? You're screwed...That's not going to happen with CD-ROM drives.Plus it's much easier to port and of your archive data to anyone's computer.

Re:It's use

[ReCoder]

Last year I got addicted to the Futurama (cartoon series from Fox), but then had to move back to russia. I missed it until I found DivX episodes on the Net. Now the whole office spends the lunchtime laughing at the new episode. Does it count as actual use?
--
Media Exchange

Linux link doen't work

[wowbagger]

Has anybody else noticed that the alleged Latest Linux software link on the DiVX;^) page is a 404?

Re:Linux link doen't work

[NumberSyx]

Another better player can be found here. It doesn't have a nice pretty interface like the other one, but it has a lower hardware requirement and plays movies smoothers.

Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

Re:Viability of CD-Rs as a legitimate backup mater

[Forkenhoppen]

I'm just curious where you got your information. Most things I've read about the durability of CD-R's put their lifespan 10-20 years.

These figures are the results of simulated tests on the technology whenever it first came out. Simulated means that no one really knows for sure.

Besides, I suspect that, like all products' breakdown cycles, the amount it breaks down is represented logarithmically. Since CD-Rs need practically every bit of information, a CD-R will only last as long as it's weakest link. Which, of course, can easily be found out by looking at the specs. I can't remember off of the top of my head, but I suspect that they were factoring in the error correction as well, so your product will probably start to go bad before those 10-20 years are up.

Additionally, you have to ask yourself how many people out there will purchase brand-name CD-Rs? Personally, I've been going with bulk CD-Rs for a while now. Which means that I expect to have a high faulty-CD-R turnover rate. Your mileage will probably be different.

Besides 5 years down the road(or less), Hard Drives will reaching the TB range and DVD-Burners are going as cheap as CD-Burners. CD-R's will be phased out by new technology long before they degrade to the point where they are unreadable.

True. But whenever that time comes, I doubt a lot of people will remember to move forward to a new format. Since DVD-ROM technology's backwards compatible with CD-ROM technology, I suspect a lot of regular users won't figure it out until it's too late.

James

Re:Am I the only one that hates DIVX ??

[Alley Viper]

In what was one of the most memorable quotes to come out of that media experiment called Survivor: "In my hood, that's what we call a sore loser." - Gervase

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Tank Abbott]

Uh.. I read the article at tomshardware.com too and I'm afraid Doctor Tom conveniently left out the part of the process where you have to use DeCSS to decrypt the .vob files off of a typical commercial DVD. I've been tinkering around with DivX;) for a while now and I've found that several DeCSS workalike programs (all equally illegal) have sprung up, including a hacked version of Flask MPEG called "Flask MPEG + DeCSS" (should be self-explanatory). Contrary to the impression one got from reading Tom's half-assed (but well meant) how-to, encoding a *high quality* DivX movie requires a *lot* of effort and skill, and the real pros use a lot more tools than just Flask MPEG (e.g. dvd2mpeg, virtualdub, etc.). *Watching* DivX .avi's though, is quite easy: all you have to do is download the DivX codec, double-click on it, and BAM! your Windows Media Player is transformed into Pirated Media Player. Still thinking that piracy doesn't exist because the files are too big to download? Go check out the treasure trove of DivX movies available via Scour Exchange. I'm a big fan of your sacred gnutella too, and I ain't using it to swap PGP love notes with oppressed dissidents in Tibet or whatever the hell slashbots think its for!!! BTW, I think its funny how slashdotters really don't want to accept the fact that DeCSS as it really exists (its a Win32 executable you idiots!) actually *is* a piracy tool, and not some kind of martyred open-source poster child. All these linux geeks wearing DeCSS T-shirts are like poor dumb Jane Fonda sitting on top of a North Vietnamese tank in back in the 60's - suckers spreading propaganda for criminals! Say it ain't so? Then where the hell is this Linux DVD player that was supposed to materialize once the open-sourcerers got a hold of DeCSS? LiViD you say? Check out their website - last time I looked they didn't have squat that a human could use for software, just a bunch of half-baked libs and snapshots and alphas/betas and CVS crap. They've had *months* man! If you want to watch DVDs without M$ tainting your box your best bet is to download the nifty QNX Real Time Development Platform or whatever its called; its "free" but it ain't exactly opensource. If anyone knows how they managed to slip a free (as in beer) DVD player into QNX, I'd love to know. Once again the joke is on all those linux geeks who hacked their I-Opener to put linux on it. They threw the baby out with the bathwater! They would have been better served tossing the I-Opener toy in the trash and hacking the sweet QNX OS instead! It's tight, fast, stable and its got web browser, email, editor, dev tools, X-windows compatibility, music and video players.... You can download the whole QNX .iso and burn it in a jiffy - it's only ~100MB. Who's got the "bloatware" now Linus? Oops this is turning into a rant...note to self: no more bloody marys when posting to slashdot..

Why not use Bink?

[bags]

It's a free, legal player / encoder with much better-than-dvd compression at the same quality with sixteen available compression schemes. And, on my computer, it plays much faster than the one-frame-in-twenty-seconds DivX ;-).

See http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm

Re:As I said...

[jovlinger]

the motivating idea behind 3d compression being that motion in movies tends to be periodic (people talking, walking, f*cking..., wheels turning) the time relationship should be quite rewarding, as long as the window is large (long?) enough.

But why do you say that wavelets could not be plugged in? The basic steps of transform, quantize, untransform remain the same, no? Wavelets just have more appealing behavior under the rather extreme quantification (quanitization? same word?) needed for low bit rate.

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[crow]

Most of what you describe could be done with Linux. The only problem is the real-time MPEG compression of the video-in stream. Here the issue is that the hardware MPEG encoders use propreitary APIs, and they haven't released the specs.

Perhaps they can't release the specs because their hardware also handles CSS or something like that. Perhaps they're just being paranoid about their intelectual property.

Motion compensation

[MfA]

Is what enabled the truly amazing compression ratio's in the first place... wavelet versus dft/dct is a lesser issue IMO.

There is no straightforward way to combine wavelets with motion compensation, thats the real problem. Although theres a lot of work been done and being done on it, wavelets are not a new theory.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[d.valued]

This is why the MPAA won the first round. This is what DeCSS.exe (Yes, the Win32 program, not the LiViD player) is being used for. It is certainly possible to transfer enough of a DVD to a 650 MB CD-ROM using this technology. Yes I know about making backups, about control over media, etc etc but you have to admit this does make pirating movies easier (much easier than image-copying DVDs with CSS in tact). I guess the one thing stopping this from taking solid root is that on a 56kbps connection it would take, like oh... FOREVER to download or upload any file that side. DSL runs you 1/2 to 1/4 of forever, and a T1 brings it to a day and a half. (T3 makes it 8 hours.) Without fat pipe, the debate over piracy is inherently limited to those who use the mails to send copies to each other, and that may violate even more laws. As far as I care, I make backups on gold-backed CD-R's for preservation and to make sure that I CAN see the damned thing whenever and wherever I choose. (I am not condoning or saying I do do that, mind you :) )

Compression Ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

What compression ratio is need to convert an Idaho baking potato into a Yukon Gold?

Thanks in advance,

Juan Epstein

Re:Great news

[kazzuya]

For TiVO you need real time compression and I'm afraid it won't be as good as those DVD converted into MPEG4.
The format seems very confusing but I think it basically uses Wavelets.. which usually processes big blocks (or the whole image) as one big matrix, no 8x8 decomposition like MPEG 1/2. This sounds like a problem for HW compression.. it's going to need a fairly big memory support and maybe variable pitch cache memory (I think Pentium III can do that already (?)). In any case, video compression and real-time video compression can be quite different.

My 2 DCTs.

Already done.

[Andy Dodd]

IIRC, one of the big reasons for MPEG-4's great performance is the fact that it uses wavelet compression.

I could be wrong, tho.

Re: What DviX is really used for

[Sloppy]

Slashdot is right. Even if DivX isn't there yet, something will eventually come along that makes DVD piracy feasible. It is totally inevitable. 50 years from now, people will laugh at you when you say that you had enough time to go to the fridge to get a beer in the time that it took 100 GB to download.

I think the whole DVD-piracy-is-not-feasible arguement was introduced by pro-MPAA people in order to get pro-DeCSS people to rely on an extremely weak strawman argument. Piracy is feasible or soon will be. The real question is this: does the feasibility of piracy mean that everyone who wants to exercise their fair use rights is going to commit piracy? I bet I could commit an untracable murder and get away with it, but that doesn't mean I'm a murderer. Touretzky was preaching to the people who think can==will. Those people aren't worth preaching to.

---

Yes!

[BLKMGK]

I don't even own a DVD player on my computer so my use of this has been left to compressing video I've gotten elsewhere. I use Flask to do it and while it takes some tinkering and I still don't 100% understand all of it I DO manage to shrink file sizes and retain quality.

Think of it as PKZip\Tar for video and you can see the potential. I run a modem at home so anything that can be done to shrink file size is a blessing to me!

Re:Another hack?

[davidu]

The "Divx Deux" codec is a new M$ free codec. It is in the works and in testing now. Keep checking the site for more updates. If you are a MPEG4 codec buff, get involved!

From the site:

What is DivX ;-) Deux? It is the next generation of DivX ;-), that is what. We are working hard to make DivX ;-) Deux maintain the high standards DivX ;-) has set while optimizing the codec so that the things you use it for the most are greatly improved.

-Davidu

Re:Pirating

[Sloppy]

But if my work entailed illegal copyright infringement, how could I feel good about it?

You couldn't feel good about it. But developing video codecs doesn't entail copyright infringement. It is something with many uses, copyright infringement being only one of them.

I write business software for a living. It is pretty much a sure thing that someone, somewhere, has cashed a check that was printed by my software, and then used the money to commit some crime. That doesn't mean I lose sleep at night over it, any more than the maker of wrenches loses sleep that someone might use his wrench to sabotage someone else's brakes.

It kinda all goes back to the "guns don't kill people; people kill people" argument.

---

sigh

[philipm]

don't you people know that when you buy a movie you are buying the movie. At that point you can do anything you want with the movie. Copy it, give it to your friends, burn it in effigy whatever.

Jeez you losers. Don't you understand the concept of holding something in your hands and defending any other loser's right to bother you about it?

Re:sigh

[RGRistroph]

Damn. Somebody understands fair use! On slashdot ! Amazing. Normally even the rabid anti-corporate types are admitting "law breaking" by copying and sharing music files and whatnot.

The rough purpose of the fair use law is to limit the copyright privileges to having a monopoly and control of the commercial exploitation of the work. Congress didn't want to take away our right to make copies of music and video; they only chose to restrict our selling or other commercial exploitation of the works.

This kind of massive file sharing that napster makes possible, and hopefully this codec and faster connections will make possible with video, is actually legal as long as you don't receive any compensation.

You don't have to trust me on this. If you are smart enough to read slashdot, then you are smart enough to go here and download Title 17 of the US code and read it for yourself. It's kind of thick. I printed my copy out and left it in the bathroom, and read a few pages everytime I took a shit. I read it carefully and marked all over it the interesting parts, but I never found where it said that non-commercial uncompensated duplication and distribution of music or video was illegal.

You see, Congress wanted to make very sure that copyright was not an ability to control how people used things. They didn't want the copyright holders to be able to sell one copy for listening in the car and another copy for listening in the house and special copy for listening on weekends. (Which is exactly what the MPAA, the RIAA, and other big copyright holders dream of.) If Congress had wanted to do that, they could have written it into the law; where is it ?

Of course, this same principle of non-money-making copies being normal use of the medium you purchased also extends to software. Holy Shit! you say. Can I make a copy of that windows NT disk at work and install it on my machine at home ? As long as you are not using that machine to do consulting, work from home, or anything beyound home "hobbiest" type use, yes. (I'd advise against it. There are much better hobbiest OSs.)

But the big copyright holders of programs had a massively successful campaign to convince the average slashbot that this was illegal. Remember all those ads in magazines and posters in school computer clusters in the '80s ? They managed to shame huge numbers of people into buying things they didn't need to. The 700 club, usenet get rich yesterday schemes, Scientology, Albanian pyramid schemes, the Russian bailout . . . it all pales in compairison to the anti-piracy campaign.

The RIAA and MPAA are going for a repeat move on their copyright material. Ironically, inspite of the Jon Katzian "the world will change because small people have a voice on slashdot" theory, all you automatons just help them out by parroting Hollywood's false legal propaganda.

It just goes to show that you can give everybody a voice on the internet, and they'll still just repeat what they hear in TV commercials.

Re:Precedent seen with strong crypto

[FreeUser]

Perhaps it will evolve in the way another package did in regard to strong encryption. (sorry, it's been a while so I don't recall exactly which one. Maybe Eudora.)

The "Package" you are thinking of is the export version of Netscape, to which strong encryption can be patched by downloading and running the internationally developed (and availabel) Fortify program.

Ob DivX Deux: I have no intention of using it for illegal purposes. I want to record episodes of my favorite TV shows (Babylon 5, Sliders, etc.) and store them in a high quality compressed format using my CDR and cheap CDR blanks. I want to do the same for home videos I have made, and a couple of small movie projects I'm working on.

All of this is legal, legitimate, and exactly what the DVD Forum and the MPAA wish to prevent.

Re:It's use

[wolf-]

Thos "4 gigs" include multiple language tracks, trailers, extras. When you actually get down to it, most DVDs only include maybe 2 gigs of audio/video data relevent to me (an english speaking viewer). Cut your bitrate on audio and video a bit, compress it, and your 2 gig movie is now down to 600 megs or so using divx and mp3. The MPAA needs to spend more time "innovating" rather than suing their way to success.

Re:Wavelet Compression? - fractals, too

[dwhite21787]

About 10 years ago, as wavelets were a buzzword, fractal compression got a share of the spotlight. Michael Barnsley - author of several papers and books - brought a fractal video demo by, and it was impressive. Unfortunately, I can't remember the details.

Anywho, you can find a good primer at the Waterloo Fractal Compression Project, including links off to Barnsley's new company and some other good stuff.

Re:Circuit City?

[ahuimanu]

Had I of been hear for the 18 times this has been iterated, then I would be worthy of your vitriol. Thank you for your measured thoughts and astute information. -A

Re:Circuit City?

[ahuimanu]

Oops, sorry that should be 'here' maybe in some ways I am a dumbass -A

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Troed]

Blablabla.

My computer isn't in the same room as my home-cinema equipment

I don't want to hear my computer when watching movies

My DVD-player produces a _lot_ better picture and sound quality than cheap TV-out cards (and even more expensive ones)

Re:It's use

[h4x0r-3l337]

I guess you also download your music off the net without paying, because it's really not good enough to pay for?

An obvious question that comes to mind: if it's so bad, why even watch/listen to it?

Motion compensation in 3D (== time)

[jovlinger]

'course there is a way to combine wavelets and motion compensation.

My understanding of how video codecs work is that there is basically a two step process: 1) you try to simplify each frame by extracting information out of it that refers to historical data, 2) you compress the rest as graphics. The intent being that compressing the difference will be more efficient than compressing each frame anew. Makes sense, no?

so 1) is where motion compensation comes in
and 2) is where wavelets come in.

A very simple codec might be to simply subtract each frame from the preceeding one (which means that unchanging areas are black) and compress the results with jpg. More advanced systems might split the frame up into segments and do a transformation (== motion compensation / rotation) on each segment before subtraction and compression.

Now for my question: the segmentation can be very hard to get right - exhaustive search being time consuming and all that. Is anyone doing it in the time domain as well, so that not only is the previous frame searched for a good match, but perhaps the last 30 or so. If the video is very flashy (think mtv), this might work quite well.

discuss.

Re:And all this...

[wolf-]

Love it when you carma whores never even read the articles before posting. There was a release of Divx that worked with xmp. (um, thats a linux movie player)

DivX Survey - Results

[thm-1]

The german research institute MediaTransfer (http://b2b.mediatransfer.com) released a study regarding potential and user acceptance of DivX. Some results can be found under: http://www.welt.de/daten/2000/09/26/0926hw193055.h tx its in german, so ask the babelfish...

No, it's going to give us digital VCRs

[roystgnr]

I've already got a 17" TV by adding a $50
Hauppage card to my computer. Give me the right
video compression codec, and for no extra charge
my CD-R is now a digital VCR. As someone who's
had a dozen VHS tapes wear out on him (and who no longer has a VHS recorder), I think that's a good thing, and it's certainly legal.

Re:It's use

[Trevor Goodchild]

Every day when I come home from work I hit alt.binaries.x-files, and if there's something new up I'll pull it while eating dinner and then watch it. These are usually in mpeg format. BUT... if I've already seen the episode that's up I'll try .movies, .multimedia, and a couple others, looking for something vaguely interesting that I otherwise wouldn't be willing to pay for. About 1/2 of this stuff is DivX, which works out to me watching a DivX file about once a week.

And before somebody jumps my shit for doing this (I am posting logged in, after all), if I felt the stuff I watch was worth paying for then I already would have paid for it by buying the DVD and/or going to the theatre. Slightly twisted logic, perhaps, but you'd be hard pressed to prove that I'm taking money out of anyone's pocket.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Torin_1]

This is why the MPAA won the first round. This is what DeCSS.exe (Yes, the Win32 program, not the LiViD player) is being used for. It is certainly possible to transfer enough of a DVD to a 650 MB CD-ROM using this technology.

Who says that DeCSS is being used for this? I read Tom's Hardware guide to doing this, and it didn't mention needing DeCSS.exe at all, here is all you needed:

PC system with DVD-ROM drive (country code perhaps enabled)

Processor from 450 MHz, because of high computer power requirements

Windows 98 or Windows 2000

Flask Mpeg and Divx software codec

This really doens't have much to do with DeCSS, its showing us the actual way to pirate a DVD without it, which I would say most of the people out there who post these movies on the net are doing, using DiVX to get it down to a 600mb or so file. A 600mb file can pretty easily be downloaded even on a 56k modem, just use RAR and put them in 10mb chunks, it'll come down eventually. Is this going to stop people from buying movies? I really doubt it. I rent DVD movies all the time, I buy them a lot too, I have probably 20 movies on dvd, I have a DSL line to that I can get these movies pretty quickly, but it doens't compare to going out and buying them on a real disk, with Dolby Digital sound and the nice picture quality that DVD's provide. Will this stop people from renting movies, I doubt that too, just sit outside of your local movie rental shop, I know mine must make bank every day, they rent movies all the time. Its much more convienent then downloading a movie and watching it on your pc. It may make pirating movies much easier, but the cd burner made copying cds bit for bit much easier too, but musicians are still in buisness. Heck a computer made all this much easier, but as you can tell, there are tons of other reasons to use a computer, so lets not try to get them banned as well...

Re:It's use

[jandrese]

Well, it's a great way to distribute Fansubbed Anime (the kind that you are not allowed to sell, but rather distribute freely). With Divx you avoid all of the hassles of mailing videotapes from here to kingdom come, and you avoid the generation lossage that plagues the fansubber community (just try to watch a fourth of fifth generation VHS tape).

Of course fansubbing has always been kind of a legal grey area, so it is quite possible that even that is breaking the law. Of course it's basically impossible to get any sort of entertainment anymore without breaking the law or sticking to the very expensive, no talent, bring-me-your-money sheep mass media.

Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. -- I can't remember who said this.

Ogg project has an embryonic codec, called Tarkin.

[Svartalf]

And 3D wavelet transforms are what the codec supposedly uses. It's promising, but they're trying to put the polish on Vorbis before moving to doing serious Tarkin development.

Join this project at your own peril

[Froid]

I don't want to come off as chicken little here, but....

Be sure of one thing: the MPAA is in bed with Congress and the Federal Government on the issue of preserving a near monopoly on the dissemination of copyrighted works in this country (US). Anyone who visibly participates in a movement or project that threatens this plutocratic dominance will be under severe scrutiny at all levels. Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, and John Lennon had entire reams of paper in their FBI files. What makes you think Linus Torvalds doesn't? And what makes you think that if you're the next Linus Torvalds, that you won't either?

Be very careful when pissing off people with power. The modern State exists for the purpose of inflicting deliberate pain upon a select minority whose very existence runs contrary to the governing principles of the majority. Are you willing to be that martyr?

Re:Join this project at your own peril

[crulx]

Are you willing to be that martyr?
I believe that I speak for anyone who truly cares about freedom when I say,

Yes.

You see, if we all would freely give our lives for the cause of freedom and liberty, then none of us would have to. What I have to ask you is, what would have to happen to get you to preserve liberty and freedom with your life?
----
crulx@iaxs.net
---
I have a user id of 3223.
Everything I say should be modded up to a +5.

Where does it state that it will be free?

[GauteL]

Among all the penis bird postings, perhaps one
can ask a serious question:
Where does it state that it will be free?
And is it free speech or free beer?

I can find some references to them asking for people experienced with OSS to join them, but it does not say explicitly that it is to be OS-software.
DivX ;) is free beer, if the nextgen is supposed to be free speech, why not open DivX ;) right now?

mpeg4

[clinko]

So What is mpeg4? Is it a standard? Is it divx? Is it this?

Great news

[John Jorsett]

I love efforts like this. My ambition is to build a TiVo-like unit one day, except with some of the features that TiVo isn't ever going to have (at least, that's what TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay says in this article on Salon.com), like commercial-skip. A good compression scheme will be an important part of the job.

Re:Great news

[kazzuya]

You can't really achieve so much compression with DCT. The low bitrate MPEG4 I saw looked pretty bad but they didn't show any blocking artifacts typical of the DCT compression. I'm almost sure it uses Wavelets.. I don't know which kind though.

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[64.28.67.48]

That's a DVD-RAM, not DVD-R (they are different check out http://www.mpeglabs.com/dvd/dvdrecord/dvd-r.htm). And while you can do MPEG-2 editing, and even save a MPEG-2 file, actually authoring a DVD is another story (check out https://www.proh.com/order-secure.shtml for some idea of what the drives and authoring software cost). You're right, though, that at this point, it's not such a bad deal, other than DVD-authoring -- MPEG2 is still great for archiving, as long as you have a MPEG2 decoder to output the video to tape/monitor. DVD-RAM disks are kind of expensive, but so were CD-R's.

-------------

What kind of moron...

[Enoch Root]

...includes a smiley in his product name? And what kind of moron expects everyone to take such a product seriously?

Re:What kind of moron...

[John Jorsett]

I think naming the new technology after a defunct one qualifies as a hanging offense. When I first heard of DivX I went looking for more info on it, and all I could locate at the time was stuff pertaining to the failed digital video distribution scheme that was the original DivX. Arrgh. At least with a smiley added it's clear that it's the new one.

Re:What kind of moron...

[Mike1024]

Hey,

And what kind of moron expects everyone to take such a product seriously?

Whilst I'll admit that, had I written the product, I wouldn't use the smiley, People will take the product seriously because it whips teh ass of every other codec I've ever seen.

Take a look at 405: The Movie for an example of what you can do with this codec; 7.8MB for a supprisingly good (if rather short) movie. It scales up to my 1024x768 17-inch screen amazingly for such a small file.

If I wanted to compress a movie, this is the codec I would use.

Michael Tandy

...another comment from Michael Tandy.

Another hack?

[Frac]

As far as I know, DivX is just a simple hack of Microsoft's MS-MPEG4 codec (V3, I think). What Gej and Maxmorice has done was nothing much than hacking the encoding and decoding dlls of MS-MPEG4 to encode movies with a DIV3 and DIV4 FOURCC code.

The reason why DivX got so popular is that it was the right thing at the right time. There was no technical wizardry involved, relative to projects such as LAME or Ogg Vorbis. I doubt Maxmorice or Gej can even explain the whole MPEG4 spec.

It's almost akin to someone telling you that they hacked a Palm V to have 8mb instead of 2mb, and now they have decided to make their own PDA. Hmm?

My question is - given that "An early version of DivX ;-) Deux is complete," did they hack another MS-MPEG4 codec, or are they coding something from scratch? It's been only a short time period since they announced the project, so I hope it's not just another hack (which brings to another question - how can they expect investors to put money in a company that illegally binary hacks some other companies' software?)

Re:Another hack?

[Skyfire]

these new "awesome technologies" I imagine will be performance related, and maybe a little quality related. But as you mentianed, they most likely don't even get deal with the actualy video compression side of it. judging from the muhahahaha part, i would think they are really trying to be the "cool" pirate video guys..

sounds to me that mayo is actually a fully new codec, not merely a hacked m$ one. from the WSJ article:
Mr. Rota is busily working on a completely legal implementation of the DivX idea that won't use Microsoft technology at all.

Re:It's use

[Trevor Goodchild]

I guess you also download your music off the net without paying, because it's really not good enough to pay for?

No, I don't. The only mp3's I pull are:
a) Previewing something new to see if I want to buy it
b) Things that I can't find to buy bcause they are out of print, rare imports, etc.

if it's so bad, why even watch/listen to it?

Like I said above, it is how I, and millions of others, relax for an hour or so at the end of the day. Everyone does it, I'm just one of the few who will admit it's not worth paying for.

Re:As I said...

[MfA]

Periodic movement? Thats pretty far fetched, the fact that a lot of the time the camera is still helps... but still motion compensation has a lot of potential for further savings.

I say wavelets might not be best because the hard edges in the residual image do not map to hard edges in the actual image. Wavelets do a good job of minimizing the perceptual error in image compression, Im not sure if the same is true for the composite of a wavelet de-/compressed residual error image and a standard motion compensated one.

Motion compensation of the wavelet coefficients might be a better idea.

It's not open source if it involves MPEG patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is anyone interested in something based on MPEG-4? There are so many software patents on MPEG that anyone using this will be at risk of being sued by dozens of different corporations.

At best, an "open source" MPEG-4 implementation may be available for download in some other country without software patents. People in the US may compile it and play with it at home, but no commercial or noncommercial entity will be able to use it publicly. That means that there will be no legitimate uses for it, since no legitimate user would be willing to risk a lawsuit. The end result is that this program seems destined for illegal uses only.

Re:It's use

[h4x0r-3l337]

I still find it hypocrite. You claim the service is not good enough to pay for, yet you have no qualms about using it anyway. You should try that on a bus or train some time. Just ride it without a ticket, and when asked for your ticket just tell 'm you don't want to pay, because you don't really like taking the bus. See if that works.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Torin_1]

Ok, i did just that, searched for how to rip a dvd, first link: http://perso.libertysurf.fr/nvorip/ No mention of any sort of DeCSS i have to download under the essential download section.. Second link http://www.divx-digest.com/software/index.html#ess ential No mention here of DeCSS either.. I could go on, but I guess my search engine only shows me pages that come from people who have no idea what they are doing. I could probably go thru toms hardware guide and rip a dvd without using DeCSS, sure, maybe one of the programs out there does something similar to what DeCSS does, but I dont think that any program out there yet has the actual decss code in it, not sure if the Livid player is out yet, but I dont have a dvd drive at home (no real point in it, in my opinion), I just use my home dvd player. My point of all that was that anytime anyone mentions ripping dvd's lately, decss is mentioned, which it shouldn't be, because there are other ways of ripping dvd's besides using that. Try doing a bit of research yourself anonymous coward...

Re:As I said...

[jovlinger]

far fetched if you look at the image as a whole, but very believable if you look at small enough blocks.

But perhaps I mislead you by using the term periodic rather than self-similar. All was saying was that many blocks would be very similar to blocks from previous frames -- and was trying to make the point that the best frame to match against might be 4 or even 15 frames ago. Take a car driving past a background; the blocks making up the bg will be the same before and after the car passes, so the best source of image composites would be maybe 15 frames back.

Johan

Re:And all this...

[tietokone-olmi]

"0 Troll"? Come on, you little shitwanks, -1 me! Go on, I dare you!

Re:Am I the only one that hates DIVX ??

[Wicked Jester]

LEt me clarify what i said earlier. What i typed seems to read wrong .... What i meant to say is that i released nAVI instead of the DIVX codec. i looked at the DIVX codec and laffed, so I hax0red nAVI... Afew weeks later some lame joker released the shitty DIVX codec. The shit codec was old news to me at that time and i said to myself could this kid be lamer ? Who woulda thunk that a little TV publicity would propel such a shitty product. It amazes me the power of TV and I realize that TV is the same market that propelled beanie babies and the pet rock to fame ....

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[journey-]

What i see being needed is the ability to have the video, and a codec on the CD. And have the player be able to load the codec. Obviously this would take so work from the manufacturers of DVD players though, so the same codec would work across all the different DVD players(which probably use different archictures? I dunno i'm guessin there) ... i just think it would be a really cool idea.

Only 3 hours on 786Kbps DSL

[eroberts00]

I guess the one thing stopping this from taking solid root is that on a 56kbps connection it would take, like oh... FOREVER to download or upload any file that side. DSL runs you 1/2 to 1/4 of forever, and a T1 brings it to a day and a half. (T3 makes it 8 hours.)

Your figures are slightly off. On my 768Kbps DSL it would take about 3 hours to download 650MB from a reliable host.

Unsearchable names

[Animats]

Try to search usefully for any of the following in a major search engine.

• C Too short.
• C++ "+" isn't part of words in the index.
• C+@ Even worse choice. ("C+@" is a old dynamic variant of C out of Bell Labs.)
• C# Microsoft's latest variation.

Re:It's use

[h4x0r-3l337]

So basically you are watching stuff that is so bad that it's not even worth paying for? How very very strange...

Re:Pirating

[_Sprocket_]

A C compiler can be said to aid and abet copywrite violation, so can a XEROX machine. They've both got legitimate purposes.

Of course, XEROX doesn't advertise their newest product line as offering better piracy features.

I'm sure the DivX CODEC offers a lot to legitimate uses. Perhapse Ferverent's point is that DivX developers and their supporters should stress these bennifits rather than illegal use.

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[JanKotz]

Most of the commodity hardware with this functionality doesn't cut it with Linux, maybe because it shouldn't.

The enabling hardware I have in mind is the Highpoint 370 IDE RAID controller, which has a kernel patch to support it, but the ATI-TV Wonder has none. Figuring that you're probably using X, I know of no X server with TV-Out support, except possibly 3dfx or a real hack job. 3dfx isn't exactly tops in X performance, either. I think BeOS would be the more likely alternative, if one existed.
--

Re:It's use

[Trevor Goodchild]

What's strange to me is how many people watch stuff that's not even worth paying for, but they still pay for it, because cable TV ain't free. Watching mindless drivel is how the vast majority of us unwind after a long day. I simply refuse to pay for it.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[Darth]

Yes I know about making backups, about control over media, etc etc but you have to admit this does make pirating movies easier (much easier than image-copying DVDs with CSS in tact).

ok so you know about valid and legal reasons why someone might use this software. clearly it's sole use is not to commit an illegal act.

the fact that it might make committing an illegal act easier is irrelevent...in exactly the same way it is irrelevent when dealing with VCRs.
VCR makes copying movies easier.
guns make killing people easier. (i hesitate to mention this for fear of starting a giant gun control debate. please dont.)
port scanners make attacking servers easier (or at least more convenient)

they all have valid uses and none of them should be banned.

there's a significant difference between having the potential to be used illegally an actually being used to do something illegal. when it gets used to do something illegal, then they'll have a reasonable case. it wont be against DivX or against DeCSS; it'll be against the person who committed the crime.

and the rest of us can get back to watching 600 meg versions of movies, copied from our paid for dvds, on our laptops (running a linux distro) while on a plane flying over idaho (or something).

Darth -- Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre

[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[gfecyk]

Before you moderate this down as a troll post, please read it.

a high-quality MPEG4 codec used quite heavily by DVD pirates to recompress movies

Nice to see the truth come out. Tom's Hardware even knows this.

This is why the MPAA won the first round. This is what DeCSS.exe (Yes, the Win32 program, not the LiViD player) is being used for. It is certainly possible to transfer enough of a DVD to a 650 MB CD-ROM using this technology.

Yes I know about making backups, about control over media, etc etc but you have to admit this does make pirating movies easier (much easier than image-copying DVDs with CSS in tact).

There, now please moderate this down so it doesn't cause a flame war.

Re:[Potential troll] What DviX is really used for

[The-Bus]

Only problem with DivX, unlike regular .MPEG movies, is that you can't convert them to VCD. The wonderful thing many people used to love about getting theater screeners is that they could use their burner to copy the .MPEG file onto a disc and view it on their DVD player. Currently, DivX'd files (.avi) cannot be placed on a VCD with the same ease as previous formats.

Unfortunately, the DivX site stated in the article has even less technical information that Bitboys did when they released their specs for the (non-existent commercially) Glaze3D. Look at some of these quotes:
"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."
"We are working hard to make DivX ;-) Deux maintain the high standards DivX ;-) has set while optimizing the codec so that the things you use it for the most are greatly improved."
What codec are they optimizing? DivX or DivX Deux? And as far as I know, DivX is only used to watch a moving pictures. They sound like they are re-inventing the wheel and making it the greatest thing since sliced bread (to combine two clicheéd sayings).

Bottom line is: I'll be a bit more excited when they give me a bit more details on what's going on. I have no doubt something is being done, but this announcement seems a bit too premature for me.

The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[64.28.67.48]

What I would want (and pay good money for) is a DVD player that plays this format using regular CD-R's. Kind of like the MP3 CD players, but for video. Like those little discman-sized DVD players (or the VCD players in Asia). Unfortunately, I can imagine the MPAA, DVD-CCA and who knows who else making a fuss over something like that. A guy can dream, though...

I do amateur video (no, not *THAT* kind) for fun, and I know that low-rent videographers like me have been drooling over the thought of being able to make DVD's. You get durability (right now I use a tape drive for archiving video; with DVD I could master right from my archive format), pure digital format, high quality, and portability (you can play on standard home video equipment). The only problem is the high cost of DVD-R drives, media, and DVD authoring software that puts it out of reach. If you can use a standard CD-R recording a standard ISO disc (no new hardware, software, or media), all you would need is a standalone player.

-------------

Re:The killer "app" for Mayo-at least for me

[bonehead]

The only problem is the real-time MPEG compression of the video-in stream.

I've seen mention of an upcoming card from Hauppaugee called the WinTV/PVR (or something like that) that should resolve this issue. Apparently, it's supposed to support realtime MPEG-2 encoding in hardware.

Then all you need is a fast enough processor to decode the stream in real time and you're set.

It's use

[KeyShark]

Does anyone actually use DivX...I don't want to be flamebait but how much is this acutally used?

Re:It's use

[aardvarkjoe]

Of course it's basically impossible to get any sort of entertainment anymore without breaking the law or sticking to the very expensive, no talent, bring-me-your-money sheep mass media.

Keep in mind that all this fansubbed anime you're watching was created by the very expensive, no talent, bring-me-your-money-sheep mass media itself. (It just so happens that this particular group of corporations reside in Japan rather than the US.) Although the fansubbers are doing a lot of work, and often do very well, they're not the primary artistic force behind these shows.

Now, I don't think that fansubbing and distributing these shows substantially cuts into their profits (they don't market good anime here like they should, and make most of their profits off the crap that makes it onto network TV), but just keep in mind that at some point, illegal distribution could have enough of an effect to shut some of these places down. And that would be pretty sad.

Personally, I'd like to see something like the micropayments that have been suggested for music; where viewers of fansubbed anime can give something back to the studio that developed it. (Or whoever deserves the money at the back end. I really don't know much about their methods of distribution.) The 'subtitling by committee' thing just doesn't seem to work.

Anyway, to keep this on topic, you're right. What I immediately thought of wasn't how I could store my video collection (or copy others), but how much nicer it would be for distribution and storage of video that isn't commercially available. (anime, or amateur videos, or whatnot.)

Pirating

[Fervent]

Not to be hyper-critical, but as it kinda stated in the Slashdot article heading, isn't this just going to aid and abet DVD pirates?

I'm all for new algorhytms. Programming new crypto algorhythms can actually be quite enjoyable. But if my work entailed illegal copyright infringement, how could I feel good about it?

As I said...

[MfA]

a lot of work has been done.

Naive motion compensation introduces a lot of hard edges. The MPEG4 standards supports wavelets for static image (texture) coding, but chooses 8*8 DCT for coding the residual error... I have read about lots of interesting ways to apply wavelets in video coding, for instance hierarchical motion estimation with complex discrete wavelet transforms, but its not going to be as easy as just taking out the DCT and pluggin in wavelets IMO.

As for 3D wavelet transforms, they encode the relation ship in time between corresponding pixels... people have claimed quite good compression with this (about the same quality at the same bitrate as broadcast quality MPEG-2) but it still lacks motion compensation.

Virtual Dub and ASF support

[$asch]

And wasn't there some (pseudo) suggestion by MS to make ASF an open standard (back in '98)?

Dunno about that. But more recently, Micros~1 had Avery Lee to remove ASF support from his nifty Virtual Dub software (GPL). His page used to have lots of interesting info about this case, but it seems to have been removed.

One more question: Do you know about an ASF reference manual online? Microsoft did something like that for AVI, but I can't seem to find it for ASF.

IIRC, the specs are described in a MS patent or something. Again IIRC, Avery Lee reverse engineered the ASF format just to find out later that the spec would have been available somewhere (not necessarily on the web).

Circuit City?

[ahuimanu]

Does this have anything to do with Circuit City's botched experiment of the same name? -A

Precedent seen with strong crypto

[Vassily Overveight]

People in the US may compile it and play with it at home, but no commercial or noncommercial entity will be able to use it publicly.

Perhaps it will evolve in the way another package did in regard to strong encryption. (sorry, it's been a while so I don't recall exactly which one. Maybe Eudora.) You bought the main app, installed it, then the strong encryption was installed to it via the net from another country. It was designed that way to get around the U.S. restrictions on export of strong crypto, and allowed the package to be exported without violating U.S. laws. I can see the same sort of scheme evolving here.