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DivX Going Open Source - Updated

Posted by Hemos on from the where's-my-client dept.

JimRay writes "According to this C|Net article, the DivX program will soon be open source. NOTE, this is not Circuit City's failed out DVD rental plan, but a set of programs for lossy compression of digital video. Is this the mp3 for video or what?" DivX is based on MPG4 - and contrary to earlier submissions, Project Mayo has stated they own all copyrights to the code - it is not a knocked off version of Microsoft's MPG4.Update: 01/17 02:52 PM by H :Thanks to paradigm from Mayo for sending this update/correction: "This is a release of our codebase as it stands now, we have cvs, mailing lists, bug tracking, everything set up. We are working towards our current goal of releasing Divx ;-) Deux which will, of course, rock. This code works, but we are making it better. We are developing this code still, not just throwing it to the open source world for the hype, we just thought others would want in...all of our developers are on the mailing lists and activly post in our forums."

3 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. OpenDivX License Clarification by L0g05 · · Score: 5

    We want to make DivX as open as possible. The video world is a little weird, so we had to make some concessions. For example, if you want to use the code but put it into a larger application that is closed and you want to sell that application, you can do that. We'd prefer that you don't (for many of the reasons mentioned in the LGPL http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html), but if you must - you can. If you do, however, you can't call it DivX until we get a chance to check it out. This isn't exactly aimed at small open source developers ;) Same thing with the encoded content. We'd prefer that everyone make it open. But if you don't want to, no big deal. Again, however, we reserve the right to ping people who want to close their code as it were. But don't get edgy - this isn't aimed at people like Brandon. Think a bit bigger ;) We are just trying to do our part to keep things a level playing field.

  2. DivX ;-) and piracy by UncleOzzy · · Score: 5

    I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.

    Most people have never even heard of IRC, much less know where to go to get pirated movies. Even if they did, DivX ;-) has two things working against it: file size, and an extra codec.

    First, DivX ;-) movies are, on the whole, quite a bit larger than their ASF brethren. Joe Sixpack doesn't mind the lower quality of ASF if it means he has to download 200MB less to watch it.

    Second, if Joe Sixpack does decide to download "Shaft-DVD-Rip-DivX.avi", he'll get a nasty surprise when he tries to play it: "Codec Not Found". In the age of transparent auto-updates, this is a big problem.

    Finally, let's say DivX ;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.

    As such, I don't see that DivX ;-) is really a major threat to the MPAA, certainly no moreso than Windows Media. Ironic, huh...

  3. DivX: Better than ever by mTor · · Score: 5

    I managed to get all of the project Mayo files last night and test it on a flick. I tried it on a misc DVD I had lying around... All I have to say is WOW!

    The new DivX is awesome! What's amazing about it is that it has support for automatic insertion of I-frames! To do a quality rip with old codec, you'd have to cut your media into low and fast changing scenes and recombine them at the end. Now, that's automatic. VKI is something that was missing before and we got numerous promises that it's gonna be in there and now it's finally reality.

    The second thing that's amazing is better overall image quality without post-processing! That's right, no post-processing. This was one of the bottlenecks in the old design and now it's gone!

    Specks say that new decoder decodes around 80fps on a PIII 700. Well, I have an Athlon 800 and I'm seeing frames whiz by me so fast that I actually believe them.

    After a big flop of 3ivX, I can say that these guys have delivered... and delivered big.

    As a side note, M$ released their WM8 Encoder Beta 2. Check it here.

    Let the battle begin!