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DivX;), The MPAA, The Future And The Past
Stibanater writes: "The second part of a 2-parter on Salon about DivX seems to hint at MPAA tolerance of DivX as a good distribution format. Granted, this comes from the mouth of a DivX Network's exec, so salt to taste. Still, the tasty part is the insinuation that the MPAA has learned from Napster, and will move to quickly embrace online distribution instead of 'suing it out of existence.' The first part is an explanation of DivX for the layman and a little bit about the DeCSS case." On a related note, Dan Marlin writes: "Looks like the "Internet Archive" http://www.archive.org has decided to add the DivX MPEG-4 format to it's entire movie collection. This is huge in the way of mass acceptance for the DivX ;-).
It looks like they are still in the encoding process as most of movies are still only available in MPEG-2. But after scanning the collection the past few days, it looks like they are adding more daily."
You are an absolute moron. That is what OpenDivX, the whole point of projectmayo, is! Open Source.
Who modded this up?
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Unless you simply can't buy the studio version (because you are in a country that the DVD cartels won't release DVDs, or only release them after sitting on them for 2 or 3 years.)
;-) is a great boon to Fansub efforts all over the world, as it gave people a way to distribute their works all over the world without the massive headache involved in copying and mailing tapes, not to mention the generational loss issues that invariably creep into your work over time. If only they used a wrapper format that was better at keeping the audio and video in sync...
DivX
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Posted by Lee Thompson:
DivX;-) is just some hacked codec to begin with so I, for one, will never support it. If the "makers" of DivX (which is technically Microsoft so I should say the "hackers that distribute DivX") really want to do something clever; they should write their own code. (Don't get me wrong; I think a cross platform MPEG-4 codec is a wonderful thing but let's make one without just hacking someone else's -- and yes; I know there are a couple in development.) As for the MPAA, I seriously doubt the MPAA is going to embrace a hacked codec in which illegal screener copies of currently running films are distributed over the internet.
Yes, DivX is a good distribution format, just like mp3 is a good distribution format.
The technology is here, the tools are here, the performance gains are substantial, people like it, and people are using it...
the only thing that hasn't caught up yet are the legal implications of using this technology, because of the restrictions that companies and our legal system place on it. Just like mp3.
Therefore, I predict much controversy, and widespread use, and no one getting killed.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
None of the MPEG-4 decoders work on Itanium or Alpha.
Don't know if you are aware or not... But DivX has now been open sourced which makes this point of yours totally irrelevant.
I'm aware of a bunch of projects which have promised to release an open source DivX codec Real Soon Now, but don't currently have line 1 of code in public CVS. I'm aware of things like avifile which make DivX usable in Linux through an open source wrapper... but an open source DivX implementation? Where?
It's vitally important that someone gets a good, vendor-neutral video format established. We need the video equivalent of .MP3, and soon. If not, ASF (Windows Media Player) will become the de-facto standard in a few years, effectively locking Linux out of the desktop market because it "can't play video."
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
...who was ever "prevented" from copying analog content, either?
--
Breakfast served all day!
Agreed. I have the sinking feeling the MPAA considers lower quality a good thing, a la "we gave consumers high-quality anamorphic DVDs and got piracy in return. we'll show them!".
Seems to me that we should be helping Project Mayo get its codec solid and stable and using that, instead of the DivX ;) hack.
DivX is not a good format. It encodes dark values all wrong (hint: they eye does not detect values linearly). The data rate tracking is terrible. It relies on the .avi file architecture (better the .asf but still a dog in the industry). DivX IS NOT MPEG4!!! It is simply MicroSoft's copy of an old MPEG4 spec.
.GIF. Closed, unexpandable and bad. At least it's not patented (but it's hardly even legal!)
So what do we need? We need a video file format with BETTER compression. We need to move away from Microsoft file formats and support open standards (for example, MPEG4). And that brings us to the last point, wait for MPEG4 compliant codecs. MPEG4 gives you many advantages over DivX. Look them up for yourself if you want to find them. Better file format, better scalability, even some better compression.
I understand that DivX was simply at the right place at the right time. But here's to hoping that the format does not become another
---------------------------
That's not what I meant.
I in a way am not surprised that the MPAA has not tried to squash the MPEG-4 format.
The reason is simple: with the addition of some form of digital rights management, MPEG-4 will allow the movie companies to distribute movies extremely cheaply. It may not have all the fancy menus and extra features of DVD, but an MPEG-4 formatted movie disc does not require the far more expensive mastering equipment used on mastering DVD's--it can be mastered using current audio CD mastering equipment. This could allow for very cheap duplication of movies, since packaging costs for a CD nowadays is likely going to be less than that of a VHS tape, and with proper handling they'll last a long time, too.
Essentially we'll end up with DVD's for the high-end market and MPEG-4 encoded discs for the low cost market. We'll have a case where DVD's sell for around US$25-$30 and MPEG-4 encoded discs go for US$10-$15.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
The most expensive part about producing a stand-alone player that can decode an MPEG-4 encoded disc is the decoding circuitry itself.
However, given the dirt-cheap costs of creating quite complex ASIC custom chips nowadays, once production starts a single chip that can decode MPEG-4 in real time should be pretty reasonable to start with. And because MPEG-4 discs doesn't require the tolerances of DVD drives (it can use standard CD-ROM drives), the total cost of a player could be way, way below that of a DVD console player.
Indeed, I can foresee players for these new MPEG-4 encoded discs going for as little as US$80 because you can use current CD transports.
One thing though, I think the MPAA may ask that the resolution of these discs be limited to around 330 lines of resolution, unlike the 500+ lines of resolution of DVD discs. However, given the limits of most TV monitors nowadays, that still will be far superior to standard VHS tapes.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I'll ask you this: how much does it cost to master a DVD video disc? It's still pretty expensive, especially for those who have to add in all the extra features out the wazoo.
Because MPEG-4 discs are going to be like regular VHS tapes, they will lack the extra features of DVD discs, which means mastering costs are going to be way lower. That means the studio can sell it at US$10-$15 per disc and still make a very tidy profit from it.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Decoding it is one thing, but encoding MPEG-4 files is quite something else. You probably not only need a really fast CPU, but also a dedicated encoder video board to pull it off.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
That said, this is still news for nerds & stuff that matters. :)
You know, back when I had a 386 with a 150 meg hard drive and a 2400 baud modem, I would have thought that mp3 was pretty useless, since it would take hours to download one song, and then you'd have to decompress it ahead of time, and really, who'd want to store all that data for casual use?
Remember, it is not about what is, it's about what will be.
Rest assured that computer -> svideo (or better) of decent quality will become a popular item, and there will be much more selection as this grows in popularity, just as there are a zillion mp3 devices you can get nowadays.
I know people that have high-quality tv-out boards that only cost them a few hundred bucks (no different than, say, a good 3d card for gaming)
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/index.html
Here's a link to a page with some info (not much) on the Ogg Tarking video codec. You can view the mailing list archives. From the looks of it, they are going to be using a codec based on wavelets. Support this, not DivX. DivX is good for now, but in the long run we need something free and open, and I don't think DivX qualifies.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
The "open source" licence is not GPL - it requires you to do stuff like adding some kind of "made with divxnetwork" header to your movies.
So its like the old BSD license that required your program to mention the source when the program starts up? Not a major issue, if thats the only one.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I don't know. I assume they're trying to build on the DivX "brand name" and usurp adoption of standard MPEG-4... As you say, with people like Phillips and Sorenson already technically way ahead, and OpenDivX incompatible with DivX anyway, it seems a long shot!
OK, but I'm lazy, so no HTML links!
t ml
;-) CODEC, that is just a binary hack of Microsoft's (almost) MPEG-4 CODEC to allow it to be used with AVIs. This is the CODEC that practically all the DivX's on the net are compressed with.
;-), despite the "OpenDivX" name.
/. rejected was centered around the stunning (to me, at least! ;-) press release from Sorenson at MacWorld about a month ago that they now have a VERY impressive MPEG-4 CODEC (incl. 2-pass VBR)...I'm amazed and happy that Sorenson would so aggressively push an open standard when their cash cow is a proprietary competitor.
/. thought their lame story quoting the divxnetworks.com weasels was better than this stuff! ;-)
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec.h
One source for the original "3.11 alpha" DivX
http://www.projectmayo.com/index.php
Home of OpenDivX and run by divxnetworks.com. OpenDivX is based on the MoMuSys MPEG-4 source code, and unlike DivX claims to be MPEG-4 compliant, albeit using AVI rather than MPEG-4 file format. This encoder is S-L-O-W and also incompatible with DivX
You can play, and encode(!) OpenDivX movies with the awesome mplayer media player for linux:
http://thot.banki.hu/esp-team/MPlayer.html
http://www.3ivx.com/
A commercial company producing a free MPEG-4 decoder, and about to announce an encoder at CeBIT. Quality and decoder speed are good. An xanim plug in is available, as is Windows etc support. Uses Quicktime as a file format
http://rachmaninoff.ti.uni-mannheim.de/sampeg/
A work-in-progress GPL'd MPEG-4 encoder from Dirk Farin, the guy who wrote the impressive SAMPEG-2 MPEG-2 encoder. Actually uses MPEG-4 file format. Sounds very promising.
http://sparky.sourceforge.net/
Not quite MPEG-4, but GPL'd and competetive in terms of compression. From the guy who wrote the avifile win32 CODECs on Linux library. Currently slow, but an impressice start for a real open source CODEC.
http://www.opencodex.com/news.html
The guys who ran the original $50K DivX for Quicktime port competition. Web site keeps claiming good things, but nothing is getting released... It turns out the CODEC is H.263 based abyway, not true MPEG-4 (although MPEG-4 and H.263 are quite closely related - they use the same quantizer).
The story that
It sucks that
divxnetworks.com is the company behind "Project Mayo" and "OpenDivX".
/. article rejected today where I explained all this plus gave links to all the free MPEG-4 implementations and the Sorenson MPEG-4 press release.
Check out the flames forum at:
Project Mayo (aka divxnetworks.com).
OpenDivX is [u]incompatible[/u] with DivX.
DivX is the hacked Microsoft CODEC.
OpenDivX is based on the MoMuSys source, claims to be MPEG-4 compliant (aside from using an AVI vs MPEG-4 transport), and is incompatible with DivX.
I just got a
*sigh*
ProjectMayo is a scam. It's not a real open source project, but rather an open source freeloader poroject run by the commercial enterprise divxnetworks.com, with $100M of backing.
http://www.divxnetworks.com/aboutus.html
The "open source" licence is not GPL - it requires you to do stuff like adding some kind of "made with divxnetwork" header to your movies.
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
BTW, did you see the 60 Minutes piece on Tivo last night? Nothing new for us, but a good explanation of the technology and some of the legal issues for the layman.
Best Slashdot Co
I only raised the point of VCDs because the Anomymous Coward (heh) did so.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I really like how they intend to distribute movies on line. But how much good will this do?
The movie will be 2 hours long and only playable on your computer monitor. The average person doesn't have a good enough setup (monitor size, seating) for it to compete with you tv in front of the couch.
MP3/music is different. Its short ( 5minutes for a song) and you can burn a CD and them play it anywhere you would a normal CD.
Not so with full length movies.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I think you've got it backwards.
1) The "hacker-kiddies" ain't gonna sue for trademark infringement, and more importantly:
2) Without the name-recognition of the geek set, where are you gonna generate the "buzz" required for a successful financing?
lol, my computer monitor is way bigger than the tv at my house and the position that it's in on my desk takes only a quick swing and it's very convenient for watching from the couch. I had the keyboard over there with the mouse on the coffee table, but I was getting way too lazy.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I'll just hang out for a while and see what the Ogg Vorbis people come up with...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Consider how the current movie distribution is so much more expensive than for music. Anyone can sell CDs but it takes a mega-thousand dollar investment to build a theater that people will actually go to.
Plus, as the popularity of the rental and pay-per-view markets have shown, people don't NEED a fancy theater and many would rather watch on their home theater and then not have to pay $40 for snacks too.
Plus, the current distibution network is already non-secure...anyone can smuggle in a camera and again as the sales of bootlegs have shown, people don't always care about quality.
Plus, the movie industry is a lot more records driven than the music industry. You have another multi-platinum album and people yawn. You have a movie that did X dollars on opening night and its a record people remember. Imagine if they could spin add downloads to those box office statistics.
Plus, right now there is no real name brand for movie sharing (unless you count IRC).
The studios were forced to divest themselves of their theater holding because the governement thought it would be a bad idea for them to control both content and distributions. Using the Internet the movie studios have a chance to regain that control again.
If they price it in the range of home pay-per-view but offer first-run movies hotels pay-per-view, I think it would be something I'd buy.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
In theory, once there is a true MPEG4 standard, hardware decoders should not be far behind.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I got involved with DivX ;) when it was still "underground". It's amazing how far they've come. I can remember the first few trailers over at http://divx.ctw.cc/ that blew my mind (sure beat the crap out of vivo's that everyone was using). I think it is SO important to support this format and keep it going because it is a real life example of the "little guys" making it. They've had to fight against microsoft, realplayer, and the government. A lot of "purists" are still whining about the loss in quality... give me a break. These things are excellent. Most people don't have 10mb lines to leech 2 gig avi's anyway.
So do what you can to support them and we'll be one step closer to an internet that truly is multimedia compatible.
--
Need ecommerce that doesn't suck? FoxyCart is for you.
The reason the RIAA freaked out about Napster, and the MPAA will be uncomfortable with this stuff, is the college market. After internal MP3 sharing (pre-Napster getting big, but people would run each other's MP3s over the network) was bringing my college fraternity (at MIT, so YMMV) old 10baseT network to a crawl. We couldn't rewire (the old buildings are a mess), so we brought switches to a at least have 100Megabit backbone and 10Megabit down.
Good thing two, because the following year (about 1.5 years ago), a freshman with a hobby for trading movies showed up. He managed to gather dozens of movies over our school provided T1, and he would share them across the house.
Forget that he would get them, it isn't worth it for most people to get them. But if one person acquires the movies (and keeps the archive on CDs to loan out) and makes them available to 40 friends... well...
Now make these 40 people all college kids with disposable income, and you've hit the target market. That's why they hate this. College kids are a big part of their market. High school kids are as well, and they are the most likely to get a DSL connection at home AND have lots of spare time.
Alex
Not really. The number of people who have a good movie in them isn't that large. Look at film school demo reels, or underground video showings, or public access TV, and you'll see what I mean. Access to the technology is not the problem.
San Francisco has several organizations devoted to getting technology into the hands of wannabe filmmakers, but what comes out mostly sucks.
I guess it is kind of unfair to compare the two because vorbis isnt' really out of beta yet, but I hope there is this kind of dynamic conversion associated with Vorbis. I know I am going to rip CD's to no end once vorbis support compression of the redundancy between audio channels, just so I can distribute it out to get a little more ogg action out there.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I just realized that the best way to play Divix based burned CD movies is probably the x-box or playstation 2. Why not the gamecube? The x-box and the playstation 2 will both have hardware for mpeg 2 decoding alla dvd playing. mpeg 2 acceleration can be put towards mpeg 4 acceleration because the algorithms have some simililarities (decreet cosine transform or something like, someone help me out here). I know that playing .asf's and Divix movies on my computer is much much faster than it used to be before I got dvd hardware decoding. I guess my point is that the dreamcast is definitly not powerful enough to support it, but if someone made a program that would take a movie and burn a cd with that and the neccesary startup and program files on it, you'd be in buisness.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
The most expensive part about producing a stand-alone player that can decode an MPEG-4 encoded disc is the decoding circuitry itself.
Unless the decoding circuitry is just a CPU (such as Emotion Engine, TI DSP, AMD Duron, or Crusoe) customized for DSP. It would just read encoded data, decode it, and blast it to the framebuffer.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For $15 you can get the barebones edition with stereo audio and no special features (plus a load of pre-movie advertising like on VHS). Then for $30 you get
Even more pre-movie advertising that you can't even skip. DVD has a "legal notice" function (designed for displaying FBI Warnings) that disables fast-forward while it is set. Some DVDs start with ten minutes of commercials and mark them as "legal notices" so you have to either watch them, turn off the TV, leave the room, or use some DeCSS-type software.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They won't understand conceptually what it is
What part of "It's an add-on to Windows Media Player that allows it to play full-length motion pictures" wouldn't Joe Sixpack understand?
They have to go and find it and download it.
Same thing for Winamp, to play MP3 audio.
There's no paper manual
File | Print... (The only paper manuals you need are those for your computer and printer.)
and no tech suport number to call.
Ever try calling Microsoft tech support?
And when they install it, no "DiVX" icon appears on their desktop leading to a screen with a colourful and intuitive user interface.
So have the codec's installer make a shortcut to WiMP and label it DivX. WiMP 7 is colorful enough (but I wouldn't say all that intuitive). Who'll know the difference?
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Asciimation, it's a better distribution medium since it consumes far less bandwith.
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Speaking of DivXNetworks, what kind of business plan do they think is going to work? MPEG-4 codecs are a commodity and their competition (like PacketVideo, Philips, Sorenson and probably every other codec company out there) has a huge head start.
Here's another project:
http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/
Instead of a codec, they're doing the other necessary stuff like a player and streaming server.
(/. rejected a story about this, too.)
As near as I can tell, the format of a movie is ultimately going to make no difference as to whether or not it is pirated. Ultimately, if nothing else, people can just get a video camera and copy it that way. Rest assured, someone will. There are always people who will do that, if for no other reason than to spite the corporations. I think the MPAA needs to consider the fact that most people still prefer to watch a movie on a TV screen, not seated at a computer. I know I would't want to watch a movie at my computer. Stop worrying about the geeks - there's always a few. Just make sure that it is always worth people's while to get off the computer for a few hours (gasp) and watch the movie on hardware designed for that purpose. My computer has enough trouble with a desktop, never mind movies, and I know I'm not the only one.
I sort of suspect that the real reason there is so much noise about this is for the same reason napster got hit so hard - to prevent the establishment of a system through which independant artists can reach a large market. Control is everything. The MPAA probably is not keen on the idea of a worldwide team forming to do a movie across the internet, or any other challenge to their rule. Formats are merely a minor part of this fight, and to my mind not a terribly important one. Copy protection can't come from formats as long as they are eventually displayed in a form the human eye can observe. So develop new business models or remember that computers weren't designed for movie watching. These guys aren't stupid - I'm sure they've already spent far more protecting their copyrights online than they could have hoped to have gained from forcing a few geeks to pay for their movies. They're after something else. That's what worries me.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Hmm, apologies for the fact that the following message is a little 'inflamatory'. I get carried away.
To name some 'facts'
Look it up if you want confirmation.
MPEG4 != DivX
The original DivX hacked a Microsoft implementation of the MPEG4 *draft* and created their own format.
So don't support the Microsoft version, and don't support the DivX version!
What's the alternative? MPEG4! OpenDivX is supposedly MPEG4 compliant, but it does not support the MPEG4 file format (go figure); Windows, hopefully, will support the real thing, and not just ASF/WMA implementations, as should Quicktime 5. Don't settle for DivX; it would be like settling for RealAudio when mp3 is just around the corner...
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
I tried to find one a few weeks ago, but got lost in pop-ups, vote for me's and porn banners.
And then I tried to explain the porn banners to my wife, ouch!
For for DiVX, even installing the codec can be too technical for most people, let alone encoding the movies. Not everyone has a DVD drive or the hard disk space, patience, and knowhow to do it. Therefore, unlike mp3 which was accessible and relatively easy to use, DiVX still languishes in relative obscurity. Therefore the MPAA doesn't see it as an enormous threat.
In additon, movies and audio are fundamantally different. With mp3, you just play the song and do whatever you're doing while listening to it. With DiVX, you play the movie and all things are on hold while you're watching it. I'm listening to mp3 right now, but I couldn't be typing this post if I was watching DiVX.
Listening and watching are two fundamentally different activities. And it would be another revolution completely different to mp3 if DiVX became mainstream. And the MPAA would fight tooth and nail keep it from happening.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Seriously, is ;-) part of the name? What's that all about?
There is NO SUCH THING!
MPAA, RIAA... Release your DENIAL!
The absolute BEST you can hope for is "Copy Encumbrance" or "Copy Inconvenience" or "Copy Reduction". But NEVER will your digital content be "Protected".
Digitize it, and they will crack.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
The main reason some of us like DivX is because it allows you to backup a whole DVD to a single CD while maintaining acceptable quality. MPEG2 can't do that._ __
_______________________________________________
I don't get it. I thought DivX was dead-in-the-water (reworded from the subject line so as not to offend anyone). Wasn't the standard already not accepted by the public? Or was it just the implementation, pay-per-play?
Developers: We can use your help.
I've downloaded a few DIVX videos, the quality is not bad but its not great either. I still want to be able to purchase DVD's of movies I'd like to own. (No, decss will not make me boycott DVD any more than sweat shop labour will stop most people from buying clothes)
If the MPAA is smart they'll jump on the bandwagon soon. In my opinion the infrastructure isn't really there yet. Most people don't have broadband, and the broadband we do have isn't broad enough. Even given that its still important to be there first and get people used to the technology (and kill off the "if I had some legal way of getting movies online I would" argument)
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Now, don't get me wrong, the actual coding work the DivX people are overseeing is great for open source causes, but they are using some subversive self-promotion as of late to make it seem like they invented all of this stuff, and pushing the 'Divx' brand-name (which is actually quite a stupid name since it causes much confusion with the failed Circuit City format), as the be-all end-all of MPEG-4, which is just not true.
Also, supporting DIVX/MPEG4 because there is a good open source implementation is short sighted. Please do some research into MPEG4 and realize what a patent nightmare it is. Just because the source is open doesn't mean you can use it without violating patents.
1: Is it patent encumbered.
MPEG4 like GIF is patent encumbered up the wazoo. Forget GPL on the code, if the patent holders won't give a free public license the spec can never be open.
[Incidentally MP3 has this problem, the Fraunhoffer Institute owns the patent and charges royalties on it. The GIF UNISYS patent was pretty despicable, the patent was only published after Compuserve had adopted the algorithm thinking it was an open algorithm.
2 Is the code open?
This is not the biggest issue for me, if the spec is interesting and useful an open code verison is likely to follow. Point (1) is much bigger
Incidentaly I don't think that the GPL vs other open models is a big issue. Richard Stallman put a lot of his personal politics into the GPL, it is not possible to use GPL code in a commercial project. Apache and Linux are far more 'open' in my view, they are certainly less restrictive.
3. Is there actual code
No code, no use. Starting an open source project is fine but until you have a release it does not do anyone much good.
So far DVIX/Project Mayo loose on 1 and probably on 2 but win big on 3. Lots of folk win on 1 and 2 but loose on 3.
The real problem is that nobody can ever know if they are safe on 1 in the US. Submarine patents can be filled and kept in progress for decades.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
How is this a good thing? Someone hacked binaries of a Microsoft MPEG4 Codec and called it "Div-x" after the failed Circuit City format. It didn't become popular because it was a groovy Open Source project, or a new Codec never seen before, etc. It became popular because The Matrix looked real cool, and fit on a CD. If you stop and think about it, Div-X is owned by Microsoft, and named after something that started a Holy War not too long ago. The idea of putting a movie on a CD is good (and done before: VCDs), but Div-X is not the format to use. If MP3s are still lawsuit bait, I'd hate to see what Div-X does to the Internet media scene.