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Divx Now Adware Supported Only
bogomip_bandit writes "The divx codec is no longer free, no strings attached. Until recently, when downloading the codec from divx.com, one could select Dr Divx for a price, Divx Pro for a price, the divx codec for free, or the divx codec with bundled adware to help support divx development etc. Recently the site has changed. Now when one visits the download page, the only free codec you can download is adware supported. This means even to just watch divx movies and not do any actual enncoding, one has to install adware on their machine. I for one will be finding a different video codec." Sounds like a good reason (if you needed one) to look curiously at Ogg Theora. Update: 08/20 20:04 GMT by T : Correction: As several readers have pointed out, the bare codec is still available, it's just listed below the payware / adware versions.
There is a link to download the divx codec (no cost) without the adware below the three main choices. the url is:
http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX505Bundle.exe
You think you don't need to pay for things? Good luck with that.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
There's always ffdshow, a sourceforge project that includes both divx and xvid.
On the linked download page, under the Dr. Divx/Divx Pro, in a normal text link it says "Download the DivX codec (no cost)" which is NOT the Adware version.
I think you might be missing something: Check here.
The codec itself is not adware supported. It appears the only thing they've changed is the layout of their downloads page - they've de-emphasized the free codec download, but it's still there.
DivXNetworks, IIRC, closed the source on an originally open project. This is just the (albeit rather belated) final stage in their evil plans.
:)
Anyway, DivX sucks! I can't quite see why anyone would bother with it when XviD and FFMPEG are available, both offering vastly superior picture quality. Still, I suppose DivX has the most bullshit and adware, ergo greater end-user appeal...*sigh*
iqu
Download and install the full-featured, adware-equipped divx codec. Then, run Adaware to find and remove all the Gator and other adware that is part of the divx package. All the divx with none of the crap!
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Why not just use the VideoLAN Client?
It does a lot more than I will ever need it to.
You can still download the player codec for free, no adware. The *encoder* has been ad-supported for a while I think. They just shuffled the links around.
The codec download just moved right below. "Download the DivX codec (no cost)" still just gets you the codec with *no* adware at all. The three options on the top are Dr Divx(pay), Divx Pro(pay) and Divx Pro(adware). They moved the codec and player to the text link to make space for Dr Divx. That's all.
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
From their faq:
Q: This is great. When will it all be finished so I can use it right now, like this minute? Please?
A: Ogg Theora was scheduled to go Beta (that means the bitstream is locked down, and all features are represented) in March of 2003. Obviously, that's slipped. Alpha 2 is going to be released shortly; but please remember that until Beta, there is no promise that files you encode will be supported in the final release.
Q: Can I use Theora to encode stuff right now?
A: Yes, but we strongly, strongly recommend against it, for anything but test-cases. This is not a full release in any sense of the word, it is simply a milestone, and if you start encoding things right away, there's a really good chance that it will break when you try to play it with tools we release when the final version is released.
Right.
DivX 5.0.5 is still available for Linux here, no adware attached. Actually, it would be quite funny if adware was included as that would be the first case of linux adware afaik.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
VLC, IIRC, uses the superb FFMPEG library for MPEG4-compatible-encoded video playback. Thus it is, fortunately, unaffected by this little bit of evilness.
:)
VLC, for those unaware, is a superb piece of cross-platform video-playback software, notably allowing region-encumbered DVDs to be played back on different region drives (certainly on Windows, anyway) and playing a load of formats to boot.
iqu
DivX 4/5 ist MPEG4 compliant, so you don't need the DivX 5 decoder to watch an MPEG4 stream whose creator happened to use the DivX 5 encoder..
Ogg is for audio and Divx is for video compression. You can use all of them together. If you are searching for an alternative for compressin your video try xvid. Don't make chaos in video compression, use standard tools, please. (I hate to download movies and must to install new codec to my system just to watch one short film)
Read the FAQ. If you're too lazy to click:
Nope:
u-EzFyd-vLKVw-x6BLw-5aivA-txSfQ
(Opera for linux serial)
Yes it does. Actually, it would be more correct to rephrase "adware" with "spyware" since software developed by Gator or Digital Brliiance actually spies on you, instead of simply showing ads (as any normal browser would do while browsing the web: in that sense, browsers are 'passive adware').
Obviously, DivX staff would never do that since "spyware" would turn off a lot of potential downloads. However, EULAs aren't very informative on what kind of activity you are permitting this software to do in exchange for you right to use DivX Pro. If it's true that programmers should get something out of their hard work (and DivX devs should with doubt), it's also true that the user should be correctly informed and be allowed to completely opt-out if he wishes. No Gator or Digital Brilliance program allows you to do that.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
timothy takes it well. "As several readers have pointed out" is in the update. What he wanted to say was, "as several barking assholes have bitched, moaned, and puled about (rather than noticing that someone else already said it and leaving well enough alone)..."
Yeah, mod me down for my superglue-to-buttcheeks maneuver if you will, but I'm right. Christ, people fuck up sometimes, no reason to reason to fill the thread with, "Dur, the link's right there, dur the link's right there!"
This is not correct. Just get the 3ivx codec which is currently $free (but not free as in speech) that plays DivX, XvID and 3ivx flavours of MPEG-4 encoded video and has no spyware. It's available on windows, mac, linux, beos and amiga. Get it - it includes both encoder and decoder, and on windows it installs an AAC (advanded audio coding) directshow filter so you can watch those MPEG-4 compliant videos with MPEG-4 compliant AAC audio streams in WMP. I never installed DivX on my machine but watch DivX video all the time thanks to this.
And I have seen comparisons showing that the post-filtering if 3ivx actually shows divx and xvid videos better than their own native codecs. YMMV.
(Note: Please don't quote the doom9.org comparison that said 3ivx encoding was terrible. This is only because the tester used terrible settings for the encoder since the 3ivx team did not respond to their request for good settings.)
Yeah, of course old non-adware versions of the divX codec will still be available for a while, but the point is that there won't be any new non-adware versions except the ones you have to buy.
XviD is a great alternative, which looks just as good as DivX (About 5mb per minute gets you very good quality if encoded properly. 10mb per minute is near DVD quality.)
It's completely free and GPL'd, and it's also already very popular, by my estimates its the second most popular codec, behind DivX, for the (ilegal) online distribution of movies and TV shows, unlike Ogg Theora which is completely unheard of fringe experimental codec that no serious group has ever used for a release.
XviD source code
Nic's XviD binary (best)
A divX digest page with links to several other, older XviD binaries
Repeal the DMCA!
Who actually cares shit about DivX? We've had ffmpeg for some time! If you are honestly watching videos using windows system.. You need ffdshow directshow filter (yes, it's based on ffmpeg).
WHY are there headlines like this on the front page? For those who are looking for encoder, mplayer comes with the famous mencoder. If my memory serves me right, latest stable (pre-)release supports latest xvid and DivX encoding options.
-rzei
If you want to watch movies, this is the codec to use. Nothing even comes close. And, as conner said, it's open source :)
Yes, I would also recommend XviD before Ogg Theora right now since it's becoming a quite mature format these days and I can see no special reason to avoid it. The format has actually surpassed DivX already in popularity for encoding movies. A quick peek at nforce.nl shows that the earliest DivX movie in the list there was released at 2003-05-03, while the earliest XviD on the list was released 2003-08-01.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Ok, bit of history lesson, from the way I heard it. Back in the day, DivX 4's dev team (Project Mayo) split up, half becomming what is now DivX, and the other half becomming what would later be called the XviD team.
:) )
:)
Basically, the DivX guys seem more concerned with becomming a closed source but open standard group right now, and making DivX into the next VHS/DVD type standard. XviD seems to be the flip side, free software, version of the coin.
(I should point out that this is just what I heard, and I've also heard things as absurd as that DivX is just a pirated copy of Microsoft's implimentation of MPEG4, and that SCO apparently owns UNIX, Linux, Florida, the plans to the Death Star, and my mother, so, grain of salt, eh? In other words, I might be off in my history lesson. but hey, that doesn't stop Bush, so why should it slow me?
AAAANYWAY. XviD is a MPEG4 codec, much ilke DivX (indeed, DivX and XviD can play each other's files) but XviD is completely open source, liscensed under the GPL.
So, if you are truely fed up with DivX -- and I don't see why you would be, they're just trying to make a living -- you could also go get XviD instead. It's still beta, but it's quite nice. Fast, Slightly smaller files, and has a lot of features DivX doesn't. (Like setting credits to encode in black and white, or in a much lower quality; or intelligently encoding part of the screen at different quality levels depending on how busy that part of the screen is)
Lately, one of the neat tricks I've seen is to use XviD and OGG audio, and combine them in some weird way. Insted of AVI files, you get OGM files, which are *much* neater. OGMs can hold more than one audio stream (English / Japanese, switch at will) and as many subtitles as you want, making them really much closer to the "nifty" factor of DVDs. But I'm no video editor, so someone else would have to chime in on OGMs.
Anyway. Go give XviD a try here. http://www.xvid.org/ If you can't compile you're own source, do a search on Yahoo for "Xvid Binaries" for user made binary installers. I like Koepi's or uManiacs for Windows, myself.
It's completely free and GPL'd, and it's also already very popular [...], unlike Ogg Theora which is completely unheard of fringe experimental codec that no serious group has ever used for a release.
;-)
XviD is great, but Theora clearly has other goals:
(1) Because XviD is based on the MPEG-4 standard, it is well possible that there may be patent issues. Anyone participiating in the MPEG group could might be able to shut them down, or sue them for damages. Theora specifically aims for a patent clean standard, which is much harder to achieve.
(2) Especially for video codecs (which are essentially plugins for programs) the GPL can be a problem. It may be that e.g. using a GPL'd codec with Microsoft Media Player is illegal. I know that this is generally up to interpretations, but I think that this is one of the few places where the opinion of the FSF and Microsoft don't differ
(3) Theora is pre-beta. Although I wished myself they'd hurry up a little, I don't think it's fair to compare a tried-and-tested codec standard (MPEG4) with a pre-beta projekt (OGG/Theora).
Another alternative is On2 ( www.on2.com )'s VP_ family of codecs. If you recall, VP3 is the basis of the Ogg Theora codec. It released VP3 extremely liberally, explicitly allowing others to profit from it or anything derived from it. Recently VP4 was released for "Personal Use". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but you _can_ download it and encode easily and quickly.
http://on2.com/vp4.php3
They currently sell their VP5 and VP6 codecs, which I feel are absolutely amazing. VP4 gets near DVD quality under a megabit, VP5 pwns VP4, and VP5 is a 40-50% improvement on processor foot print. Granted, I interned with them for a bit, but they truly do rock, even if I am biased.
www.olin.edu
It's completely free and GPL'd
Not quite, you have to remember to send your payment to the MPEG LA group for a "Patent Portfolio License". There are a ton of patents in MPEG4. Here's an interesting link about a "per stream" fee MPEG LA is even considering
Ogg Theora also has patents on the VP3 video codec but the license agreement makes it clear there are no royalties due for using or repackaging VP3. One of the key reasons why it's "fringe" is because it's hasn't been released as anything other than developer builds on Linux as of yet so there are no tools other than proofs of concept for creating and playing Ogg Theora streams yet.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Compensation, yeah right. Remember OpenDivX? I'll tell you the story.
At first, Project Mayo created the OpenDivX project. They claimed that it was "an open source version of DivX". (That claim couldn't be any more wrong; OpenDivX was licensed under the OpenDivX license, which wasn't approved by the Open Source Initiative.) Dispite that, people contributed code anyway.
And on one day (about 1 year later), BAM. Project Mayo suddenly closed the CVS and turned all that code into their own, commercial, proprietary DivX 4 codec. OpenDivX is dead. The end.
Not only did they stole the work that people contributed, they also took advantage of the confusion. A lot of people (including Slashdotters!) thought DivX 4 == OpenDivX, and thus thought that DivX is open source. That's plain wrong.
They stole the work of contributors without giving anything back. Sorry but I have no mercy for those guys if they don't receive compensation. DivX.com can go bankrupt as far as I'm concerned.
Funny, I encountered this installing DivX, and only took a few seconds for me to notice that the free one was below the other three options.
Whoever submitted this is a huge dumbass. That means you, bogomip_bandit@hotmail.com
Of course, you could always use a better MPEG-4 codec that happens to be open source, like XviD, or ffmpeg. When I started ripping DVDs, I compared DivX 5.0.5 to XviD to ffmpeg, and IMO XviD provided the best quality (although all three are very close together ... ffmpeg was the fastest but lost some quality compared to the other two).
When you consider that XviD and ffmpeg are open sourced, why would anyone use DivX 5?? (of course, this is using *nix as your OS, but according to the ffmpeg homepage you can use ffmpeg under Win32 as well ...)
Funny. I swore you can run mplayer on more than X86 and it comes with a very capable divx codec built in .
Why use a companies incompatable codec when you can use the open source codec for free and it works with everyone?
download mplayer, be happy that you now can play and encode divx without tricks.
Freevo depends on it, why dont you?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.