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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
There's always ffdshow, a sourceforge project that includes both divx and xvid.
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
Why not just use the VideoLAN Client?
It does a lot more than I will ever need it to.
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
A lot of the divx stuff stops working if you do this, though. What you really need to do is to download the free version that has the adware removed properly
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..
Read the FAQ. If you're too lazy to click:
Small correction: Vorbis is for audio, Ogg is the moniker for a suite of codecs from Xiph, including video and speech-specific compression.
Hee-hee. Dying tickles!
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
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
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.