DivX Making Hollywood Inroads

worm eater writes "CNet news reports that DivX is doing its best to become a digital video compression standard, and has been very successful in courting DVD manufacturers to adopt the DivX format. But will that be enough to beat out competing compression methods as a new Hollywood standard? It faces tough competition, such as MPEG-4, RealVideo and Windows Media. Who will win the standards race and what will that mean for the companies that push the various compression methods?"

Comments

easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

whoever has the most cripling DRM built in.

Re:easy answer

[d3faultus3r]

Actually that very much depends on how consumers react to it. If the technology forces people to sign away their firstborn child and sacrifice a chicken before they can watch the movie then no one will buy stuff made with it and it will fail. It will most likely be the company that figures out how to disguise the DRM to the user but still keep enough for the MPAA to be happy that wins the standards war. I'm betting that mpeg 4 will win, due to it's support by companies that actually know how to make unintrusive DRM(Apple itunes) and the fact that it isn't nearly as bad as .wma or divx are or used to be.

Re:easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's no wonder the MPAA focuses on DRM when we we are told to avoid the University of Florida because the students there won't be able to trade DVDs any more.

Re:easy answer

[Majik Sznak]

I think that with all the power and money Microsoft has, WMV will win out. I believe they've already experimented with WMV movie theatres.

Oh, and please talk to Bob:

http://www.angryflower.com/itsits.gif

Re:easy answer

[Thing 1]

Well, my firstborn wrecked the car and the chicken is shitting all over the carpet, so I'd gladly sacrifice both of them.

And if I get to watch a movie afterward, so much the better.

Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Anonymous Coward]

Has everyone seen their compressed HDTV? WOW. We may not like Microsoft, but they have a nice bit of code there.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Anonymous Coward]

You are seeing the benefits of encoding. They spent time and care to encode those video examples and the product appears a lot better for it. Without that extra care, you would see the performance limits of WM9, like other MP4 variations. Microsoft knows the value of a good demo. Unfortunately, the practical use of the codec in the market will look noticeably worse. You can't shove an elephant through a straw without doing some serious damage.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Anonymous Coward]

The HDTV is not WM9 or MP4, it is a new original codec. They haven't released it to the general public because it requirs a P4 3ghz minimum. In time, it will be available when the hardware to run it is affordable.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Anonymous Coward]

Hand-encoded stuff always looks better than real-time-encoded stuff. That's why HD-DVD (which is MPEG-4 based) looks so much better than over-the-air or over-satellite HDTV at comparable bit rates. (All three are close to 20 Mbps.)

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Nexus Seven]

Huh? HDTV is a set of standard frame rates and sizes, it has nothing to do with an encoding format.

HDTV can be compressed unsing anything you like, in the same way that PAL and NTSC can be.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[SuperDuperMan]

I've seen a near HDTV demo of "Step Into Liquid" that was very high resolution but not quite 1920x1080i. My laptop (P3 866) could not play it but my desk top 1.7GHz Xeon played it just fine.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Tod DeBie]

Has everyone seen their compressed HDTV? WOW. We may not like Microsoft, but they have a nice bit of code there.

I've seen it and I think Microsoft has a very good shot of winning this battle.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Tod DeBie]

They spent time and care to encode those video examples and the product appears a lot better for it.

The WM9 demo I saw did not include "hand encoding". It was a stragight encode using the available WM9 encoder.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[The Spoonman]

No, I would disagree there. I've seen numerous RM clips from around the web, and many WM9s. WM9 wins hands down! They can't ALL be hand-crafted. I always hated RM, in fact, I NEVER install it on a machine, specifically because I know the videos and audio are going to be so shitty, there's no point in bothering. I was impressed with QuickTime for a while, until the last Matrix trailer...on my dual-1Ghz with half a gig of ram, it was CHOOOOOPPY! Too much overhead. WM9, OTOH has run smoothly on pretty much everything I've got, and that's with crystal-clear image and sound. Nope, if MS wins the codec wars, it'll be on quality, not monopoly.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Anonymous Coward]

The modern Real codecs are quite good. (See doom9.org.) You are probably downloading 1995-era RealVideo that's compressed for streaming over a 33.6K modem to a Pentium-60

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Joe Tie.]

Firstly, comparing the quality of codecs by samples downloaded from the internet is a very bad idea. Well, unless it's by someone providing samples of a comparison study who knew what they were doing. And unfourtunatly most people encoding files into real media, or quicktime (with the exception of studios) don't have a very strong grasp of what they're doing. Not to mention a lot has to do with what media is being compressed. I've seen people on doom9 get better results with real encodes than they did with xvid or divx at comparible bitrates, mostly with anime or cartoons. But certainly at the same bitrates, people have been able to get quite comparable results with real on live action these days. As for the cpu load with the matrix trailer, I don't know what to say about that. I'm only on a 850mhz with 128MB ram and it played fine for me in Linux with mplayer.

Re:Microsoft has a real advantage here

[Holden Fahler]

If you check out www.doom9.net (the undisputed, mostly unbiased top team of video gurus) via Search and "codec comparison," you'll read that WM9 doesn't beat DivX or Xvid.

If one intends to win that horserace, it'll take more than a premium priced, glue factory nag ridden by a jockey as unpopular as bill gates.

Oh, and did I mention that Xvid is free?

HF

Change the name first.

[JVert]

Took me a year of watching Divx movies to wipe away my association of the name from that failed rental system years ago...

Re:Change the name first.

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes 2 of us!

divx?

[micronix1]

holywood and divx in one sentence? i would think that they wouldnt link the idea of divx because it's so easily distributed and has no copy protection.

Re:divx?

[stonedCoder]

holywood and divx in one sentence? i would think that they wouldnt link the idea of divx because it's so easily distributed and has no copy protection.

...currently ;)

Re:divx?

[Bragg]

They do currently have some kind of copy control / DRM solution for renting DivX movies over the internet, involving .tix files and the 'Playa' or whatever it is called now. Whether this system is secure or not, I don't know...

Re:divx?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Of course Hollywood uses DivX you insensitive clod! Who else do you think records those super high-quality screeners that I always see on Kazaa.

Re:divx?

[hanssprudel]

Whether this system is secure or not, I don't know...

Yes you do. It isn't.

Software based DRM cannot be secure.

Re:divx?

[mlrtime]

That's great but do you want to follow up that comment with some actual proof? I'm the type of person to say 'all things will be cracked' too, but I won't believe it until I see someone has done it.

Some things just require too much work to crack than the benefits yield. Usually this is with hardware but not always.

Re:divx?

[hanssprudel]

A software program is nothing but a number of ones and zeros in a file on your harddisk. Making changes to this program is as simple as changing some of those zeroes to ones and vice versa. Nothing is stopping you, except the time it takes with debugging tools to figure out which parts of the code implement the DRM features. It is logically impossible to try to secure a computer program from the person running it.

If you want practical evidence, look at games. If it were possible to make uncrackable software, then how come every game is cracked within hours of release?

I'm guessing their real advantage...

[bc90021]

...is going to be in their abillity to abuse their monopoly to force out the other codecs.

I don't foresee technical merit being a factor, unfortunately. :(

Re:I'm guessing their real advantage...

[Anonymous Coward]

But have you seen those samples? I hate to admit it too, but what they achieve is far better than anything else in the market right now.

Re:I'm guessing their real advantage...

[benwaggoner]

That's a pretty bogus analysis.

WMV9 is a tremendously good codec, and beats out next generation MPEG-4 for high definition tasks.

Head on over to dv.com and read the article I wrote in the current issue about HD delivery codecs. Microsoft is working hard to win this battle on technical merits.

FWIW, they've also been submitting the technology to various standards boards, including SMPTE.

Re:I'm guessing their real advantage...

[hamster foo]

Maybe, I'm missing your point here. Where is MS's monopoly with regards to codecs, DVDs, or DVD players? I fail to see how their "monopoly" in the desktop OS market or Office suites has any bearing on their ability to penetrate this market.

Re:I'm guessing their real advantage...

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how their "monopoly" in the desktop OS market or Office suites has any bearing on their ability to penetrate this market.

Then you aren't very bright. Just us they can afford to push the X-Box while it loses a billion (yes a BILLION) dollars a year until it crushes Nintendo and Sony, it can afford to push any other technology it wants in any market, losing money for years on end until they crush the competition.

Re:I'm guessing their real advantage...

[hamster foo]

While MS is operating at a loss in an effort to gain market share in the gaming console industry, they are FAR from crushing Sony. Sony expects to have sold 3-4 times the number of PS2s to XBoxes this fiscal year (source).

Furthermore, MS is going to have a hard time crushing a company that brings in double it's revenue (Sony revenue in yen MS revenue), so if it comes down to a battle of who can sustain operating at a loss longer Sony has a decided edge.

Regardless, you are talking about their size and ability to operate at a loss. I was addressing specifically the claim that their "monopoly" would assist in the adoption of their codec over some other companies. They aren't a major player in the DVD industry in either consumer products or media production. They don't have the same advantage as they have in the software industry to force computer manufacturers and hardware manufacturers to bend to their will. The MPAA members, who will be the primary intenties to decide what codec is adopted, are not dependent on MS products for their sales, and they are not succeptable to the same pressures that MS uses in its backyard to gain an advantage in the OS and Office suite market.

So instead of insulting me, care to enlighten me as to how their "monopoly" will influence this decision? Instead of giving me comparisons based on their economic resilience.

eh, no.

[happyfrogcow]

I still refuse to buy DVDs.

(you insensitive clod)

Re:eh, no.

[troutsoup]

a good klepto, eh? ;-)

Re:eh, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

HAR HAR HAR someone made another insensitive clod comment. Quick mod this guy up.

Why DiVX?

[Qwell]

xvid is open, is it not? Maybe not a good choice for DVD Retailers, but wouldn't DiVX be a bad idea too?

Re:Why DiVX?

[sTalking_Goat]

xvid is open, is it not? Maybe not a good choice for DVD Retailers, but wouldn't DiVX be a bad idea too?

Hollywood thinks Open Source is the devil. Besides I think Xvid is GPL, which that the tons of DRM they'd have to add to it will be open source too, which they're defintely not going to like.

Frankly I could care less either way. I've got my eye on Thedora....

Re:Why DiVX?

[Qwell]

Did you just use the words "DRM" and "GPL/open source" in the same sentence? I'm almost surprised that we all didn't vanish in a puff of logic.(Douglas Adams - HHGttG reference)

Re:Why DiVX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood thinks Open Source is the devil.

Yawn. Wrong as usual. Hollywood, like any other industry, looks at the volume of freeware out there and judges it accordingly: as crap.

This judgement is entirely reasonable and proper. The vast--and I mean vast--majority of freeware is utter pigshit. If there are a couple of half-decent freeware apps or frameworks out there, that hardly tilts the scale.

The first hurdle any freeware app is to rid itself of the yoke of being freeware. If you can figure out how to do that without actually ceasing to be freeware, you win a kewpie doll.

Re:Why DiVX?

[ldm]

Frankly I could care less either way. I've got my eye on Thedora....

I assume you're referring to Ogg Theora, the Free video codec that's currently in alpha... I am also looking forward to this project evolving to a usable, stable level.

Re:Why DiVX?

[sTalking_Goat]

thanks. I always add that 'd' for some reason and then freak out when the URL doesn't work and google brings up nothing relevant.

Must be a sub-conscious thing...

Re:Why DiVX?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the "pigshit" freeware out there is generally superior to the commercial hogshit that is sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

There's really only a small handful of commercial apps that are really that much better than their freeware counterparts that make them worthwhile to spend the mucho bucks on.

Re:Why DiVX?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the "pigshit" freeware out there is generally superior to the commercial hogshit that is sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Except it isn't, you moron. Can't you read? There might be some freeware out there that's worth having, but that doesn't add up to much in light of the vast amount of crap that's out there under the "freeware" banner.

There's really only a small handful of commercial apps that are really that much better than their freeware counterparts that make them worthwhile to spend the mucho bucks on.

Oh, please. You're probably one of those idiots who thinks Open Office is a viable alternative to Office, too. Moron.

Re:Why DiVX?

[TheRaven64]

XviD is Open Source. This means, you can copy the source, modify it and redistribute it. That does not make it free, since it is encumbered by the MPEG-4 patents (being an MPEG-4 implementation) and so, if you live in an area where the MPEG-4 patents are valid, you have to pay a royalty to compile it.

For a healthy dose of naivete...

[chjones]

Is it quality, marketing, or what that make DivX the perennial favorite, among Hollywood, consumers, or anyone else? Sure, I've got several movies encoded in DivX, but would prefer to have them in some format that I'm certain can have encoders and decoders that are legally copylefted. As always, don't think that I'm being overzealous---I'm more just curious why DivX has come closest to "hitting the big time."

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[happyfrogcow]

I'm more just curious why DivX has come closest to "hitting the big time."


porn industry.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[gbjbaanb]

I always thought it was popular because of its compression ratio, a whole movie on a CD... that's what did it. IMHO.

All the other features.. no big deal really.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[d3faultus3r]

A whole movie on a cd is very good, but I wonder how good the video quality is on it. The only way you can compress a 2 gig video file to a 700 meg file is to reduce the quality of the video sharply. It probably doesn't show up on a good 17 inch monitor but on a 27 inch tv screen with half as much dpi compared to a monitor it will make a difference.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[gbjbaanb]

true.. but if you can compress a whole movie to fit on a DVD (to watch on the TV) with top quality it'll be good enough. Fortunately that's really easy, and the convenience factor is still there (now, if you had to swap DVDs half way through, like Laserdisc.... )

For a computer, and in the past when DVD readers weren't 30, having a whole CD on a single CD is such a big deal that as long as the quality was acceptable-to-good, people would use it.

I think people (especially geeks) don't realise this as much as they should - technological excellence (in all matters, not just video) counts for nothing compared to convenience and usability.

cheers.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[Hatta]

Depends on the length of the movie the amount of action in it. A special effects epic like LOTR definately needs 2cds, but most movies can be compressed to 700mb with reasonable quality. Especially with 2-pass XviD.

I watch lots of movies and TV on my on my 20 inch svideo monitor with my tv out card, and they actually look better on the svideo monitor than the svga monitor. Because the svideo monitor isn't quite as sharp as the vga monitor you can't pick out the artifacts too easily.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[ozric99]

For a computer, and in the past when DVD readers weren't 30, having a whole CD on a single CD is such a big deal that as long as the quality was acceptable-to-good, people would use it.

I've read that three times, and even put it through babelfish - no dice - I still have no idea what it means.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[gbjbaanb]

it didn't come out quite right - lets try again:

"for watching films on a computer monitor, when DVD readers weren't so cheap, having the convenience of a whole film on a single CD is such a positive benefit that people are willing to forego an acceptable amount of loss of quality."

(sorry, I'd had a couple of beers - nice Sainsbury's Blonde Ale, and a bottle of Waggledance - when I wrote that).

(mind, I've added a can of Pedigree to them since then. I hope it makes sense now :)

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[H310iSe]

for that fact, what's the difference between DivX, divX:) and mpeg4? I always thought they were pretty much the same, just different implementations of the same compression algorythms...

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[Anonymous Coward]

People pirating porn != Porn Industry.

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[Drantin]

I'll bet you believe that running the same code through different compilers produces the same bytecode as well....

Re:For a healthy dose of naivete...

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're on the subject, did you notice how Slashcode stripped out your "" (You can't see that, but it is a Pounds Sterling sign. Shift+3 on a UK keyboard) It seems the colonies are getting upitty..

I'll second that...

[Miguelito]

Change the name, otherwise don't let the codec win.. teach the idiots a lesson for using that name.

Do we want this?

[DigiShaman]

Seriously, do we really want these forms of compression adopted? I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I want crisp, clean video. Not crap that has artifacts in it.

Re:Do we want this?

[Winterblink]

Dunno man, I have a hard time finding things to nitpick about with those Superbit releases. Movies like Panic Room, which is a very dark colored movie, show up as damn near perfect. Usually dark flicks pixelate horribly. Every Superbit flick I've got is crisp and clean no matter what kind of visuals the director's going for.

Re:Do we want this?

[meldroc]

DVDs, DirectX and digital cable boxes all use MPEG-2 to compress the video (and yes, I've seen nasty compression artifacts in them). The real question is what tradeoff do you want to make between quality and storage/bandwidth requirements. Uncompressed video consumes obscene amounts of storage and bandwidth. MPEG-4 is better at retaining quality at a given compression rate than MPEG-2.

The part that concerns me is that Hollywood will almost certainly insist on shoving DRM (that's Digital Restrictions Management) down our throats. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't like being told what I can and can't do with the equipment I own. DRM amounts to big businesses stealing the right of people to control the hardware they own.

Re:Do we want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It concerns you? They don't care what you do with your equipment. Heck, it's yours. But you don't "own" Lord of the Rings just because you own a copy of the DVD.
This is not their first attempt at control and restrictions over what you can do with DVDs. DVDs are all encrypted to prevent copying, although that encryption has been long-defeated. If it were not for that encryption, the movie industry would have never allowed DVD to exist in the first place.

Re:Do we want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you don't "own" Lord of the Rings just because you own a copy of the DVD.

B-B-But the commercial said "yours to own on VHS and DVD".

Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[FrostedWheat]

Divx *is* MPEG-4. At least one implementation of it. As far as I'm aware, so is Windows Media's video.

Divx isn't even that good a MPEG-4 codec. XVID is somewhat better, and it's free.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[Winterblink]

Heh, if there's one thing the MPAA would never consider is a free and open solution. :)

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[nedron]

What? I know a lot of people claim Divx is MPEG-4, but I'm unable to play it in an IMSA-1 compliant player WITHOUT adding their proprietary compression codec. They may use an MPEG-4 style container, but they certainly don't use standard MPEG-4 compression.

Also, Windows Media is in no way MPEG-4. In fact, Windows Media does not even (to my knowledge) play MPEG-4 video.

-David

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[Rufus211]

Do you fail to remember that DivX = Windows Media?? Remember back in the days of DivX 3.11a when it was just the Windows Media codec hacked to be usable in an AVI file instead of only ASFs and to give some more options. If you play an ASF using mplayer, this is the codec it uses:
[ffdivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg DivX ;-) (MS MPEG-4 v3))

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[laird]

WMP can play MPEG4 encoded files, if they're packaged as AVI's.

I find it annoying that Divx keeps promoting its brand as if it were something different from MPEG4. If they're incompatible with the MPEG4 spec for some reason, then they're just broken...

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[ahecht]

From http://www.divx.com/about/:

So you want to know a little bit about DivX(R), huh? DivX(R) is a lot of things. First and foremost, DivX(R) is a patent-pending MPEG-4 digital video technology created by DivXNetworks, Inc. Videos encoded with DivX technology are among the highest quality digital videos available anywhere (and with a relatively small file size to boot).

...

In addition, DivX is the most widely distributed MPEG-4 compatible technology available today. DivX technology is compatible with the MPEG-4 video compression standard, allowing it to compress MPEG-2 video down to about one eighth of its original size. DivX is able to create fully compliant MPEG-4 bitstreams, so if you're looking for an MPEG-4 compatible video technology, we can help. Read the DivX Licensing Overview for more information.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[glesga_kiss]

Divx isn't even that good a MPEG-4 codec. XVID is somewhat better, and it's free.

This is exactly why I'm going to buy an X-box and install the linux media player soon. Codecs change, new ones come along, some are better for diffent sources etc. Until the major manufacturers offer upgradeable codecs on their machines, I think the only way to get flexibility is to build your own.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against DVD or anything, I was a very, very early adopter. I'm just moving onto the next adoption now.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[benwaggoner]

This all gets kind of confusing :).

Divx 4.x and 5.x are themselves MPEG-4 Video codecs (pt. 2 video, not the new pt. 10/AVC/JVT/H.264 stuff). They aren't the best, but they're far better than the worst. The bitstream itself is compatible with ISMA compliant decoders, but...

Divx files themselves use the AVI file format instead of the MPEG-4 file format. This is for historical reasons, and the biggest problem I personally have with Divx, since it is incompatible with stock MPEG-4 tools, but not in a way that adds any user value. This is a legacy of how Divx was originally a hack to use a proprietary Microsoft codec in AVI files.

Divx files also use all kinds of audio codecs, which are rarely MPEG-4 compatible. AAC-LC is a great audio codec, and it's ISMA compatible.

So, I really wish Divx would get their tools support exporting to .mp4 with aac-lc audio. They've done 98% of the hard work to interoperate well. It's just that last 2% I'm waiting for. I don't mind if they maintain legacy support, but I want support for ISO standard MPEG-4 before I'm likely to use their stuff for much in practice.

Also, you are correct, Windows Media can't play MPEG-4 by default. There is a plugin available from Envivio for WMP that will enable this, though.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[Anonymous Coward]

XVID might do a better job of encoding (and it lets you make B-Frames without paying for or getting the adware from DivX Pro) but in the end, it is actually compatible with DivX5 unless you choose weird settings. The only reason it doesn't seem to work this way is it puts a different four byte code into the AVI header which the DivX codec doesn't recognize ("XVID" instead of "DIVX" or "DX50"). They're really the same format.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[SirChris]

XVID has that funny habit of having to take 5 minutes to _dissolve_ the previous scene when I skip ahead on the track

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's because you're watching incomplete avi's, most likely. been spending too much time on kazaa, you have.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[Proneax]

I thought AVI was just a container for audio/video formats and that a divx avi is really just divx video and (mp3,aac, etc) audio inside.

someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[benwaggoner]

Nope, that's right.

File format=avi

video codec=MPEG-4

audio codec=one of many

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[S.Lemmon]

Has nothing to do with XVID per se - it's just whoever did the encode spaced the keyframes far apart. It takes a keyframe to completely restore the picture, and the codec may start transforming the video from the frame you left off before the skip rather than from the frame it would normally be expecting. Actually, depending on the encode settings, you can get some weird almost morph-like effects when this happens. In any case, once you hit the next keyframe, things will look normal again.

Re:Divx vs. MPEG-4?

[iantri]

DivX 3.11a WAS a hacked Microsoft MPEG-4 codec. BUT, DivX 4 and up are indeed legitimate and are not based on 3.11a in any way.

Is there opensource video compression software ?

[zymano]

What about opensource software ?

It would be nice to have something to compete with these guys.

again?

[Anonymous Coward]

unless I'm mistaken, there was already an attempt a few years back to take divX to the mainstream audience. Sony made a hardware divX player, which everyone hated, and thus DVD it was. Maybe with the newer codec that might change though.

Lossy compression.

[niko9]

Am I the only one who notices pixelation even on todays MPEG2 DVD standard?

Kinda makes the purist pine for the days of the Lasedisc.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes.

I also pine for the days of the laserdisc, though. I was 7 and I put my parents' friend's Laserdiscs on their turntable. Lets just say they bought a beta machine after that.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Mod Me God]

Yes I notice a lot in some movies... funny thing is there is often more pixelation on an MPEG2 DVD than on a good rip (of course of a good DVD encode) in XviD format. Scenes, complexity and lighting are similar across movies.

It is a shame some studios release DVDs with such poor quality.

Re:Lossy compression.

[glesga_kiss]

Am I the only one who notices pixelation even on todays MPEG2 DVD standard?

Often it's down to poor encoding. A lot of the early movies have been re-released with better versions.

Cheap players can make it worse as well. I very rarely notice pixelation on my Sony DVD player, hooked up via RGB, blah blah blah. Mind you, it's gathering dust now, two thirds of my media is now DivX ;-)

Re:Lossy compression.

[Sycraft-fu]

Well it's gotta be lossy if you want HD video any time soon. I mean for a 1920x1080x24 movie you are talking 142MB/sec uncompressed. Now, even if you use a losless comrpession like huffyuv, you only get like 3:1 best case. For the sake of argument, we'll say you have a real bang up losless compresison that uses as of yet unkown methods to get an amazing 5:1. Ok so that's 28.4MB/sec (bytes, not bits). Well, that measn even for a short 90 minute film, you are talking about 150GB of storage, and that doesn't count audio, or any additonal features.

Well at this point, the only format you could ship that in is harddrive, and that'll probably remain the case for some time. Way too expensive for movies, never mind if you ahve a long one or want extra features.

So the only solution is to go lossy. Personally, I'd rather have a 1080 HD signal that uses lossy comrpession than a 720 NTSC signal that doesn't.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Mryll]

I hear you. Compression schemes are the compromises made by the masses for practicality. I know that my own sensibilities are too far in the "audiophile/videophile" direction, seeking a perfect representation of source material. Anything other than that feels like intentional distortion to me. I guess practically, most people are satisfied with a 128KB/sec MP3 for audio and the lovely compressed video that's pushed over digital cable these days. I'm not. There are characteristic distortions to be heard in the audio, ditto the video. (Watch any episode of the Simpsons or anything animated, there's a good chance that any swath of a solid green color will carry encoding artifacts that were missed.) Why would anybody want to buy an HDTV to watch a signal stuffed with artifacts? Worse, with the video stuff, I'm not sure if the average consumer understands the compromise. On audio these days probably most people understand, they're just comfortable in a "lossier" zone than I am.

Re:Lossy compression.

[taniwha]

there's lots of reasons for that - often it's crappy encoding.

However there are legacy TV reasons for this - a combination between gamma correction and the particular color space used means that there are fewer numeric codes available for encoding dark images (near the bottom tip of the YCrCb color cube - gamma pushes them more to the top) than bright ones - this can mean that scenes in dark smokey rooms (think blade runner, any sort of noir etc) tend to be more pixelated than others.

Sadly I expect directors to come to understand these limitations and avoid these sorts of scenes leaving us all in a bright colorfull world - just like the way that 50s checked ties and houndstooth jackets went out of style once NTSC was introduced - (you never saw any of your public figures or role models wearing them therefore they must be unfashionable)

Re:Lossy compression.

[SirChris]

I didn't like laserdisc. My laserdisc "wallet"-case was huge, I felt like the girl on the big comfy couch when I would open it.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Drakonian]

Hehe, lossy compression indeed. You do realize that video has huge compression rates right? There is a lot of spatial redundancy (pixels close together are likely to be the same) and temporal redundancy (pixels in the same location in neighbouring frames are likely to be the same). There is also coding redundancy (how the bitstream is actually sent).

Re:Lossy compression.

[jared_hanson]

beta and laserdisc came from to different eras you idiot. vhs was well entrenched by the time laserdisc came out and you would've had to search hi and low to find even a used betamax player. get you're facts straight before posting stupid troll comments.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Bagels]

Actually, storing lossless movies might be one possible application for holographic memory (which is supposed to have a storage space of up to 400GB), and it could do it with current lossless compression technologies (the 3:1 compression you spoke of). Too bad that holographic memory seems farther and farther away from every seeing the light of day... I rarely hear about it anymore.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Lumpy]

it depends....

many companies encode at low bitrates to try and fit lots of crud on one DVD.

bitrates below 7Meg per second is low quality (for a DVD) I encode my home movies at 12.000Meg per second . (But then I shoot with a Canon XL-1 so I have an awesome video quality to start with..) and friends and relatives rave about how much clearer,crisper and better looking my DVD's look compared to commercial movies.

It's the bitrate... I'm content with fitting only 1 hour and no added crud on one dvd.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Alien Being]

Wrong.

Beta hit the retail shelves around 1975.
VHS appeared a year of two after that.
Laserdisc came out around 1979.
Beta made a bit of a comeback around 1984 when they introduced the HiFi decks.

Re:Lossy compression.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen :)

Re:Lossy compression.

[Anonymous Coward]

ever heard of hd tape?

Re:Lossy compression.

[evilviper]

Am I the only one who notices pixelation even on todays MPEG2 DVD standard?

Not just MPEG-2 my friend... Any digital video...

I defy anyone to find any digital video codec that can accurately reproduce straight lines, without stepping/breaking of the line... Digital video just doesn't have that capacity.

Kinda makes the purist pine for the days of the Lasedisc.

I've said the same thing many times myself, around here on slashdot, and elsewhere.

They all say that DVDs are higher quality than LaserDiscs, but it's just marketing bullshit, that everyone is buying into. They give you a resolution figure, and say it's better on DVDs, but don't take into account the huge difference between analog and digital. Analog, in theory, has an infinite resolution... In reality, it's obviously not infinite, but it's a lot better than the number of lines of resolution would seem to indicate.

The thing that's always on my mind is, if DVD technology was used to create an analog DVD (much like a laserdisc) we would have better looking video, much cheaper DVD players, it would be more difficult to copy one onto a computer, and it would simply be better for everyone, all around. Why it hasn't been done, is beyond me.

Re:Lossy compression.

[evilviper]

Laserdiscs are the quality of DVDs, and aren't lossy (they're analog). That's with pre-Audio CD technology, so much more could be accomplised today.

Also, lossy won't exactly help the situation, since the problems are inherent to all current forms of digital video.

Re:Lossy compression.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Is your display properly calibrated, preferably by an ISF certified tech, but with Avia or Video Essentials at a bare minimum?

Completely off-topic..

[NanoGator]

.. but I thought the Slashdot audience would appreciate Foxtrot today.

Again, sorry to be off-topic.

Re:Completely off-topic..

[Disco Stew]

Heh, Oh how I wish *I'd* thought of that...

Re:Completely off-topic..

[javaxman]

maybe he would have found his teacher to be more simpathetic if he'd remembered to include "\n" at the end of his argument to printf.

Re:Completely off-topic..

[ncc74656]

but I thought the Slashdot audience would appreciate Foxtrot today.

Looks like there are at least a couple of moderators with bugs up their asses about something today...

Re:Completely off-topic..

[NanoGator]

"Looks like there are at least a couple of moderators with bugs up their asses about something today..."

I've noticed they take 'off-topic' way too seriously. Had that happen the other day when there was that article about telemarketing execs signing up for the DNC list. Fortunately anotoher mod came in and fixed it.

I'm going to get modded off topic for this one as well, even though moderation of a post is very much on-topic.

Re:Completely off-topic..

[Student_Tech]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.
Of course what are people doing critiquing the code in a comic strip.....

Theora

[sik0fewl]

How about Theora? . . . I know.. but maybe someday.

Re:Theora

[Mryll]

Link is timing out - /.'ed? What is it?

Re:Theora

[sik0fewl]

I think all the xiph sites are down. I can't get to xiph.org, theora.org or vorbis.com. Maybe tomorrow..

Re:Theora

[evilviper]

Forget about someday... VP3 has been available (saying it looks worse than MPEG-4 is a sure way to get slapped up-side the head by someone with a clue), as is Vorbis. Maybe stick the two together in a Quicktime container, and you've got a format FAR better than Divx, and 100% free, in all senses of the word.

Re:Theora

[Sunnan]

That wouldn't be much less work than what the theora project is doing with putting theora/vp3 and vorbis in an ogg format bitstream, and oggs are nice and flexible.

Re:Theora

[evilviper]

That wouldn't be much less work than what the theora project is doing

As a matter of fact, that would be NO work at all... Quicktime filters for Ogg/Vorbis are available I believe, and I know VP3 exists as a plugin for quicktime. So what work?

with putting theora/vp3 and vorbis in an ogg format bitstream

If all they were doing was putting VP3 in an Ogg container, they would have been done a long time ago. Instead, they are making a lot of changes to the VP3 format (while trying to retain backwards compatibilyt), which is what is taking a great deal of time.

and oggs are nice and flexible.

I use Ogg/Ogm container a lot, not just for vorbis audio, but for videos, like MPEG1/MPEG4, and I have used Theora as well. I think Ogg/Ogm is good enough, and widely enough supported, but I certainly wouldn't call it nice and flexible, unless comparing it to avi or some other stupid container format.

Given a choice, I think I would much rather have .mov format files everywhere, as it is a much better container than just about anything else common, including Ogg/Ogm.

Re:Theora

[Sunnan]

VP3 exists as a plugin for quicktime.

Oh, I didn't know that.

To be honest, I've only played with ogg/ogm and the utterly braindead avi.

You can vcut and cat oggs to your hearts content, and the bitstream is pretty robust. I know mov also is capable of streaming, though. (I couldn't find a good mov vs ogm comparison online.)

Not really DivX anymore, is it?

[foo fighter]

DivX isn't really DivX anymore is it?

I mean it's not the proprietary, pirated ;) video codec it started as. Now it's basically MPEG-4, versus DVD which is MPEG-2.

This move isn't surprising to me, because I'd expect the movie industry to use the latest Standard once it became mature.

And if they have a solution ready to go, why would they reinvent the wheel?

I'm sure the next generations of DVD players will support DivX encoded discs, just as DVD players eventually came to support MP3, WMA, VCD, and CDR/RW.

I might be betraying my ignorance of, and apathy towards, video. Excuse me if that's the case.

Re:Not really DivX anymore, is it?

[the_2nd_coming]

yes, in fact KiSS was the first DivX certified DVD player, and now the RJ 4000 has this feature as well....both allow for streaming from your computer to your TV over ethernet as well.

Re:Not really DivX anymore, is it?

[drinkypoo]

I was under the impression that it started as a hacked microsoft mpeg4 codec, and is now a non-microsoft-related mpeg4 codec.

Re:Not really DivX anymore, is it?

[psymastr]

This move isn't surprising to me, because I'd expect the movie industry to use the latest Standard once it became mature.

That is bollocks. Because MPEG-4 came after MPEG-2 doesn't mean it's better quality-wise. It's a standard with different targets. MPEG-4 is used for high compression, MPEG-2 for high quality. Yes, MPEG-4 codecs do the job very well, but nothing MPEG-4 can reach MPEG-2 (yet).

Re:Not really DivX anymore, is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG-4 is much more than movie or sound... If you check http://www.m4if.org/mpeg4/

Bet I'm not the first to say: OGG

[Atario]

Better yet, how about upgradable players? Add whatever codecs you like/get invented?

Same quality as DVD?

[mblase]

Like its rivals, DivX offers a huge improvement in compression compared with the current TV video standard, MPEG-2, which is used by most broadcasters and in most DVDs: Using DivX, a standard 4.7GB DVD can be squeezed down to about 700MB without significant loss of quality. (Microsoft and RealNetworks claim similar ratios.)

Can anyone who uses DivX or has a DivX/DVD player hooked up to their TV attest to this?

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[koreth]

Only if they have a small TV. I have yet to see a DivX movie that looks like anything but pixellated, artifact-strewn crap on my front-projection system. But I'm sure if I tried it on a 31-inch set, a lot of that would be less noticeable.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[delus10n0]

Well, the thing is, MPEG2/DVD is usually mastered professionally, taking into consideration individual scenes, and raising/lowering bitrates to compensate. A "still" shot, or just someone talking probably isn't going to need a lot of bandwidth, while a big fight scene is.

DiVX though has been mainly used by "consumers" who don't really know/care about any of that stuff, and just want to be able to throw in a DVD and get one a DiVX. They don't sit and tweak each scene's or frame's bandwidth requirements. Only recently did DiVX release their EKG application which allows a person to modify (inbetween VBR passes) the data allocated to individual frames. If someone (ie, a professional) really knew what they were doing, then I have no doubts they could produce an almost DVD-quality film which takes up only 700megabytes. But why stop at 700 megabytes? Using DVD media, we could get 8+ gigabytes of video/audio on a single disc. That's (theorhetically) almost 8+ hours (at "film" quality) of video. Featurettes and the like could obviously be encoded in a much lower bitrate, as they are with MPEG2/DVD's now, allowing even more room on the disc.

What we really need to be concerned with/pushing is higher resolutions. 720x480 just ain't cutting it anymore. High Def is where it's at, baby, and DiVX and Windows Media are delivering that right now. We just need a medium to transport it properly.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both DivX and Xvid are capable of achieving such ratios. The key to the quote is a 4.7GB DVD, which is half a commercial DVD, which is double layered and can hold 9.4GB. I know with both codecs (DivX and Xvid), I can compress a commercial DVD at 9.4GB down to around 1.4GB with very little noticable loss in quality. I can usually compress a 9.4GB DVD down to 2.2GB (with the 5.1 DD audio intact) and not be able to tell a difference between the two.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[G00F]

700 meg for a movie, is not a replacement for DVD?s. However two 700 megs files per movie and the quality is much better than VHS. However, you can chop off the credits and the useless intro crap and save a lot, thus increasing the quality of the picture/frame rates.

Not to mention how many different versions and combinations of codec?s out there that is called ?DivX?. There is no such thing as being able to play them all, and play them all well. Also, there are a lot of graphical glitches you end up with, weither it is just the compression showing, to an error that causes everything to blur/go white/etc. Action movies with lots of background movement is very noticeably slow/choppy looking.

I haven?t yet read the article, however, I wonder what version of codec?s they are thinking about.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[autocracy]

Put shortly, DivX can be as good as DVD for less space... but not at 4.7GB to 700. Most 4.7GB disks are not entirely the feature. You can a short feature to look decent for 700 MB, but I'd guess only a 1:2 compression rate for something really pretty looking. Try watching an action movie that's been DivX'd... it can be painful if it's not encoded correctly.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's compressed, and DVD's are uncompressed MPEGs. DIVX uses a compression technique that "tricks" your eyes visually. If you pause the movie, the frozed scene will look like garbage. When you continuously play it, you can't tell.
It works in most scenes, but for moves with wierd special effects, such as the Matrix, it's not so good. Maybe if the DIVX encoder uses the right settings, but I haven't seen any DIVX moves that look as good as uncompressed MPEG.
Still, if you want to fit a movie onto a CD, it's your best bet.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[fupeg]

Many of the DivX movies you see (especially on P2P networks) are rips from DVDs. As such they are compressions of an already compressed, lossy format. It would be like making AAC rips from MP3s. It is not a good measure of the codec.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on Slashdot would you hear someone describe a 31" TV as *small* :)

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[Hatta]

The great thing about 2-pass xvid is that it does all that for you. One pass to see where the motion is and estimate size, and another pass to do the real encoding.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[delus10n0]

DiVX can do this too (as well as n-passes,) but this is not the same as someone going through and manually tweaking bitrates/keyframes. Although multiple passes can do a pretty good job, a professional actually tweaking those results is almost always going to be better. That is what they do for production DVD's, and what would have to happen for DiVX to step up to the same quality.

We also have to remember that going DVD->DiVX is re-encoding from one lossy format to another. If you had a perfect digital master.. things would be slightly different I'd wager.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[S.Lemmon]

There is no such thing as being able to play them all, and play them all well.

Never used ffdshow? :-) If not you really should give it a try - it's just a decoder, but will handle most any MPEG4 codec you throw at it, including most all versions of DivX and XVID. It also has a ton of postprocessing settings you can play with. Be sure to get the latest version though as there are several floating around.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they used to say about compilers. They were wrong.

Re:Same quality as DVD?

[delus10n0]

Yes, because compressing video and compiling code are the same exact thing and use the same principles.

Grow a brain, genius.

competition from realvideo?

[heXXXen]

you're kidding, right?

Divx not a good choice over others

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever the politics of the competing formats(some more evil than others), DivX is not likely to be a leading choice because it is not as good a codec as the others. In most of the published comparison tests (see DV magazines codec review) it loses- and often badly against others. The quality of the tools are also not as developed. WM9 is a good example of an average codec that looks better because of good encoding tools. MP4 has also a few better options. DIvX nice for casual use now (read: downloading free movies) and may one day get better, but I'd rather be using MP4, Sorenson, or even the evil WM9 for real work.

Video and Audio Codecs

[SnowWolf2003]

There seem to be 3 factors that will eventually determine who wins out:

1. Quality - If it is compressed it still needs to be good quality
2. Widespread adoption - If you can't encode and decode it wherever you want to use it, then it won't work for you.
3. Portability/Restrictions - Finding the right balance between copy protections wanted by the MPAA/RIAA and the portability wanted by the consumers.

Re:Video and Audio Codecs

[johnhennessy]

You forgot one. And in the tradition of thermodynamics, should be numbered zero.

0. Cost - In the cut-throat world of STB (settop box) manufacturing, cost is everything. If a manufacturer has to pay a dollar for each patent that the codec uses, per box they sell (ala MP3) then they're going to look for cheaper alternatives.

I don't know enough about DivX and patents but if anyone else knows they might enlighten us.

But it all boils down to the almighty buck.

YASW (Yet Another Standard War)

[CodeBuster]

There is still a considerable amount of negative brand name sentiment towards DiVX because of the whole Circuit City mess several years back. I remember lines of irate customers arguing with the clerks at the return lines and believe me, the arguments were intense and involved streams of explicatives. I will probably be moded down for saying so, but the HDTV compression and Windows Media formats are becoming very competitive with the more established standards like MPEG and Real. Microsoft claims that DRM will not be used to protect the owner's machine against the interests of the owner, but only time will tell the truth of those claims.

XviD!

[Anonymous Coward]

XviD CVS HEAD/dev-api-4 SPANKS Divx in every which way, and XviD 1.0 will only improve on that

XviD > *

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[chjones]

XviD and Ogg Theora (website seems to be down) are free (AIS) video compressor/decompressors that are designed to be comparable to DivX. The still-early-experimental Ogg Tarkin is a whole different kind of bird, but with the same general aim. For lossless video compression, there's Huffyuv (do a search). All these are open source, but the last review I read still had DivX as better quality per bitrate than the others.

EVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody who knows anything realizes the EVD stadard adopted by China is the next generation. MPEG 4 charges way to much and China's recent move toward open source and open standards which they will force down the throats of the rest of the world should be recognized as the front-runner in this war. Real blows (we all know that), Window Media is headed for all sorts of trouble with impending lawsuit that they ripped the source and anticompetitive practises.

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't xvid open source??

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Something like XviD perhaps?

Yes!

[jared_hanson]

Well, first of all, DivX 4 originally had an open source code base. DivXNetworks had a 2 system thing going on, them working on their own code, and also supporting and open source version. They changed however, amid the release of DivX 5. This is why the XviD group was formed. Their original code base was forked from the open source DivX 4 code base. Much of that has been rewritten by now though.

Also, there is an Ogg progect, called Theora, that is an open video codec. It is based off a codec called VP3 that was orignially developed by a company called On2 They gave the VP3 code to Xiph and continue to work on their own proprietary codecs, such as VP6.

Different Dixv

[ahecht]

You are thinking of Circuit City's DIVX, which was a disposable DVD program. DivX is an unrelated codec, whose name, IIRC, was chosen to poke fun at the failed DVD alternative.

Pixlet

[andyring]

What about Apple's new codec, Pixlet (scroll down about 2/3, on the right)?

Re:Pixlet

[Anonymous Coward]

Pixlet doesn't even have temporal compression. It would be like making a DVD entirely out of I-frames.

Re:Isn't DIVX an variant of MPEG4?

[Mod Me God]

As far as I understand, DivX (at least in it's most recent form) does heavily 'borrow' from MPEG4 which is not a royalty free standard (those behind DivX do not honour those royalties) which means possible future court cases.

Meanwhile, XVid provides DivX quality with a totally open source. (no 'borrowing').

A little surprised they're not using it..

[NanoGator]

.. afterall, they could burn fewer discs. My 7-disc DS9 set could be knocked down to 2 discs. Maybe even one. It's still worth $100, but they have a cheaper cost of goods.

Re:A little surprised they're not using it..

[truenoir]

I already only costs them a few bucks to physically make the thing and ship it.

Considering DS9 (and other shows) already ran on TV and presumably made money that way, they're already raking cash with the sets.

Re:A little surprised they're not using it..

[yerricde]

but they have a cheaper cost of goods.

The increased royalty paid per copy to the developer of a newer codec may outweigh the reduced cost of physical replication.

Xvid has a few problem

[Sycraft-fu]

At least in terms of adoption for commercial products:

1) It's not completely legal. They don't really have a liscence to use the MPEG-4 patents. That's why DivX has for pay and adware versions, to get money for the MPEG-4 costs. Well if you are making a commercial product for profit, you need to be on the level with lisscencing, or you could wind up screwed.

2) It suffers from perpetual betaness. It's not bad, I mean it's not like it blows up all the time, but it DOES have some noticable bugs. Read the doom9.org forums for some good insight into the specific problem. No big deal for normal users, I mean tons of software (and OSes) is buggy. However, it's gotta be more solid for a solution like they are talking about.

Score -5, Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful my ass!

DivX is already Old..

[piett134]

Sheesh, DivX uses way to much overhead for so little quality, check out VP6, if you want to see real video quality.

Re:Bet I'm not the first to say: OGG

[worm eater]

Better yet, how about upgradable players? Add whatever codecs you like/get invented?

I think they are building the codecs into the hardware to make the players faster. While it's certainly not impossible to build hardware that can be upgraded, it poses a challenge and somewhat defeats the purpose of having an industry standard. Not to mention people wouldn't have to buy new players when the standard changes.

I am building my own player

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to take a mini ITX case, put in an AMD 2100+ processor and board, a nice all in one video card with built in mpeg2 compression / decompression, a Super DVD drive and a 120GB hard drive, hook it to a projector, and program it to play any format and to rip anything I put into it.

It will capture TV shows in mpeg2 format with the video capture cards built in hardware compression, then transcode them at it's leasure into MPEG4 format. Once it has about 10 hours of shows recorded and transcoded, it will burn them out to a waiting DVD, and send a print job to a printer to print out the new DVD label. It will also stream out audio and video to any other computer on my home network.

Once I get this all setup I will put up a parts list, a list of instructions, and an ISO image of my drive so anyone else who wants can do it too.

It amazes me that I can build my own CD/DVD player from off the shelf parts that can play formats that no store bought player will ever play. We the people have the power now. Palladium is a move to preempt us from doing this, but it is too little too late.

Re:I am building my own player

[Anonymous Coward]

that's dumb.

use a dvr-250 card that has built on mpeg compression. the all in blunder DOES NOT have any compression on the card.

BTW, I have had what you dream of for over 6 months now... it's called freevo and it's linux based and makes a tivo look downright stupid (except for pausing live tv.... a useless feature as far as I am concerned.)

Not its inteded use.

[jared_hanson]

Read the blurb about Pixlet. It is mainly intended for studio use because it preserves more quality and doesn't achieve as much compression. It's data rate is 3MB/sec. Do calulations on this. It is 180MB/minute and 10800MB/hour. Round it to 10GB/hour. DVD's today max out at around 7.2GB per disc, and can fit over 2 hours of video on them.

So, Pixlet is ruled out of the question, because it doesn't achieve the compression required to store a movie on a single disc. Again, Pixlet is meant for studio use, such as decreasing the file size needed to move film masters around between editing shops, etc.

those trademarks no longer valid?

[ebonkyre]

USPTO lists the earlier company's trademarks as dead and abandoned.

#75352735 - "DIVX" - dead, abandoned 10/5/2000
#75367710 - "DIVX Digital Video Networks" (logo) - dead, abandoned 12/18/1998 (???)

DivX and Xvid Player

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have a stand alone DVD player that plays both DivX and XVid. The LiteOn LVD-2001. DivX performance is very good, but the Xvid seems even better. A friend loaned me a CD of a movie encoded in Xvid and it is quite impressive. I suspect more and more mainstream DVD players are going to start supporting these codecs or be left behind by those that do.

Just my opinion...

Re:DivX and Xvid Player

[evilviper]

The problem as I see it, is that there is absolutely no standard format yet... Every player so far just plays a MPEG4 file, recorded as a file on a disc. What about playing mode-2 discs, recorded like VCDs/SVCDs to get the extra space? With VCD and SVCD, there was a company there, pushing, not just codecs, but a standard format as well. Without having that, MPEG-4 support is going to be limited, flaky, etc.

Then, of course, there's the big issue of something else comming along before MPEG-4 support is widespread, and just blowing it out of the water.

Maybe Theora will be incredibly great, and nobody will use MPEG-4 anymore. Personally, I recomend every stick with a simple computer, which can easily be extended to play absolutely any format, at no extra cost!

Re:DivX and Xvid Player

[Mitchell Mebane]

Can it handle MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile features, such as Q-PEL and GMC? Can it play Vorbis audio? Can it/is there any chance it will ever play movies in Matroska containers?

Re:trademark lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

circuit city's product FAILED. not much room for a lawsuit then.

and wm and realmedia has sucked for a really long time. real media always has been and will continue to be, a JOKE. there opensource deal sounds interesting, but the ir main codec is garbage.

windows media, yawn.w

Heehee

[HungWeiLo]

CNet news reports that DivX is doing its best to become a digital video compression standard, and has been very successful in courting DVD manufacturers to adopt the DivX format.

The DivX formmated has successfully courted this manufacturer. (Rubs lovingly my spindle of CD-R's)

Sorry, DviX sucks...

[jxliv7]

Any company that charges for a "standard" has no respect from me.

The last time I went to their site it was nothing more than an online store -- where did their free player go...?

I think DviX is nothing more than another attempt by some programmers to make money by trying to be monopolistic (like M$).

When I find files that will only play with DviX I go elsewhere or wait until somebody converts'em.

Re:Sorry, DviX sucks...

[Mryll]

It is still there. Buried somewhat and a bit obscure now. Commercially they're starting to act a bit "real"ish. It's OK to want to make something off your encoders I guess, but it's amusing if any closed video format considers itself enough of a defacto standard to start strong-arming those who would consider using it. A media format itself is just not special enough to make much money from. They can all be replaced.

Re:Sorry, DviX sucks...

[Jugalator]

I think DviX is nothing more than another attempt by some programmers to make money by trying to be monopolistic (like M$).

Well, ever considered that maybe we need those guys trying to become monopolistic, or else MS will just make Windows Media Video a standard instead of DivX? At least the DivX team has a niche, MS don't.

Re:Sorry, DviX sucks...

[jxliv7]

Very true. Arrogance from a secondary wanna-be standard should be met with laughter, derision, and especially non-usage by the community. They CAN be replaced by GPL'd "products".

The problem is the cross-licensing and commercial tie-ins that these companies make -- for example, that some multimedia (trailers, white papers, videos, etc.) is only available in certain formats. They're saying, "if you want to see this you have to download/buy/install/use our proprietary product."

When will the majority of the PC users out there learn to vote with their OS or applications and stop using crap? Sorry, rhetorical question.

As for programmers making something off their encoders, I would suggest they sell to Real, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Just another example of why Open Source with thousands of programmers/developers beats proprietary source with a handful of stingy coders.

Re:Sorry, DviX sucks...

[jxliv7]

I think you miss the point.

The DivX crew seems to feel that they can 'force' a "standard" as well as adopt some of the tactics of Real and M$.

Well, so did a lot of other outlaws of the old American west who thought they could 'force' themselves to success by pushing and grabbing and taking. They were surpplanted by ordinary and honest citizens who eventually vastly outnumbered, outgunned if necessary, and simply governmented the territories into peaceful states.

I think the original argument here was against DivS's tactics, not their niche or innovation. But, such lousy tactics will reflect adversly on thier niche and innovation.

Re:Bet I'm not the first to say: OGG

[azuretek]

the reason companies dont like upgradable AV components is because they would rather release a new product that would cost money (instead of an upgrade that most likely would be free)

also companies that release new products with more compatability to standards will get more sales, so if they add them from the start then the customers will follow

MOD UP CLUEFUL +something positive

[pr0ntab]

thanks for doing a much better job explaining than I could ever do.

who cares about squeezing crappy dvd down to 700k?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would be a lot more interesting to me is using
better compression to get something approaching hdtv quality onto current dvd media. If it works, this would provide a good bridge to some sort of hd-dvd.
They could start out by using the (usually) unused second sides of dvds to store an hdtv-quality wide-screen 1080i version of the film while keeping side 1 with the compatible version. A new round of dvd players would only need new decoding software+hardware to play these hd versions.

I've recently gotten hdtv from my cable system and now realize how much dvds suck quality-wise :-(.

morons' ppr making inroads vs. unprecedented evile

[Anonymous Coward]

plenty of that in old hollywooed.

however, there's also plenty of folks out west who are anxious to see the light (join the planet/population rescue initiative), & welcome the demise of the georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazi execrable.

some of that's selfish in nature, as nobody wants to bullow up so that some felonious greed/fear/war mongers can garner more than more than their share.

each of the creator's innocents harmed, carries with it a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US. the perpetrators of harm against the planet/population will not be available to make reparations.

consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. seek out/communicate with others of non-aggressive/positive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you/US.

And Divx is already on the way

[Snaller]

adding a wrapper to their divx (good way to slow it down!) - read this for an annoying story.

malarky...

[pr0ntab]

the MPEG2 video (720x480 resolution at 9 megabits per second) is closer to the digital uncompressed stock at a least-squares error rate an order of magnitude better than MP3s at 128kbps, to use your example.

Have you looked at paused frames from a DVD on a progressive scan TV?

Looks nice, doesn't it. :-)

And (joke approaches) I'll wager the quality of such a DivX is much higher than one taken from some other method, say a telesynced camcorder in a movie theater.

Re:malarky...

[fupeg]

You might be theoretically (though I would *love* to read the least squares analysis you claim, purely because I love reading crap like that) correct, but I even if you are, I don't think it is practically true. I am fortunate enough to have a progressive scan DVD player and a TV that handles 480p. There are some DVDs that look very good, but there are a lot more IMO that look like shit. Many people on this thread have already pointed out how older DVDs or those with lots of dark scenes have poor encoding. In other words, the bandwidth maybe there for a great picture, but that does not guarantee that the right bits are there. Imperfections are often magnified when a second, lossy algorithm is applied. And even if the picture does look great, a second compression can screw it up.

My point is that a DivX encoded movie mastered from the digitzed source (or if its from Lucas, the actualy source itself) should be a lot better than a DivX encoded movie ripped from a DVD. I don't think there's anything particularly insightful about that statement. Subjectively, you might think that the latter is still good enough or that the former is still not good enough.

Let's go trolling!

[rock_climbing_guy]

With anything from "Hollywood," we will have crippling DRM.

I won't buy a RealVideo set box because I don't want pop-ups on my TV.

MS - let's not even go there. We would only be able to play our movies on M$ Windoze foreverandeveramen.

DivX - oh, please, they would never adopt any standard that wasn't designed specifically to cripple fair use.

Rippers

[shoemakc]

Man, wouldn't that make for easy to use rippers:

cp /mnt/cdrom1/vts_01.avi /movies/matrix.avi

2 minutes to rip vs 6 hours. Sign me up!

-Chris

Xvid is the best.

[incom]

It performs well on low end hardware, and has excellent video quality(best I've seen in compressed video). Divx is significantly slower at high quality settings, and with slightly more artifacts. I believe xvid is LGPL too! Too bad without some lobbying money it doesn't stand a chance for Hollywood.

Re:Xvid is the best.

[incom]

Correction, it is GPL, not LGPL.

Re:Xvid is the best.

[evilviper]

I believe xvid is LGPL too!

No, XviD is GPL'd.

libavcodec, which is part of ffmpeg, and programs like mplayer/mencoder are based-on, is the fastest, and highest quality (if you use the right options) MPEG4 encoder around.

What's with all the Xvid fanboys?

Re:Xvid is the best.

[evilviper]

I also wanted to bring up the fact that, although Xvid is GPL'd, ffmpeg/libavcodec *is* LGPL'd.

Re:trademark lawsuit?

[MrLint]

Circuit city lost so much money on that albatross, would it be really worth their time and money to remind the public about their dumbass idea?

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[Anonymous Coward]

HuffyUV is dead. It infringed on the patent for Rice encoding. (Rice is incredible. You get lossless encoding of CCIR-601 video at rates that hover around 10:1.)

HungWeiLo [ot]

[pr0ntab]

Love the nick. Are you from PRC?

Re:HungWeiLo [ot]

[HungWeiLo]

No. I've traveled there, though.

Production vs distribution

[MrLint]

Here is the big point, When you are working in production you want to use something the most flexible. MPEG4 and and divx are platform neutral. Leaving your production houses to use basically any tools they seem fit. As I recall several movies have already been made using quicktime for instant screen replay by the directors. I also recall it being used to film wallace and gromit animations.

Remember DRM is intended for consumer consumption 9 regardless of how foul it tastes). I think the discussion needs to be broken in half.

Wrong on both counts

[benwaggoner]

Divx's video codec is exactly MPEG-4, which they're public about, and they are paid up on their license fees.

The technology did start out as an illegal hack, but it's 100% legit know as far as I know.

Gold Star For You

[Anonym1ty]

The part that concerns me is that Hollywood will almost certainly insist on shoving DRM (that's Digital Restrictions Management) down our throats.

I'm giving you a gold atr for pointing this out. Particularly with your exposing the real meaning of the acronym. We should all make a point of helping or less technical family and friends realize this; It is a restriction imposed upon us.

Moral or Legal or what not, sanitizing it by calling it Digital Rights Management is very mis-informative, a practice used mainly in wars and espionage

DirectX?

[benwaggoner]

I think you meant something other than DirectX. DirectShow does have third party MPEG-2 decoder filters available, but it's hardly the dominant format used with DS.

As for DRM, the iTunes Music Store has shown that many people don't object to DRM per se, they mainly show that people reject DRM models which don't allow them to use the content in the way they want to use them.

It's not like you hear about people boycotting Macrovision encoded DVD that often :).

Re:DirectX?

[meldroc]

Oops, that's DirectTV. Sorry, my brain's got crosslinked files... Where's fsck.brain when I need it?

Laserdisc? Only when the remaining choice was VHS

[Sleepy]

> Am I the only one who notices pixelation even on todays MPEG2 DVD standard?

>Kinda makes the purist pine for the days of the Lasedisc.

Sure, I see this all the time... but I wouldn't go back to Laserdisc.

There are two causes for seeing this in DVD's:
1) Lousy DVD encode work.
Laserdisc had media *transferred* to it. They would (hopefully) clean the negatives, get everything aligned, and record to laserdisc. Everything was done at once.

By contrast, DVD is *captured* as uncompressed video, then (perhaps) shipped off to a *different* service bureau for MPEG-2 encoding.

Either -- or neither! -- shop might be responsible for "cleanup" on the video, such as scratch removal, etc.

Next MPEG encoding can be done "realtime" (lower quality) or as software-encoding with all the fine-tune (and slow!) knobs cranked up. Even on the fastest systems, this is an overnight job.

Lastly, the "customer" (movie owner) does not always know what they want. Will this be a DVD-5 disc? If so, the movie needs to be kept at about 4 gigs, and even that leaves little room for alternate soundtracks, languages, and "extras". DVD-5 is cheaper to manufacture so not everyone assumes DVD-9 is in the cards.

With DVD-9, you can pad the bits so a 2hr movie gets 5-6 GB. This makes a HUUGE difference in quality... less compromises, less pixelation and less chroma artifacts. The difference is like 800MB DivX video compared with 1.5 Divx video.

Its pretty easy to catch artifact noise on animated, of computer generated video. Even allowing for that, the overall quality still blows away Laserdisc.

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[benwaggoner]

Xvid is a MPEG-4 implementation, so commercial products based on it will need to pay the MPEG-4 license fee, FWIW. It's cheap.

Theora is free as in every kind of speech, beer, or anything else you could imagine. However, they haven't locked down their bitstream yet, so it's hard to say how good it will be as a codec.

Huffyuv is open source, but full of x86 assembly, so it isn't usefully portable. I'd love to see an equivalent technology that'd be more portable, and LGPL so it could be used more widely.

Perpeptual beta

[poptones]

If that is your guideline, ALL software is "perpeptual beta." I've been using XVID for quite a long time now, and it has consistently outperformed DIVX. I've done A/B comparisons on HD video and I've never seen DIVX do anything XVID could not. No software is perfect - ever.

And so far as that other guy's problem with "five minutes to fade when I FFW" well, that ain't your encoder, champ. That's the playback codec combined with the keyframe rate of the original encode. Doesn't matter what was used to encode it - if you got ten seconds between keyframes and no B frames, it's gonna take a while to settle out. If you got five minutes between'em (as lots of newbs like to do) then it's gonna take a real long time to settle.

The real irony is many "DIVX" videos out there are actually encoded with XVID (because it works better and it's free). All it takes is a switch setting in the XVID config to make it report a DIV5 fourCC, and a lot of people use this feature to avoid codec playback hassles. I used to do that too, but quit because people NEED to know there is an alternative out there.

I hope DIVX is able to make this fly (my bet is they will). The codecs are similar enough XVID will be just as compatible, which means we're free to use open source creation tools while DIVX pays the patent fees.

Re:Perpeptual beta

[Haeleth]

> No software is perfect - ever.

I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed many bugs in "cat" recently.

But...

[sik0fewl]

... Divx KILLS

I just stumbled across this today and thought I'd share it.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong one. Here's the right one:

Divx=Dead?

DRM this DRM that. Why worry???

[Pedrito]

Everyone's up in arms about DRM. Why? They talk about it like it's something that's going to be unhackable. Someone please show me an example of the music or movie industry producing unhackable formats of anything.

Sorry, but as soon as they get their DRM stuff in, someone's going to hack it. End of story.

Re:DRM this DRM that. Why worry???

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. It's similar to the region encoding mess. Here in South Africa, just try buying a DVD player that actually obeys the zone laws. 90% of them are multi-zone. I'm guessing that if DRM ever did get into DVD standards, DVD players would just bypass it at the hardware level.

Re:DRM this DRM that. Why worry???

[JackRabbitSlims]

I've never heard of SACD beign hacked, for example.

GOATSE LINK, MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

retard

Re:Isn't DIVX an variant of MPEG4?

[Mod Me God]

My info was out of date, I stand corrected. Infact I found it interesting the MPEG4 organisation (http://www.mpegla.com/) has a feature on DRM on their front page - Hollywood DiVX telling indeed.

A 100% LOL

[Metaldsa]

"It faces tough competition, such as MPEG-4, RealVideo and Windows Media."

Are you kidding me? Who in their right mind would choose RealVideo unless it was for some specific video settings. RealVideo isn't a choice, it means your screwed. When I must see a RealVideo file, well just installing the thing and letting them try to corrupt my system makes me feel dirty.

Re:A 100% LOL

[Pestilenc]

One word (ok two, but that doesn't have nearly the cliched valve): Real Alternative.

homepage. I think this is its homepage at least.

V1.08 is the newest.

While you're at it, Quicktime Alternative works great as well.

Pest

Re:A 100% LOL

[cjb110]

ZoomPlayer can handle Real(I would say video, but I don't think it can really be called that) and QuickTime, as well as the usual formats:
http://www.inmatrix.com/

Can anyone show me an example of a good quality Real clip?

Re:A 100% LOL

[Mitchell Mebane]

RealVideo 9 is actually a pretty kick-ass codec. Take a gander at the doom9.org forums.

What about all the updates?

[Dunark]

I've observed fairly frequent releases of new versions of DivX 5.whatever codecs. Videos encoded with the newer versions usually don't play properly unless the codec is at a high enough version. This could cause a lot of hassles with standalone DVD players; A lot of non-tech people aren't going to like re-flashing their DVD player's firmware every month or so just so they can play the latest DVD releases, and the manufacturers will probably have a lot of headaches with units being returned for service because of failed firmware re-flashes.

Re:Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

My lips are burning timothy!

PS, I've been timing the lameness filter, its fucking slow damnit!

OT: Encoding sequential frames?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, this might be slightly off-topic, but I'll ask anyway since it's video related.

Does any know of any good software for encoding a sequence of images to video (especially to a DVD mpeg2 format)? I've got mpeg2enc already but that seems rather old and crusty. What I'd really like to do is encode a sequence of images generated by my GI renderer and burn it to DVD. Does anyone know of good (preferably affordable) software for this?

Xvid illegal in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because of the patents it infringes. When I looked at it earlier this year the licencing terms prohibit distribution in the United States.

Which sucks because it has very nice quality, packaged neatly into a nice cross-platform codec.

DivX...Xvid

[Brat Food]

Ok, while these codecs have brought the best of internet IP theft so i can watch my favorite TV shows and such, there is also one HUGE problem.. It's like no 2 files use the same mix of video+audio formats. This really sucks after you reinstall your computer and cant remember which of 100 things you need to install to get your Aqua teen hunger force video to play (if you havnt guessed, im dealing with that right now).

Another problem for adoptation i'd assume, would be the REAL MPEG4 codec and QuickTIme. If you havent worked in video professionally, you dont understand how much headace quicktime releaves, compared to trying to get stuff to encode/play with open source tools, and even windows media. Before you waste a keystroke trying to tell me otherwise.. go work with various digital media assets coming from multiple sources with open source, quicktime based, and windows media based. 8+ hours a day. 40 hours a week. See which you would base your post houses workflow on.

the true MPEG4 standard will most likely win out (if any is used at all) because of quicktime... thats a mainstay tool people use to put together tv/movies/DVDs now, changing would not make sense.

Let the market decide

[rwa2]

Do we really need "a" standard? What's wrong with the current proliferation of divx, mpeg-X, quicktime, avi codecs? People will just start using the ones that give them the quality/attributes they want, and the best performing codec will come out near the top.

Plus, the more codecs there are, the higher the chances that MPlayer will become "the" "standard" movie playing software, since it's probably one of the few that can play almost all of them! :P

Re:Let the market decide

[Tod DeBie]

Plus, the more codecs there are, the higher the chances that MPlayer will become "the" "standard" movie playing software

This really isn't about streaming video over the web. This is about what codec will replace MPEG 2 for DVD, cable, OTA and satellite. It is clear that MPEG 2 is not the most efficient. A new codec can made HD-DVD possible without completely replacing the hardware (with bluray or something). Also, a new codec could double the number of channels on cable or satellite. Everyone is waiting to see what everyone else is going to do. Microsoft has leapt ahead by getting an example HD-DVD (T2 EE) released with their codec (WM9). I think Microsoft has a good chance of winning this one.

Re:Let the market decide

[rwa2]

Heh, well, the longer they wait, the more chances that DVD, cable, OTA, and satellite won't need a standard media format anymore. A DVD player / set top box will simply be a programmable CPU w/ video out on some standard architecture. The media can/will be distributed with player code for whatever codec the media uses.

I can't imagine them playing the format upgrade game all that much longer, or they will be replaced by streaming video over the web once broadband gets ubiquitous enough. Which isn't really all that different of a scenario.

gspot will tell you what codecs are needed

[Anonymous Coward]

and if you grab ffdshow filter it plays most mpeg4 codecs (divx,xvids etc).

And for audio some people use ac3. There is no free ac3 codec, but again there is a decoding filter.

You can get both ffdshow and ac3 filter from sourceforge.

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[Anonymous Coward]

Tarkin is also dead.

Lossy compression-Magnetic RAM.

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict MRAM will be the near replacement. It leverages all that we've learned in chipmaking, and hard drives(1). Think of hard drives as a simplified mram (or core memory for you old school guys).It will be easier to do something like this because of the lower power consumption, and hence heat. The main issue is economic, and time will take care of that.

(1) What we've learned from flat-screen technology will help as well.

Bravo! Seconded!

[metamatic]

If DivX would support MPEG-4 fully, and in preference to .AVI, I'd consider purchasing their products.

What are you smoking?

[Jerk City Troll]

It faces tough competition, such as MPEG-4, RealVideo and Windows Media

DivX is MPEG-4, you kook! Try learning a bit about a topic before spouting nonsense over it.

As for RealVideo, they are aiming for streaming, which means low bandwidth consumption, which means a trade-off of quality in favor of small size. They are not interested in displacing MPEG-2.

Who finds people like you to write for Slashdot!?

New version of DivX (5.1)

[UpnAtom]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that DivX upped the stakes last month with a dramatically improved compression algorithm for low bitrate situations.

It's as slow as frozen molasses but I think some people are assuming that the badly encrypted DivX v3 pr0n they've downloaded is representative of the high quality that DivX 5.1 Pro now provides.

Re:Is there opensource video compression software

[Cyno01]

Yeah, he was blown up on the first Death Star.

wait and see what the porn industry does

[Anonymous Coward]

They seem to be the trendsetters in this field...

Hollywood needs to focus on HDTV codecs instead!!!

[ed1park]

Check out the clips using MS's HDTV codec.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/co nt ent_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

After setting up an HDTV system, DVD quality is barely acceptable to me now! And divx is especially worse. DVD is the 640x480 of monitor resolutions. HDTV is like running at 1600x1200 or 1024x768... sorta. But at 16:9!

DIvx vs. XVID

[cybpunks3]

I realize your mileage may vary depending on who did the rip and how good the original MPEG2 encoding was on the DVD, but the best DVD RIP I've ever seen was an XVID of Scooby Doo (live action).

These days I'm seeing 2-CD RIPs as the norm, but really, with XVID and a good DVD, if it's around 90 minutes, 700MB is more than enough to preserve DVD quality.

Now, DIVX, it can come close, but overall I don't think it's as good quality.

Also, the DIVX decoders are CPU hogs compared to XVID.

Before I upgraded my PC's motherboard I was limping along with a PII350 and while I was able to play Scooby and other XVIDs without a glitch, all the DIVX files were stuttering.

If you don't think CPU is important, think again. The next big killer app is going to be portable video.

These new codecs need to have a chance of playing back at full speed on PDA-grade hardware (think Xscale 400mhz).

And for the record, most DVDs don't look that great on large TVs, sad but true. ON those big widescreen rear projection and plasma screens, when letterboxed movies are stretched and cropped to fit the screen, you can see the artefacts all the time, especially in dark patches.

quick path to HD DVD

[captaineo]

One really neat application for DiVX might be a fast end-run around the HD DVD standardization process. A movie studio and player manufacturers could get together and squeeze HD movies down using DiVX so that they fit on a standard DVD. Then they could legitimately sell HD DVDs either as an add-on to NTSC/PAL DVDs, or as a separate unit, without having to wait for the "real" HD DVD standard to be worked out.

Or, cable/satellite broadcasters could use DiVX to send channels at lower bandwidths than they do currently with MPEG-2, and thus offer more channels. (god knows they've been lowering the bitrate on MPEG-2 channels to barely-tolerable levels...).

I definitely agree with the others that DiVX should not call itself "MPEG-4 compatible" unless you can really take a DiVX-encoded file and play it on most MPEG-4 players (e.g. Quicktime 6). Standards exist for a reason; if it doesn't interoperate with anything, then at most it's "MPEG-4 like", not "MPEG-4 compatible".

(just as Linux is "Unix-like", not really 100% "Unix-compatible")

Re:quick path to HD DVD

[Tod DeBie]

One really neat application for DiVX might be a fast end-run around the HD DVD standardization process. A movie studio and player manufacturers could get together and squeeze HD movies down using DiVX so that they fit on a standard DVD.

That is a good idea. Microsoft is already working on it.

Re:quick path to HD DVD

[captaineo]

I own the WMV9 T2 DVD. The visual quality is quite impressive. It was very, very hard to spot any kind of compression artifact. NTSC MPEG-2 usually jumps out at me anywhere under 7 Mbit/sec.

The image was actually not a whole lot *sharper* than an NTSC DVD. The resolution of the WMV9 stream is only around 1200x700 (I forgot the exact number but it's definitely less than 1440 pixels across). Nonetheless the absence of noticeable compression artifacts more than makes up for this. The overall visual impression is that of a really good NTSC DVD, but without any MPEG-2 artifacts. (and keep in mind the dirty little secret of HDTV - *very* few pieces of equipment outside the movie studios actually record 1920x1080 useful pixels - the effective *information-carrying* resolution of most consumer-level HD equipment is probably no more than 1024x576, even in "1080i" mode - as Joe Kane found out :).

The T2 HD DVD has two *SERIOUS* problems though. First is setting up their player software - it requires WMV9 plus a bunch of updates, and had compatibility issues with some of my video cards (requiring several driver updates). Only a really tech-savvy Windows user would be able to get it to play at all. (this problem will hopefully go away if WMV9 decoding is implemented in set-top players :). The second problem is the incredibly onerous DRM system. Your computer must "phone home" to the studio to get a license to view the movie - and the license only lasts 7 days. So if your net connection is down, or (god forbit) the company goes bankrupt, your DVD becomes a $29.95 coffee-table coaster. (again, a set-top player would mitigat this...)

Huffyuv is a Real-Time codec...

[Kjella]

Huffyuv is open source, but full of x86 assembly, so it isn't usefully portable. I'd love to see an equivalent technology that'd be more portable, and LGPL so it could be used more widely.

The primary use of Huffyuv (that I've seen) is capturing, not lossless archival. And then you need to be able to process the frames as quick as they're coming in. That is why it's full of optimized assembly. With Xvid/Theora, you might care if it takes 1 or 3 hours to encode a film, but the film would be the same. But when huffyuv starts dropping frames, it sucks. I assume a PNG/MNG based codec would be a better starting point for creating a lossless archive codec.

Kjella

Re:Huffyuv is a Real-Time codec...

[benwaggoner]

Sure, SIMD optimization is certainly useful. But the code isn't documented in a way that would make porting it to a different SIMD architecture at all easy (it's been looked at a number of times).

PNG/MNG are natively RGB, and so aren't well suited towards video.

Which of course begs the question...

[Kjella]

...why should the codec really have anything to do with the DRM? At least on the hardware stand-alone side, which is where most of the players would be anyway. Just wrap the movie in AES (or one of a dozen other strong crypto ciphers), with secret keys. What's format is inside that encrypted container, does it matter? No, it shouldn't.

The only reason DVD rippers work (after they removed the one compromised key) is because we can brute-force a CSS key with ease. Don't expect them to make that mistake twice.

Kjella

Question...

[Kjella]

So, I really wish Divx would get their tools support exporting to .mp4 with aac-lc audio. They've done 98% of the hard work to interoperate well. It's just that last 2% I'm waiting for.

How difficult would it be to create a program to rip the DivX video stream from the AVI and convert it to compliant .mp4? Is there any metadata missing or is it a simple 1:1 reorganization? As for the audio, that would require a compliant codec, and I don't remember DivX having anything like that...

Kjella

Re:Question...

[benwaggoner]

It's not hard, and it has been done. It's just that if I really want a .mp4, I'll use a stand-alone MPEG-4 encoder like Squeeze or Compression Master, and skip those extra steps.

Analog...

[Kjella]

They all say that DVDs are higher quality than LaserDiscs, but it's just marketing bullshit, that everyone is buying into. They give you a resolution figure, and say it's better on DVDs, but don't take into account the huge difference between analog and digital. Analog, in theory, has an infinite resolution... In reality, it's obviously not infinite, but it's a lot better than the number of lines of resolution would seem to indicate.

Two things. With analog, you don't have a two-dimensional infinite, not even in theory. You have to make the picture out of a single long analog stripe, which you would cut up and place top to bottom or left to right. The only way you'd get infinite resolution across the lines, is to have an infinite number of lines, and so you must start with an infinitely analog long line too, but that is kinda difficult.

In the end, I think it's production cost though. Creating an analog DVD press, and accurate analog reader is probably much more expensive that a simple 0/1 pit/no pit DVD. Maybe you with extremely expensive equipment could get more out of an analog DVD (much like vinyl records) but 99% of the people are better off with DVDs, just as they're better off with CDs.

And finally, a little reductio ad absurdum argument. Don't you think the DVD makers wanted to go analog? Don't you think they saw how CDs were being copied? Why they felt they needed CSS even when most everybody was on dead slow dial-up incapable of sharing DVD? Before DivX and all that? When they didn't, I'm quite sure it was because analog DVDs simply wasn't that good an idea. Don't you?

Kjella

DiVX combined with TiVo??

[MtViewGuy]

I think there is one place where the DiVX codec could have a major impact: a hard disk-based personal video recorder (PVR).

One of the most vexing issues with PVR's such as TiVo is the fact you need very large capacity hard disks to store over 80 hours of video at standard quality. By combining TiVo boxes with DiVX technology, we can either use a substantially smaller hard drive (which could reduce the size of the TiVo box quite a bit) or increase the storage capacity by a factor of three or more. Imagine a future TiVo unit being able to store over 300 hours of recorded video on a single hard drive that now can record 80 hours in standard quality mode! :-)

Boy is this depressing...

[michaeltoe]

...sooner or later hollywood will not only have to compete with pirates, but also with legitimate work released by individual parties. As has been said in the past, by both the RIAA and the MPAA, is that you cannot compete with 'free'. The exact same attempts to corner the market will be made against all forms of competition, even those which aren't illegal.

I'm not just pissed, but now I'm scared...

What is so great about DiVX

[stilleon]

I work in pro video and have emplyed the DiVX codec many times for delieverng samples of work, etc. It is very convienient for me. However, how can anyone, let alone the hoards of slashdot'ers who love DiVX, claim it has DVD quality at a sigificantly smaller file size. I don't buy it. I have seen files people purport as DVD quality, using DiVX VBR, and there are numerous quality problems. I really doubt the viability of this codec as a high quality standard. This is not to say that MPEG2 is a great codec either, it is not, but at its target bitrates it is very very good.