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DivX 6.0 is Out
mattspammail writes "DivX 6.0 is out. Even Tom's Hardware has an article on it. According to TFA, this should be a big step up in compression and features. DVD-style menus are now an option."
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One of the reasons I convert my movies is to get straight to the feature, and skip the gawd-awful menu crap...
http://download.divx.com/divx/DivXPlay.exe
ANyways, this has been out for not too long and it really is a great new release unlike many past versions.
Who needs to compress video anymore? Just put it on a new blue-ray disk in HighDef.
I hope this release addresses some of the problems plaguing previous versions. It is time to concentrate on a single codec that has interoperability options to it that allows for better tweaking to a media stream's needs so that we can forgo this silliness of multiple codecs and file formats.
I've always found ffdshow to be a much less crapware-like codec for watching DivX video. Not sure how it handles the new v6 stuff though.
Fuck. I just stared at the screen for five minutes thinking "DirectX 6.0? What the hell, it's not April Fool's day, why are we getting bad satire"?
One thing that TFA doesn't appear to go into is compatibilty with previous versions and third-party (ie ffmpeg) decoders. Anyone have information about that?
Ah the next revolution in porn is here!! :)
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
VLC is probably the best movie viewer for windows that I've ever seen, just because of the fact that it plays practically everything you can imagine without having to download random codecs here and there (most of the time anyway). Can DivX 6.0 do the same?
Start a happiness pandemic
Do we *really* need a new container format, or is this just a case of "not invented here" syndrome?
We already have AVI, Ogg, Matroska, Quicktime, ISO MPEG, Real and ASF. Why do we need Divx Media Format (DMF)?
Wow, i downloaded divx 6.0 this morning and didnt even realise its this fresh off the press.
After a quick play around with it, there didnt seem to be any noticable diffrence in encoded quality but the file size did drop a bit
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
The last linux version was 5.05 http://www.divx.com/divx/linux/
It is time to concentrate on a single codec that has interoperability options
I agree; that's why the industry should standardize on the multi-vendor, open MP4 standard.
I was immensly disappointed with the Tom's Hardware article. It was incredibly shallow and vague, a significant change for them. It was more marketing/press release than it was informative and objective review or introduction. If I wanted that I would read the information on divx.com. For those of you who want a mor technical and in-depth discussion, look no further than the Doom 9 Forums
mmm...muffins
If I recall correctly XviD is the OpenSource version of DivX. Im wondering how long untill they are fully compatible with DivX 6.
I often copy borrowed DVDs to my hard drive to watch and delete later, but space is limited. I like to keep all the special features until I'm done, so I just do a raw copy now, but this will give me an option to keep all the menus and features, without consuming nearly as much disk space.
As if a hundred MPAA executives cried out in pain and were suddenly silenced.
Now, I know that there were some "hacks" to give you surround sound with DivX before, but this release's best new feature is the MP3 surround sound support (in my book).
With MP3 surround sound, we'll no longer be wasting space with AC3 files (at 120MB per hour!)- meaning that the days of the 2CD rips could be over!
Well, I guess I can't say that - I don't know how small the new format can do surround sound, but I'll sure be looking for it. And... we'll have to wait for hardware support, I'm sure...
I'm willing to bet that the new method of encoding files is far more friendly and less time consuming as well. Just a guess...
Huzzah! Go progress!
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
It's fully available for Mac also, and can be played back with FFDshow which is open-source cross-platform.
mplayer supports it someway (probably using FFDshow) also.
So, it's just the wait for FFDshow to update to support any "new" features of 6.
Actually, I'd prefer they simply not come up at all, but still be on the disc. That way you can hit the menu button on your remote and go to whatever chapter you were on or find the special features (which are seldom worth watching, except on some Pixar films).
I just use mplayer and run the sub files through babelfish a few times. English->German-French->English usually does the trick.
LZ is a lossless alogorithm and no matter how "aggressive" LZ is, it can't come anywhere near the compression ratio of a properly configured divx encoding because the divx encoding is lossy - it throws out data.
If LZ somehow were "just about as capable" then everyone would be using LZ in the first place and all these preceptual lossy compressors would have died off long ago.
Heck, I can write a "compressor" that produces a file of the exact same size as the original and that LZ will make bigger rather than smaller. All you have to do is make the encoding random enough (like something along the lines of xoring it with pi).
So many of these "hobbiest" websites like Anandtech and Tom's are just the blind leading the blind with gross misrepresentations that end up being taken as gospel by those who don't know any better.
There ought to be a disclaimer before each "article" on sites like those with a warning that - "author is just another schmoe with no real expertise and is prone to make stuff up if it sounds good."
Er...ok.
Mercifully free from the ravages of scientific method :-)
Everyone else is currently left out in the cold.
(Ref: http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/divx6.php).
No word on versions for any other platform either.
Personally, if I had my way more people would just use H.264, and then I wouldn't have to care.
Yaz.
DivX 5 was an MPEG-4 codec. As are XviD, 3ivx, ffmpeg's MPEG-4, QuickTime's MPEG-4, and lots of other codecs. They are all interoperable (if you don't enable extravagant mpeg features).
Divx 6 turns out to be just another proprietary video codec that nobody needs. I'm sure it will do better than h.264 since it doesn't comply to any spec. And they where able to look at lots of perfectly working "sample code".
So, it sounds like this is both a new format and a new compressor.
Well, the immediate questions are:
* How good is the compressor? Say, relative to Xvid, for example? Is it still fully MPEG4 compatible?
* Is the DMF format open, closed, or even patented?
"LZ is a lossless alogorithm and no matter how "aggressive" LZ is, it can't come anywhere near the compression ratio of a properly configured divx encoding because the divx encoding is lossy - it throws out data."
It's possible that even after divx is done encoding a file, there's still a certain amount of "order" left. Divx encodes using perceptual quality as it's perogative; it's not a source-coder, which is the reason it performs so much better on video files. However, it IS possible that LZ77/whatever year, is able to squeeze a little bit more size out of it, since LZ is a general source coder.
I don't think Tom is saying that LZ is as capable as divx at compressing video files, he's just saying there's enough "order" left over in the file after divx to make a 1% difference after using LZ, which is entirely possible. Almost ANY given bit-sequency that's not entirely random will have a 1-2% compression margin if you use LZ on it, depending on your window size, etc. On a 700 MB file, it's not inconceivable that more than a few long-sequence matches will occur.
No spyware?
I made the mistake of installing DivX once from their web site. Damn thing installed gator spyware that was a MAJOR hassle trying to get rid of even after removing DivX. Never will I support this crap compny again.
This was the only spyware that I ever had, and it was because DivX was so prevalent that I trusted them. Never again.
Spyware me once, then screw you forever.
DVD menus are absolutely horrible for handicapped users. They should be optional with a required logical declaration as to what titles on the disc are for what. Maybe some sort of XML document that declares the main feature, soundtracks, subtitle tracks, etc.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Ok, so i downloaded the clip of that star wars fan film from the divx site, burned to a cd-r and tossed it into my philips DVP642 - it decoded the video with *no* issue, however it did skip past the menu that you will see on a windows system with the DivX Player.
no need to worry!
FYI, what the parent says is the history of Divx. An open source project called OpenDivx was started to extend/enhance the 'illegal DivX:)'. Once it reached a critical mass and a good code base, DivxNetworks apparently decided to allegedly take up the code base and convert it to a closed source Divx codec. In theory, OpenDivx was left to continue beyond version 4.0Alpha, but it never did. People rather started a GPL version and called it XVID
As of now, Divx vx Xvid is like BSD vs Linux. Both are equally good, neck in neck. Only difference is, Xvid cannot, by law, distributed as executable. MPEG4 is patented and Xvid is only distributed as source (except by good folks like Nic & Koepi)
Probably more accurate to compare it as BSD versus SunOS pre-AT&T lawsuit at the time of the split. It's more like BSD v Linux now.
XviD doesn't pay fees to the mp4 people so it's not legal as an executable.
OpenDivx/Project Mayo was NOT an extension/enhancement of DivX :-), it was written from scratch. If is wasn't, I think Microsoft might just be breathing down DXN's neck rather heavilly right now.
Worst. Signature. Ever.