DivX 7 Adds Support For Blu-ray Rips (H.264/MKV)

mrspin writes "DivX looks set to continue to be the video format of choice for 'grey' content, with the company announcing that version 7 adds support for H.264 video and, more significantly, the Matroska (MKV) container. Anybody familiar with Blu-ray rips found on BitTorrent sites or other filesharing networks will instantly recognize the MKV file format in combination with the H.264 codec as a popular way to deliver High Definition video on a PC. And now that DivX is throwing its weight behind the Matroska container, MKV support should increasingly find its way on a range of non-PC devices, such as Blu-ray players, HD digital televisions and set-top boxes."

Comments

Re:I don't understand

[Milvuss]

That's simple : DivX is a video software, not a video format. It always has been. DivX 4-6 is based on one standard format : MPEG-4 Part 2 (aka MPEG-4 Visual, aka MPEG-4 ASP). So they are just updating their software to support the latest standard format, H.264 (aka MPEG-4 part 10, aka MPEG-4 AVC).

The equation video codec = video format is just a bad habit, and most of the time false today with proprietary things like Indeo ou RealVideo less and less used.

This makes no sense....

[ConallB]

DivX makes an announcement that thier DivX player can now support a format that even Media Player Classic can play with an open source codec?

First off, MKV is a container which can add features to an encoded video stream such as chapters, subtitles, additional audio streams etc.

The corresponding DivX container (Introduced with DivX6) is far inferior with its limited support for audio codecs and its insistence on DivX video encoding profiles.

DivX the codec is simply a MP4 based video/audio encoder.

You can wrap virtually any video or audio format in an MKV container and it should work just fine. I see no reason why DivX encoded movies could not be wrpped in an MKV container!

I have never tried to encode DivX into an MKV container for several reasons:

1. DivX is not the best MP4 Codec out there, XviD is better and freely availiable (It is a fork of the original OpenDivX).
2. DivX started bundling thier codecs with all sorts of crapware some time ago which really tuned me off the codec.
3. x264 is already availiable for high definition encoding.
4. DivX encoding will cost you money with the Pro version.
5. It is bloatware.

Basically DivX are trying to make money by charging inexperienced users for functionality that is already freely availiable.

If you want to watch virtually every availiable format without problems with a choice of video players I suggest the Combined Community Codec Pack (http://www.cccp-project.net/).

Or you can go ahead and pay the ignorance tax that is DivX.