No one talks about divx 6.7?

[Sharktooth]

Then i will...
6.7 is out since a couple of days...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hmmm...

Since the interest in AVC, it would seem the amount members "viewing" the DivX section of the forum, has fallen quite considerably - it's even around a 60% less than Xvid.

Maybe it's time all the MPEG-4 SP/ASP codec providers were merged into one section. Same as the MPEG-4 AVC forum section.....

[weaver4]

Being a DivX fan has been rough the last year. DivX has shown much love to "Stage 6" and neglected their firstborn. They introduced 6.7 but their own tools (DivX Author, Dr. DivX) do not support it.

[Dark Shikari]

Being a DivX fan has been rough the last year. DivX has shown much love to "Stage 6" and neglected their firstborn. They introduced 6.7 but their own tools (DivX Author, Dr. DivX) do not support it.
Well the problem with Stage6 is one of a flawed business model.

1. Get loads of venture capital.

2. Create video site that allows people to upload videos of basically unlimited length up to and beyond 18 megabits per second. Don't take down TV shows, etc.

3. Watch millions of people use your site.

4. Watch millions of dollars disappear.

5. Wonder how the site actually intends to make money.

[mr soft]

Staxrip reports that 6.7 beta is old and needs to be updated.
It will then proceed to download 6.6 :confused:
Autogk will also prompt after each pass :confused:

[CruNcher]

Im gonna talk about DivX/XviD again if "Q" and XviD 2.0 AVC finaly arrive, before that it makes no sense, seing the rapid development H.264 is going through in all areas ;)
but yeah expect H.264 to be outdated soon too (at least from a technology standpoint) the future is in Wavelet again :P

[DeathTheSheep]

Create video site that allows people to upload videos of basically unlimited length up to and beyond 18 megabits per second. Don't take down TV shows, etc.

Holy cow, are you serious? I gotta check this ou--I mean, yeah, yes, sure. Now what was that url again?!!

[Dark Shikari]

Holy cow, are you serious? I gotta check this ou--I mean, yeah, yes, sure. Now what was that url again?!!Stage6 (http://stage6.divx.com/)

[DeathTheSheep]

And what is this "Q" thing CruNcher is referring to?

[DeathTheSheep]

http://gabe.ej.am/divxAVC.gif

[Inventive Software]

I must say kudos to DivX for having a product license that made me chuckle. :)

[DewAsmara]

Hmmm...

Since the interest in AVC, it would seem the amount members "viewing" the DivX section of the forum, has fallen quite considerably.....

In my point of view,
DivX or not, they should not make more difficulties for end user. Main problem for me as end user is in DivX Converter tools, that more and more difficult to process video, now I always failed to convert my DVD collection into DivX profile, even at Home Theater profile, as the new one have higher bitrate those will eat processor and memory capacity. And synchronous between video and audio also getting worst. I mean if not that easy anymore to convert or rip video who will use it? This not include the lack of DivX that too much stay with MP3 Sound. Now I always rip my DVD using MPEG4 standard codec and PCM Lossless Sound and pack in AVI container, much better than before.

But I have to admit that new DivX tools for Sound Process have been improve, but well I cannot stand with long waiting video convert process that always end up with failure.

[IgorC]

http://gabe.ej.am/divxAVC.gif

H.264? Maybe. But not vfw. What the point for commercial H.264 codec?
And we are in 2007. The first h.264 encoders appeared in 2003-2004.
Sensation of the year 2008 could be divx avc? Oh, please.
h.264 is already old.

[DeathTheSheep]

True, but they say a format is old from the day it's announced. Every beginning has embedded within it its own termination, philosophically. It has yet to reach its max potential, as many are willing to attest (even ASP has yet to reach its max potential, though it may be argued that we are relatively close).

[burfadel]

Im gonna talk about DivX/XviD again if "Q" and XviD 2.0 AVC finaly arrive, before that it makes no sense, seing the rapid development H.264 is going through in all areas ;)
but yeah expect H.264 to be outdated soon too (at least from a technology standpoint) the future is in Wavelet again :P

The future is in wavelet, true :) but h.264 has still got a lot of life in it! in 10 years time h.264 video should still be able to be played without too much of a problem (fingers crossed) :)

[bond]

imho the present is mpeg-2. the future will be h.264. between h.264 and the next "big future" there will be an "inbetween future" first (as was/is mpeg-4 asp), which might be some sort of wavelet stuff ;)

[Warren]

As for which codecs are reaching their peak it depends on which markets you are looking at.

In the US MPEG4 is starting to approach its peak with the satellite industry using it for their HD broadcasts. Cable is lagging behind with MPEG2 but I would expect them to follow suit in the next few years as new cable STBs become available. Consumer-wise in the US MPEG4 appears to be getting leapfrogged because of HDDVD/BluRay using h264 and variants until you look at backups/'community' content. With this content MPEG4 is still the dominant for non-HD material while h264 is dominant for HD material.

In Europe the situation is a bit more forward as they always tend to be ahead of the US in broadcast (and wireless) technology. With HD DVB-T using h264 it would appear that MPEG4's time is over or has been leapfrogged in some cases. I would argue that for backups/'community' content is in the same situation as the US.

[Warren]

With regards to wavelet compression, the only two codecs I know of are Snow and Dirac neither of which are even near ready for primetime.

I am unsure of performance with regards to Snow, but Dirac is still way too unrefined to permit realtime playback. Not to mention that encoding is glacial at best.

We have a few more years, say 3 until pure wavelet-based codecs are ready to start being used.

[Ranguvar]

AVC and wavelet codecs is what I focus on now. MPEg-4 ASP is not "dead", it will just eventually replace MPEG-1 as the quick go-to for small fast video.

I don't understand why anyone (sorry) likes DivX nowadays. Besides ease of use. Xvid is free for all features, is more customizable, etc.

Stage6, on the other hand, I love. It may be a flawed business model and all that, but once you watch 480p video (they have some HD stuff too(!)) at one or two megabits per second MPEG-4 ASP, you will never want to go back to YouTube's QVGA ~300kb/s VP6 with horrible mono 22KHz sound.

[DeathTheSheep]

You're definitely right about stage6. :)

But has anyone done any comparisons between DivX6.7 and XviD these days? XviD development seems to have trickled out, whereas DivX keep on going. I heard some doom9ers here mention that DivX is now surpassing XviD in various metrics. Anybody care to actually test DivX6.7 before leaping to conclusions? :)

[CruNcher]

i doub't any satellite company is useing Mpeg-4 Part 2 (ASP) in real, maybe over Data Channels but not over the normal .ts stream way :P
Mpeg-4 Part 10 (H.264) is dominant everywhere from a technological standpoint it's supperior over Mpeg-4 Part 2, if you have a very nicely tweaked encoder (wich x264 still isn't yet) you can get better quality at the same complexity and even faster time for every source and bitrate.
The Sad problem is that most users can't really use these tools given to them efficiently and in a correct way as the standard defines it (therefore Guis as Megui and Co have been developed, so the average users aren't lost with it).
The only difference is that DivX Ecosystem main goal is to be as easy as possible in every way, but that's nothing that can't be done with a special H.264 implementation also, Youtube allready begann the recode their howl stuff to H.264 but it will take time before we see they use it offciialy as still stuff as Hardware accelleration should be working and the Flash Player isn't yet able of this :) another solution is Silverlight both are Superior over what DivX uses currently and im sure that DivX knows this so they gonna come with Q soon or they gonna vanish from this planet, everyone in IT knows that you have to advance with it or you sink like the titanic did :P in the end we gonna have 3 solutions on the web and this will start other problems allready again (Mobile Device support, CE support and interoperability between all the Devices and DRM systems (every user wants it but none of the manufactures want it) :P VC-1/AVC/VP7.
That's also the reason VP7 bought a Chip company (and implementing H.264 too) they want to bring their own chips in Mobile Devices on the market with VP7 support, you will have to be even more carefull in the future what you gonna buy and especialy how you digitalize your stuff or endup with reencoding all your stuff over and over again loseing each time quality and also endup with the biggest interoperability problems (wich might force you to rebuy the content if you don't want to lose it's quality or be able to use it @ all) (companies dislike each other and try to make it the users as hard as possible to move their content from one companies device to another, it shouldn't be like that, that isn't what i understand under the premise to develop a industry standard at all) in the end such companies only hurt themselves and the standard they missuse, but most and for all they hurt the customers, actually the real word for this must be "enslave" them to their products.

In the future there is no way arround it, but we need an Organization that controlls this "missuse" more carefully as the Trade Commision seems not in the possition todo so or is blind.

[IgorC]

Sorry, Cruncher. You are interesting member but last time your posts are very large than normal and it's difficult to read 100 words statements. Just end to jump to other member's post.

[DeathTheSheep]

Remember ye the wisdom of Gabriel and thine path shall be clearly illuminated!

[WeaponX]

Previous divx version (6.5.x) decodes divx3 encoded .avi files perfectly. After updating to 6.7, there's no video when playing div3 .avi using media player classic, just a black screen with the audio running.

Anyone notice this problem with decoding div3 .avi?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Remember ye the wisdom of Gabriel and thine path shall be clearly illuminated!And you must please remember forum rule 15

[Elias]

No one talks about divx 6.7?It's really because DivX is not that popular.

[DeathTheSheep]

And you must please remember forum rule 15

That says something about politics and religion :rolleyes:. Since I was referring to Gabriel_Bouvigne's advice to CruNcher (http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1048078&postcount=105), it obviously doesn't apply. ;) Maybe you meant rule 11? :p

I doubt any satellite company is using Mpeg-4 Part 2 (ASP) for real.
Well, our digital satellite provider here in the midwest US claims to be broadcasting in MPEG4 (not MPEG4 AVC), so there is some viability in the broadcast market, apparently.


The reason VP7 bought a Chip company (and why they're also implementing H.264) is that they want to bring VP7 support to Mobile Devices on the market with their own chips, so you will have to be even more careful in the future about what you buy and especially how you digitalize your stuff. Otherwise, you'll end up re-encoding everything over and over again, losing quality each time and ending up with big interoperability problems (which might force you to re-buy the content if you want to retain its quality or even use it at all).

Companies dislike each other and try to make it as hard as possible for users to move their content from one company's device to another's. It shouldn't be like that; that isn't what I understand under the premise of developing an industry standard, for in the end, such companies only hurt themselves and the standards they misuse. Most of all, they hurt the customers by effectively "enslaving" them to their products!
I think you make a very good point here, but are you implying that DivX is playing the role of the enslaver? Or that in the future your DivX videos will lose compatibility? If so, I can't fully agree with you here, since DivX uses standards that are very much open (even the .divx container is a variant of AVI) and to which open-source decoding is already abundant. I certainly don't think too many problems will occur down the road by using ASP now.

It's really because DivX is not that popular.
I completely disagree here. In terms of the people with whom I am in contact (U students), anyone referring to "encoding" or "compression" invariably means DivX. Everyone at my group meetings not using an iPod Video (and even here, there is some deviation) uses DivX for their mobile devices. I'd say it's a tossup between Quicktime and DivX there, DivX dominating the DVD backup scene. The only people I've seen in multitude who don't use DivX as their format of choice are those who either visit this forum or are simply stuck with the encoding tools provided by their device manufacturers.

[Elias]

I completely disagree here. In terms of the people with whom I am in contact (U students), anyone referring to "encoding" or "compression" invariably means DivX. Everyone at my group meetings not using an iPod Video (and even here, there is some deviation) uses DivX for their mobile devices. I'd say it's a tossup between Quicktime and DivX there, DivX dominating the DVD backup scene. The only people I've seen in multitude who don't use DivX as their format of choice are those who either visit this forum or are simply stuck with the encoding tools provided by their device manufacturers.I didn't say DivX isn't in use. It's just that XviD is more popular amongst the geeks, where it counts in the world of codecs.

[DeathTheSheep]

In terms of business model (and thus where it really counts, since we are all subject to the mighty buck), as long as the large customer base I mentioned continues to exist without significantly relenting, at least in the short term, majority people=majority $.

At least until Nero takes off amongst more video enthusiasts ("What?! No Waii, I just burn my CDs with that, there's no video, don't be silly." <- This kind of mentality will dispel).

[Elias]

In terms of business model (and thus where it really counts, since we are all subject to the mighty buck), as long as the large customer base I mentioned continues to exist without significantly relenting, at least in the short term, majority people=majority $.

At least until Nero takes off amongst more video enthusiasts ("What?! No Waii, I just burn my CDs with that, there's no video, don't be silly." <- This kind of mentality will dispel).Come on, it's not like DivX is pulling in billions on its codec which no one is buying anyway. The money DivX Inc. is making is basically only from hosting movie trailers, and similar stuff like that.

[DeathTheSheep]

Hey, everybody loves movies!!1 XD Well, at least what income it does receive goes (in part) into active codec development, which I suppose keeps them, at least, a player in keeping ASP alive, even neglecting the fact that lots of folks use it. You don't need billions (though I could use billions... :D).

[slavickas]

... you will never want to go back to YouTube's QVGA ~300kb/s VP6 with horrible mono 22KHz sound.
Youtube is FLV1 ~=H.263

[Dark Shikari]

No. It's almost exclusively VP6. :search:No, Youtube is FLV container, Sorenson H.263 codec, 48kbps 22khz mono MP3 audio, max bitrate 350kbps.

[DeathTheSheep]

Sorenson?! What?! Did they always use that? Holy cow... everyone keeps saying it's VP6. Did they change it recently? What a downgrade, if they did... sheesh.

[Dark Shikari]

Sorenson?! What?! Did they always use that? Holy cow... everyone keeps saying it's VP6. Did they change it recently? What a downgrade, if they did... sheesh.Never been VP6. Flash supports it, but Youtube never used it.

[IgorC]

The biggest video portal as is Youtube still uses 10 years old H.263 and even older mp3 for streaming. Sad but true.

[DeathTheSheep]

That's right, IgorC, you said it. Sad but true.

[Dark Shikari]

The biggest video portal as is Youtube still uses 10 years old H.263 and even older mp3 for streaming. Sad but true.Good thing one can use arbitrary bitrates (http://youtube.com/watch?v=-23Opat5zDE) by hexediting the file header. :p

[Elias]

The biggest video portal as is Youtube still uses 10 years old H.263 and even older mp3 for streaming. Sad but true.That's the irony. Google Video uses MPEG-4 AVC and AAC in mp4, yet Google is to lazy to change YouTube to newer codecs. I wonder when Google will stop being lazy and make it MPEG-4 on YouTube as well.

[IgorC]

Google will transcode all your goody H.264 to ugly H.263 after upload.

[weaver4]

Come on, it's not like DivX is pulling in billions on its codec which no one is buying anyway. The money DivX Inc. is making is basically only from hosting movie trailers, and similar stuff like that.

DivX does make most of their money on the Codec, but it comes in license fees for hardware manufactures.

[ReinerSchweinlin]

I did some encoding tests a few days ago using DIVX 6.7, XVID 1.2 and the MPEG4 Codec used in FFDShow (lavc?). On an old Athlon XP, DIVX was way slower with max settings than XVID (2fps / 8fps) with a MPEG2-Source fed by old XMPEG.....
I tried to find differneces in Quality by encoding 640x480 24fps with 1000kbit/s. Judging visually, it was very hard to decide which one was better. Looking at the Q-Factors of quantizers, lavc clearly won (average of 3), but it didn´t look much better. Very hard to decide which one was the winner. Surely, tweaking around with some matrices could yeald to better results but using standard MPEG Matrice (which isn´t provided by DIVX, it offers h263, h263 optimized (?) and MPEG2 (?)).
PSNR Ratio was about the same..
So far, I´ll stick with XVID since its much faster and investigate on lavc some more. I´m curios why it delivers very low quantizer levels with the same bitrate.

[Elias]

DivX does make most of their money on the Codec, but it comes in license fees for hardware manufactures.Any hardware company that buys a DivX license fee, is stupid. They should just buy an MPEG-4 license fee instead.

[prOnorama]

I didn't say DivX isn't in use. It's just that XviD is more popular amongst the geeks, where it counts in the world of codecs.

Mmmm I think this simple rule did more for the popularity of the XviD codec in practice than all the geeks combined

Codec:
- MUST BE XviD (all DivX codecs are banned)

I guess you know where it's from ;)

Of course "geeks" prolly made that "rule" so in that sense you are right and they are responsible :D

But in terms of hardware solutions DivX has by far the upper hand. Companies like Philips or Pioneer put DivX logo's on their DVD players so that counts (of course they will play XviD as well in most cases but it's not advertised). I don't know about DVD players from major A/V brands actually advertising to support Xvid.

[Elias]

Mmmm I think this simple rule did more for the popularity of the XviD codec in practice than all the geeks combinedThe popularity of XviD is because it's better. Simple as that. First time I tried XviD, it SUCKED. The quality was poor, the encoding time was slow, etcetera. But it has improved a lot since then, and today, it's easily better than DivX. Plus, it's open source and free, and that sure doesn't hurt.I guess you know where it's from ;)Honestly, I don't.Of course "geeks" prolly made that "rule" so in that sense you are right and they are responsible :DYeah sure.But in terms of hardware solutions DivX has by far the upper hand. Companies like Philips or Pioneer put DivX logo's on their DVD players so that counts (of course they will play XviD as well in most cases but it's not advertised). I don't know about DVD players from major A/V brands actually advertising to support Xvid.Hardware companies are wasting their money on DivX. They should just buy a pure MPEG-4 license fee and play MPEG-4 codecs (as in AVC/ASP/AAC in mp4), and that's it.

[weaver4]

XviD is not better. IMO that is simply not true. That was the case when Divx was 5.x but certainly not now. XviD has not improved in quality in over two years while the DivX people have been improving on a quarterly basis.

In the only double blind MOS score test that I know of says that DivX is better.

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/subjective_codecs_comparison_en.html

[weaver4]

Any hardware company that buys a DivX license fee, is stupid. They should just buy an MPEG-4 license fee instead.

But then they can't use the DivX logo on their product.

[Elias]

XviD is not better. IMO that is simply not true. That was the case when Divx was 5.x but certainly not now. XviD has not improved in quality in over two years while the DivX people have been improving on a quarterly basis.

In the only double blind MOS score test that I know of says that DivX is better.

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/subjective_codecs_comparison_en.htmlBe that as it may, I have nothing really against either XviD or DivX. I use both of these codecs myself, though I make sure to put them into mp4 rather than avi so that I get MPEG-4 compatible content, and that way, get DivX and their proprietary nonsense out of my encoded content.But then they can't use the DivX logo on their product.What a terrible loss.

[prOnorama]

Honestly, I don't.

See http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=102333

[kosmonaut]

Hardware companies are wasting their money on DivX. They should just buy a pure MPEG-4 license fee and play MPEG-4 codecs (as in AVC/ASP/AAC in mp4), and that's it.

You have some pretty strongly held opinions, so I'm not hear to persuade you specifically, but I would like to respond generally as to why hardware companies value DivX and put our logo on their products.

It's not just the technology, although that is important of course. Far more than that, DivX Certification is a pretty intense suite of testing. Many products have failed it, especially on the first couple of go arounds. And it goes quite deep. We work with the chip guys first, then the ODM makers, and then finally with the OEM's, all with goal of ensuring a certain level of quality and interoperability that is very, very reliable.

Now, why do companies like Sony, Samsung, LG, Philips (essentially every major DVD manufacturer) work with us? Why have they put out into the market over 100 million DivX certified products so far? These guys are tough, smart business people. If they thought it wasn't absolutely necessary to their bottomline, they would not do it. Period.

The truth is that they came to us initially. When users began to request the ability to playback MPEG-4 files (at the time almost exclusively DivX, now many other flavors, of course) on inexpensive devices, some innovators began to enable that, and to put it on their boxes. But users had no way of knowing what exactly that meant. MPEG-4 is a vast suite of standards. What DivX Certification allowed was for a precise, real world "standard" to exist that told everybody, from simple viewers to content creators the precise compression choices they should make in order to be inter-operable in the widest manner possible.

That is not a small thing and it is something that the CE companies valued DivX for enormously, and they continue to do so. Combine that with the rigorous testing we do in our Certification lab and hopefully you can recognize why the hardware companies look to us, and our logo, to demonstrate to consumers that their products are innovative, inter-operable, and high quality.

OK, this is already longer than I had intended. But let me know if you have any other questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Or I'll grab Gej and make him answer them. :p

[Elias]

DivX. They should just buy a pure MPEG-4 license fee and play MPEG-4 codecs (as in AVC/ASP/AAC in mp4), and that's it.
You have some pretty strongly held opinions, so I'm not hear to persuade you specifically, but I would like to respond generally as to why hardware companies value DivX and put our logo on their products.

OK, this is already longer than I had intended. But let me know if you have any other questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Or I'll grab Gej and make him answer them. :pMy qualm with DivX, is simply that you're trying to make your codec more and more, proprietary, rather than MPEG-4 specs compliant. That is my big issue with you guys. It was all fine at first. You even supported mp4 output. It was when you decided to make your codec avi specific, where I began losing respect for you guys. Then came packed bitstream, and other non-MPEG-4, specs breaking nonsense with your codec.

Now, your actual DivX codec, is not bad per se. It's actually a good codec, at least for ASP. It has its qualities, so to say. But like I said before, your refusal to go fully MPEG-4, your disregard of AAC and mp4 container, well, that's not okay with me.

Now, I know you're doing this with a certain motive. You're trying to create a brand. You're trying to make people choose your codec; your specific flavour of MPEG-4. It's all about making money, of course, and the way DivX Networks has decided to go, is possibly, more money making in the long haul, compared with how for instance, Nero went with their codec.

But Nero, respect standards, and they have a lot more respect for the MPEG-4 standard than DivX Networks has shown so far.

I remember back in 2002, when you supported mp4 output, and wrote on your site about the benefits of the mp4 container, and how it prevents the codec from being locked to a certain company, and that it is a free container, with interoperability as its strongest key point.

Well, suddenly, you decided to ditch mp4 and now you're trying to do just that, lock your codec into your company.

Sorry, but you have no credibility in my book any longer, and I just hope your codec loses more and more popularity. If you're not going to follow standards, I am not going to use your codec, regardless of if it's better than XviD or not. XviD gets the job done, and it supports direct mp4 output. When I use an MPEG-4 codec, I want to use all of its standard, which includes its native MPEG-4 container, its MPEG-4 audio, etcetera.

Now you perhaps understand why I have strong opinions about this.

Oh and by the way, to my knowledge, Sony doesn't support DivX in PS3 and PSP because of your license fee. Last time they mentioned it, they were satisfied with supporting only standards.

[kosmonaut]

I respect your position on standards, but just to give you a bit of historical background to our decisions.


When I use an MPEG-4 codec, I want to use all of its standard, which includes its native MPEG-4 container, its MPEG-4 audio, etcetera.


All of those elements of the MPEG-4 standard are good in theory, but proved very difficult to implement in hardware. Remember, this was back in 2002-2003 when we were putting DivX Certification together. Our position is that had we insisted on precisely the elements you want, .mp4, AAC, etc., widespread hardware adoption of MPEG-4 ASP would not have happend, at all. Getting this stuff into actual chips that could be replicated at a sane price (something extremely important in real world business decision making) was only possible with certain compromises. And don't forget, the vast majority of the content people wanted to watch at that time did not, and does not, have those things either. It's mostly in .avi containers and with MP3 or AC3 sound.

The DVD player market is brutal, with miniscule margins. If what we came up with in DivX Certification increased the end price of the device appreciably, it would never have been adopted widely. Other companies have tried to get their technology adopted, and have even spent millions of dollars to do so, like Microsoft with WMV. But because they could not do it inexpensively, it has never really been implemented into low cost devices. DivX Certification hits a sweet spot, allowing the chip makers, ODM's, and OEM's to use it while keeping their prices competitive.

Oh and by the way, to my knowledge, Sony doesn't support DivX in PS3 and PSP because of your license fee. Last time they mentioned it, they were satisfied with supporting only standards.

Sony has its own history with standards, both pro and con. Also, Sony does indeed sell DivX Certified DVD players. The PS3 and PSP however have entirely different strategic visions behind them. Yet don't be surprised if they support DivX one day.

[DeathTheSheep]

I think that's very well argued.

I also think that if somebody really wants an mp4, they can easily (often in one step) mux their a/v into mp4. That's why those tools exist and are often quite easy to use.

Looks like DivX is sticking with what has been proven successful and still fairly open-standard. In fact, the best/most popular/easiest to use/most powerful tools out there still support avi, and they do so better than mp4. I know of one free tool that supports real mp4 editing (avidemux, I think it was called), but it is notoriously unstable and less powerful than the alternative VirtualDub.

Most people don't give a hoot about so-called "full standard" compliance as long as its usable anywhere and everywhere they need with virtually no restrictions (and actually quite a few benefits) while still retaining the option, if for some reason they care, to manually go "full standard" with a simple mux or two.

you have no credibility in my book any longer, and I just hope your codec loses more and more popularity. If you're not going to follow standards, I am not going to use your codec, regardless of if it's better than [others].
Nonsense. This is attack mode. There is no neutrality here. :rolleyes:

[prOnorama]

Now, why do companies like Sony, Samsung, LG, Philips (essentially every major DVD manufacturer) work with us? Why have they put out into the market over 100 million DivX certified products so far? These guys are tough, smart business people. If they thought it wasn't absolutely necessary to their bottomline, they would not do it. Period.

Sure but I bet DivX has smart, tough business people as well ;)

Basically Xvid is the only competitor in the MPEG-4 ASP market. And it's a big competitor. When negotiating deals with major DVD manufacturers it could be possible DivX would claim "exclusivity" i.e. they want to be the sole recognized brand for MPEG-4 ASP. Having no Xvid logo's on DVD players suits DivX well. Mind you this is all speculation on my side but it seems logical to me. If I were a DivX marketing manager I would probably suggest such a route. ;)

On the other hand: DVD manufacturers aren't stupid, it will probably hurt their sales if they don't at least "non-officially" support Xvid. (which means they are sticking to the standards for MPEG-4 ASP which is a good thing IMO).

In the manual of my Philips DVP 5980 Xvid is not mentioned at all, not even MPEG-4 ASP (only DivX/DivX Ultra whatever that is), but it plays every Xvid file I throw at it (except when the resolution is not supported). :)


My qualm with DivX, is simply that you're trying to make your codec more and more, proprietary, rather than MPEG-4 specs compliant.

That seems logical to me. The most sucessfull businesses use some form of "vendor lock-in", see Microsoft, Apple (iPod) etc.

DivX going "more proprietary" seems a logical thing for them to do in terms of business strategy (monopolize a market and make it difficult for the competition). Can't blame 'em for trying.

Meanwhile I stick to Xvid because it suits my needs fine and even though DivX 6.7 might be better (I doubt the difference will be huge since the MPEG-4 ASP potential basically has been "maxed out" already I think, though others might disagree) I'm just not willing to pay for it.

(I don't use a PDA, iPOd etc. maybe DivX has more of an advantage on that hardware in terms of hardware compatibility)

[Mtz]

All of those elements of the MPEG-4 standard are good in theory, but proved very difficult to implement in hardware. Remember, this was back in 2002-2003 when we were putting DivX Certification together. Our position is that had we insisted on precisely the elements you want, .mp4, AAC, etc., widespread hardware adoption of MPEG-4 ASP would not have happend, at all. Getting this stuff into actual chips that could be replicated at a sane price (something extremely important in real world business decision making) was only possible with certain compromises.
Yeah, and now, near the DivX logo we can see the Nero Digital logo. For the users, Nero Digital = MP4.

enjoy,
Mtz

[ReinerSchweinlin]

Did somebody else some comparisons with recent XVID and LAVC?

[Elias]

I respect your position on standards, but just to give you a bit of historical background to our decisions.That's very appreciated.All of those elements of the MPEG-4 standard are good in theory, but proved very difficult to implement in hardware. Remember, this was back in 2002-2003 when we were putting DivX Certification together. Our position is that had we insisted on precisely the elements you want, .mp4, AAC, etc., widespread hardware adoption of MPEG-4 ASP would not have happend, at all. Getting this stuff into actual chips that could be replicated at a sane price (something extremely important in real world business decision making) was only possible with certain compromises. And don't forget, the vast majority of the content people wanted to watch at that time did not, and does not, have those things either. It's mostly in .avi containers and with MP3 or AC3 sound.I can understand that it was more difficult back in 2002-2003 to put together MPEG-4 ASP with AAC and mp4. Certainly, the MPEG-4 standards had not come as far is it has today. I still think you chose the easy way out, and I see no reason why you don't go fully MPEG-4 standard today. Today, MPEG-4 (and I'm not talking about the mp3/ac3+avi nonsense, mind you), has come a long way compared with back then. More and more hardware devices like cell phones, DVD-players, video game consoles, and operating systems, have a lot wider support for MPEG-4 ASP/AVC/AAC in mp4.

So really, I don't see the problem with supporting it today. Sure, it breaks your DivX certification with your older versions. That's not a problem, just release a modified MP4Box solution so that people can convert their old encoded DivX 4/5/6 content into pure MPEG-4, and an AAC encoder.The DVD player market is brutal, with miniscule margins. If what we came up with in DivX Certification increased the end price of the device appreciably, it would never have been adopted widely. Other companies have tried to get their technology adopted, and have even spent millions of dollars to do so, like Microsoft with WMV. But because they could not do it inexpensively, it has never really been implemented into low cost devices. DivX Certification hits a sweet spot, allowing the chip makers, ODM's, and OEM's to use it while keeping their prices competitive.I have so far never seen a 3G cell phone capable of playing either WMV or DivX. Yet, all of them, play mp4 Simple Profile and AAC in mp4.Sony has its own history with standards, both pro and con.That is true, I'm quite aware of how they sometimes have been doing some screwing with the mp4 container, for instance. But that is corrected now in the PSP.Also, Sony does indeed sell DivX Certified DVD players.Well then, I guess nobody's perfect :)The PS3 and PSP however have entirely different strategic visions behind them. Yet don't be surprised if they support DivX one day.I hope not. Truth is, both the PS3 and the PSP support DivX/XviD quite fine, if you put the encoded content into the mp4 container; DivX Networks could easily get PS3 decoding by just stop being this stubborn about your DivX certification. But that would mean Sony won't pay you for it and your DivX license fee, because they're already paying for MPEG-4. Of course, you've wasted lots of money on this DivX certification, and it seems you don't want that money to go to waste by simply doing the right thing: supporting standards, which means you'll have to trash your DivX certification, or modify it so that it'll become incompatible with your current DivX certification.

You want Sony to support your brand on the PS3, rather than just be another player in the MPEG-4 market. I think it's quite arrogant of DivX Networks to expect Sony to break standards for you. Because let's face it, what DivX is, basically, is a good MPEG-4 ASP content, in a limited, old, and outdated container where it really doesn't belong because it breaks the standard.

Look at how Nero did it, they followed the standard all the way (if you ignore their stupid choice of VOB subtitles in mp4 rather than MPEG-4 Timed Text), and now their codec implementation of MPEG-4 works perfect in the PS3.

Let's face it, the PS3 is a good hardware decoder for your business. Why not just support mp4 and AAC, remove that stupid packed bitstream, and get a new user base on the PS3? Why all the hassle you're going with now?

I don't understand the way you're handling your business right now, but I certainly wouldn't call it smart.

This is what Sony said last time about it:Q.
One thing about video file playback. It seems that quality is not constant, and picutre quality falls from time to time.

K1
We don't have an answer to how much quality we can guarantee from playback of video files created by PCs. Although there is standards such as "mpeg-4", there are many cases where the files contain data that are way off the standard.

K2
We have codecs in place that play back data following proper standards, and functions to improve the quality of these picutres. We need more work on handling data that is outside the standard.

K1
For now, out main goal is to allow playback of as many standard as possible.

Q.
From that point of view, how about playback of WMV and Divx?

K1
The problem with those formats are that they are not industry standards like "mpeg-4", but format that is locked in by various corporations.
But I understand the demand (laugh).

Q.
How about overcoming the licencing fees for such formats by selling update for WMV playback at the playstation store for 500yen?

K1
We don't want to resort to such measures (laugh). And its not a matter of not implementing because it is by another company.Source: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=567411

Seriously guys, get along with the program, start supporting MPEG-4 AAC, AVC and mp4, and you will gain my respect again, not to mention, your content will play on the PS3 and elsewhere by default. Your codec is almost 100% MPEG-4 standards compatible anyway; stop crippling it with packed bitstreams, avi, and other stupid decisions.Nonsense. This is attack mode. There is no neutrality here. :rolleyes:The reason why I want your codec to die out, is because it's breaking standards and it's not specs compliant. I'm really quite neutral to be honest, if you do the right thing, I will give you credit for it, if you screw up, I will criticize you for it. It's really as simple as that.

Now, XviD also has some issues, and it's mostly, because XviD is aping DivX. The XviD coders are just trying to follow your lead, but they've been doing some things right, like for instance, the possibility to directly encode to mp4.

I don't understand why you're limiting yourselves to VirtualDub. Avery Lee isn't going to implement mp4 output because he doesn't care, unless of course, you pay him to do it. His encoder is quite good, but it's based on Video for Windows, which is old and outdated. You're basically forcing yourselves to be stuck in old software if you're doing this simply because of the few pros you get out of WfV.

In my honest opinion, DivX Networks is not only locking its users into their codecs, but you're making yourselves dependent, on the software that's available, rather than creating your own, independent, MPEG-4 standards compliant codec.

Well, I think your decisions aren't tactical.That seems logical to me. The most sucessfull businesses use some form of "vendor lock-in", see Microsoft, Apple (iPod) etc.

DivX going "more proprietary" seems a logical thing for them to do in terms of business strategy (monopolize a market and make it difficult for the competition). Can't blame 'em for trying.And I don't like Microsoft either for doing that. All these corporations should support standards, but they don't, because they care more about making money, and screwing us consumers over by screwing with the standards.

[Ranguvar]

XviD is not better. IMO that is simply not true. That was the case when Divx was 5.x but certainly not now. XviD has not improved in quality in over two years while the DivX people have been improving on a quarterly basis.

In the only double blind MOS score test that I know of says that DivX is better.

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/subjective_codecs_comparison_en.htmlThat's because they used the defaults... Xvid's deblocking is default off. DivX's is default on. They said so themselves.

[Dark Shikari]

That's because they used the defaults... Xvid's deblocking is default off. DivX's is default on. They said so themselves.But DivX is surely drastically better; we can't let facts get in the way of our bias can we? ;)

[buzzqw]

and a command line interface could be quite handy

BHH

[SeeMoreDigital]

and a command line interface could be quite handy

BHHAgreed....

That way, if people want to encode DivX with B-VOPs and place the video stream within the .MP4 container, they can do it correctly (as per the MPEG-4 spec).


Cheers

[Kurtnoise]

and a command line interface could be quite handy
exists already...

[buzzqw]

exists already...

tweaking registry ? using dll ?

i mean an interface like xvid_encraw.exe or x264.exe

BHH

[Kurtnoise]

In the Dr DivX package, you can find a command line tool.

and yes it uses the DivX libraries just like xvid_encraw and x264 do but no avisynth support as input.

[Kurtnoise]

That way, if people want to encode DivX with B-VOPs and place the video stream within the .MP4 container, they can do it correctly (as per the MPEG-4 spec).

we can do that flawlessly with MP4Box...

[buzzqw]

but no avisynth support as input

that will kill almost any simple gui

... but thanks for the tip.. i will search for it

BHH

[Vasyek01]

I do no, but after read all the posts still don't know why Divx 6.7 so bad? :helpful:

[Dark Shikari]

I do no, but after read all the posts still don't know why Divx 6.7 so bad? :helpful:
Most importantly, more than anything else: It costs money, but is no better than Xvid in any real way. In a sense it is what Mainconcept is to x264--they're the same "style" of encoder in terms of both the standard they use and the manner in which they compress the source, so the only real difference is that one costs money and the other doesn't.

[weaver4]

That's because they used the defaults... Xvid's deblocking is default off. DivX's is default on. They said so themselves.

Don't know how much impact deblocking would have, not much I would guess.

[weaver4]

I do no, but after read all the posts still don't know why Divx 6.7 so bad? :helpful:

Well it is not "so bad", I would not say that XviD is better either, both are very, very close in quality. I have stuck with DivX over the years because:

they have several "paid" developers always working on the codec.
they have a good certification program.
they have sales staff that was dedicated to working with manufactures.
they use to have a nice community forum which had a lot of DivX representation.
and they use to have a strong commitment to tools; like the Doctor.
I believe companies have more duration than open source projects.

[delacroixp]

I do no, but after read all the posts still don't know why Divx 6.7 so bad? :helpful:
Well it is not "so bad", I would not say that XviD is better either, both are very, very close in quality. I have stuck with DivX over the years because:

they have several "paid" developers always working on the codec.
they have a good certification program.
they have sales staff that was dedicated to working with manufactures.
they use to have a nice community forum which had a lot of DivX representation.
and they use to have a strong commitment to tools; like the Doctor.
I believe companies have more duration than open source projects.

Perhaps the question is not so much that DivX 6.7 is so bad or that Xvid may or may not be better or worse than DivX but ... what's best... that eternally subjective quest for greatness...
DivX has served the global community well... most consumers (who have money) still use DivX... geeks, who possibly live on an island, a world apart, push the latest codecs... which will eventually be the money spinner of tomorrow...

DivX H263 still has some life left... some people are still using DivX 5.2 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129720)...


:):devil::D
Pascal

[codeguru]

1.)
they don't send the 15 day eval code if the request is made from european IP adresses
2.)
the full install kills the divx3 audio support in all apps except the new divx player

related on 1.)
as an owner of a Q6600 quadcore CPU I would like to test if the image filters of 6.7 are really multithreaded but I can't because this f*in code does not come

but filtering in virtualdub with the dnr2 and temporal cleaner gives much better results than the builtin-filters of 6.2 pro so the community edition with a quality of 8 is good enough, and I only have to enable multithreading in the vdub filters, because actually the filters are singlethreaded and all of them run on a single cpu core.

At least I can now encode my nearly 100 VHS tapes at 8 hours each at one pass, saving lot of time, that's something that works in 6.2 only with a very poor image quality due to less compute power left for filtering prior to encoding.

The multithreading is working quite well and stable, so some additional filters can be applied while capturing.

For offline encoding there's more a competition between h.264 and WME9, both are quadcore-capable and have no restriction about image quality. For the best encoding quality for divx I would take 6.2, but that is wiped by the 6.7 install.

[red5goahead]

imho Divx is the best decoder for mpg4 material. I use it into KMPlayer (not with 6.7 version). I use with full deblocking+sharpening. simply perfect.

[falcon2000eg]

Divx is not bad personally im using their codec to play my movies. But encoding is another issue Xvid is faster at the same quality "single core chip".Maybe i can get more from Divx with more tweaking and i think it will be faster on multicore chips.But what is the point if I do not care about speed and want high quality I will go for h.264.So now it is a matter of quality/speed factor between Dixv and Xvid because both nearly reached the maximum quality I can get from an ASP codec.

[jsquare]

I do all of my encodes with XviD using GKnot/Stax, but recently converted a HD source with the DivX 720HD profile and it came out beautiful at around 1/10 the size of the original.
I'm starting to like the features and recently developments with DivX, and I don't see any enthusiasm with the XviD team on improving the codec any further, much of the effort is being pour into x264.

[Vasyek01]

Thx!
Maybe some one did compare HD quality, not SD? I compressed a movie in HD and used the encoding type two pass, average bitrate with 5000 kbps on the Divx encoder. I find that it works faster than Xvid encoder. Maybe I did something wrong?

[delacroixp]

Maybe I did something wrong?
Maybe not...


:):devil::D
Pascal

[weaver4]

I have found later versions of DivX (6.X and above) to be faster than XviD by 10 to 20%.

[Vasyek01]

I have found later versions of DivX (6.X and above) to be faster than XviD by 10 to 20%.
Me too. I like quality of Xvid - super! But it's the really slow encoder.
Divx works about 30% faster than Xvid for me.

[Dark Shikari]

Me too. I like quality of Xvid - super! But it's the really slow encoder.
Divx works about 30% faster than Xvid for me.Perhaps you need to use faster settings?

Comparing two encoders' speed is useless if you ignore the fact that they have different encoding options.

[weaver4]

Yeah, I should of said that my results are with AutoGK and AVI.Net, default configuration, Constant Quality, Q=4 for DivX and Q=3 for XviD, 640 width. I believe this is a fair comparison.

[Vasyek01]

I compared the same HD clip (NOT SD) with the same Quality, same bit rate, same size out... It's no question, the Xvid encoder can be setup for way better quality than the Divx encoder. Especially for Standard Definition (720x480 dpi) format, but I'm talking about a High Definition format like 1280x720 dpi.
So, I found out for myself, if I have some really good HD quality movie, I use Xvid, for ordinary stuff Divx is OK.

[Dark Shikari]

Yeah, I should of said that my results are with AutoGK and AVI.Net, default configuration, Constant Quality, Q=4 for DivX and Q=3 for XviD, 640 width. I believe this is a fair comparison.Quantizer isn't the only setting--motion search settings and so forth?

Many apps automatically set Xvid up for the max quality settings while ignoring speed; you can easily gain a lot of speed without losing much quality with Xvid.

Why totally different quantizers with Xvid and DivX btw? :confused:

[weaver4]

Quantizer isn't the only setting--motion search settings and so forth?

Many apps automatically set Xvid up for the max quality settings while ignoring speed; you can easily gain a lot of speed without losing much quality with Xvid.

Why totally different quantizers with Xvid and DivX btw? :confused:

I just used the defaults, I figured the authors of avi.net and autogk know what is the best setup.

Divx Q of 4 is about the same Bits-Per-Pixel as Xvid Q of 3; so they are about the same filesize and same quality.

[Dark Shikari]

I just used the defaults, I figured the authors of avi.net and autogk know what is the best setup."Best" is a relative term, which is why it is banned on this forum.

For example, I could use my Q50 settings that I came up with for x264 and be about 10% worse quality than MeGUI's HQ-Slow settings, but be about 5 times faster. You probably would have minimal notice of the 10% difference, too--its diminishing return--lots of speed for little quality gain. The same is true with Xvid, and stating "Xvid is higher quality but is slower" is meaningless because you could use faster settings and sacrifice a tiny bit of that quality.

[Ice =A=]

Well said!

[DeathTheSheep]

Xvid is almost unusable for me due to jumping/flickering b-frames issue in still anime scenes, which seems to be present in all settings cases except 0 bframes (obviously) and high bitrate.

DivX is fine...

[Dark Shikari]

Xvid is almost unusable for me due to jumping/flickering b-frames issue in still anime scenes, which seems to be present in all settings cases except 0 bframes (obviously) and high bitrate.

DivX is fine...I've never seen or heard of anything like this. Example?

[CruNcher]

Xvid is almost unusable for me due to jumping/flickering b-frames issue in still anime scenes, which seems to be present in all settings cases except 0 bframes (obviously) and high bitrate.

DivX is fine...


did you tried my EDP build yet ? i especialy tweaked for that case p and b-frame flickering in low bitrate situations was a major point in my optimizations and detail preservation but i did it for real source footage im not sure if it helps with artificial source, but anyway at least it should visible reduce p and b-frame flicking :)

[weaver4]

Well said!

In the Doom9 codec shootout they stated that XviD was slightly faster than DivX 6.1. DivX claims they are 30% faster now than 6.1.

[Inventive Software]

6.1 also didn't have multithreaded encoding IIRC, so it was a fair comparison. But correct me if I'm wrong. I hate being wrong. ;)

[dannyv]

You have some pretty strongly held opinions, so I'm not hear to persuade you specifically, but I would like to respond generally as to why hardware companies value DivX and put our logo on their products.

It's not just the technology, although that is important of course. Far more than that, DivX Certification is a pretty intense suite of testing. Many products have failed it, especially on the first couple of go arounds. And it goes quite deep. We work with the chip guys first, then the ODM makers, and then finally with the OEM's, all with goal of ensuring a certain level of quality and interoperability that is very, very reliable.

Now, why do companies like Sony, Samsung, LG, Philips (essentially every major DVD manufacturer) work with us? Why have they put out into the market over 100 million DivX certified products so far? These guys are tough, smart business people. If they thought it wasn't absolutely necessary to their bottomline, they would not do it. Period.

The truth is that they came to us initially. When users began to request the ability to playback MPEG-4 files (at the time almost exclusively DivX, now many other flavors, of course) on inexpensive devices, some innovators began to enable that, and to put it on their boxes. But users had no way of knowing what exactly that meant. MPEG-4 is a vast suite of standards. What DivX Certification allowed was for a precise, real world "standard" to exist that told everybody, from simple viewers to content creators the precise compression choices they should make in order to be inter-operable in the widest manner possible.

That is not a small thing and it is something that the CE companies valued DivX for enormously, and they continue to do so. Combine that with the rigorous testing we do in our Certification lab and hopefully you can recognize why the hardware companies look to us, and our logo, to demonstrate to consumers that their products are innovative, inter-operable, and high quality.

OK, this is already longer than I had intended. But let me know if you have any other questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Or I'll grab Gej and make him answer them. :p

Very well said. I am an avid DIVX user. I encode a lot of 1920x1080 HD content to 1280x720 and the results are fantastic. The gripe I do have is the divx converter is very limited compaired to DR DIVX. I use DR DIVX because its the only easy program that allows me to copy stream the AC3 5.1 sound and it allows me to custom resize the resolution. Many people have said that DR DIVX does not work with divx 6.7 but I have no problems with it.

What my biggest gripe is it seems divx has turn there attention mostly to stage6 and have stopped assisting in the development DR DIVX. And as far as the divx converter its usless for what I need to do.

DR DIVX has its problems such as if you encode in theater mode then switch to High definition mode it locks up and the 6.7 codec needs to be reinstalled.

My question to you kosmonaut is dr divx dead? Dookl1 (developer) and most users over at the divxlabs forum have asked for assistance many times and the same question "is dr dead" as well has been asked and there requests and questions mostly go unanswered.

[CruNcher]

also people shouldn't forget their are other very good ASP encoders worth mentioning :P lavc ASP, Nero Recode (Ateme ASP), 3ivX and as a special case encoder hdx4 come to my mind, all of them improved since the last shootouts.

[weaver4]

I agree with dannyv. The Dr. is a very good tool, it is 90% of the way there before activity stopped on it. The question has been asked many times over, without answer; "Is the Doctor Dead?"

kosmonaut can you answer?

[Inventive Software]

Couple of bugs to report. Custom PARs with values above 255 aren't supported? I have a PAR that's 368:267 (see, this is why I hate cropping material most days :p) for one source, trying to get it 16:9. No I'm not kidding.

Secondly, why aren't those custom PARs applied correctly? If I want a PAR of 64:45, I should be able to get a PAR of 64:45 and not something screwy and incorrect like 20:11 or 16:11. Is it going to be sorted for the next release?

[delacroixp]

"Is the Doctor Dead?"

The Doctor is Immortal... maybe he's on sabatical getting a second PhD at MIT (http://web.mit.edu/)... go figure...


:):devil::D
Pascal

[Ranguvar]

Don't know how much impact deblocking would have, not much I would guess.It makes a huge difference.

[Ranguvar]

@DeathTheSheep: I have literally thousands of Xvid anime clips, 2 B-VOPs, no flickering or stuttering or anything. How slow is your PC?

[Brother John]

Custom PARs with values above 255 aren't supported?
That’s a bitstream limitation. MPEG-4 Visual’s custom PAR fields are unsigned 8-bit integers, i.e. only values between 0 and 255 are possible.
Btw: For H.264 it’s unsigned 16-bit integers: 0 to 65535.

I have a PAR that's 368:267 (see, this is why I hate cropping material most days )
But cropping has zero effect on PAR...

[Inventive Software]

Yes it does, and allow me to attempt to explain.

After cropping, the original source material is no longer the 720x576 (1.25:1) that it was encoded to, it's now 698x572 (1.22:1 rounded). To get that source 16:9 after cropping, you need a new PAR since 64:45 wouldn't be correct.

I can't remember how I got 368:267 (that PAR doesn't apply to the above calculations BTW), or for what source, but it does matter, honest! ;)

[DeathTheSheep]

The flickering is not due to pc speed. It is introduced encoding-time. Check some old threads I made on the matter... only really appears in super-low-bitrate anyway. Q5 or lower, QVGA or less.

[Brother John]

@Inventive Software
But after cropping your source is not DAR 16:9 anymore. PAR is still exactly the same though, because removing lines of pixels does not change the shape of those pixels. If you artificially create a perfect 16:9 DAR afterwards, that’s already the next processing step, which btw will result in a slightly distorted frame.

[kosmonaut]

What my biggest gripe is it seems divx has turn there attention mostly to stage6 and have stopped assisting in the development DR DIVX. And as far as the divx converter its usless for what I need to do.


Hi dannyv, sorry I've taken so long to reply, things have been a bit hectic around here lately with fires and such. :eek:

I don't have concrete answers to the Dr. DivX question, unfortunately, except to say there is still development on it, but no set ETA on new versions. I wish I could be more helpful, but that's all I was able to find out right now.

On the other issue of Stage6, you can be assured that is not taking too much attention away from other things anymore. We've actually split it off entirely from DivX. It's now (or about to become) a totally separate entity.

[weaver4]

On the other issue of Stage6, you can be assured that is not taking too much attention away from other things anymore. We've actually split it off entirely from DivX. It's now (or about to become) a totally separate entity.

Does this mean that DivX will put some effort back into it's tools? How about the Doctor, will any work start on it? I would help development on the Doctor but my C++ skills are lacking.

[Ajax_Undone]

Cool well I just got the entire Repository trunk DDled and Compressed it to a RAR type file...

Here is the link (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=67E5I64P) for anyone wishing to help (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=67E5I64P)...


To help with the Coding Part you need to know C++/Win32 Programming using Visual C++ 2005 Express edition, mingw and wxWidgets... If you think you can learn fast Do it...


To get involved contact harikrishnan_v he is the Project Manager @ https://sourceforge.net/projects/drdivx/

Note to all users wanting the Dr. Fixed post the bugs found at the Divx Forum or in the Bug tracker on sourceforge.

Please note that not all "Bugs" are Bugs just a mis understanding at which case post first in the Divx forums under Dr Divx first.

If someone there is able to help you out then avoid the bug tracker at Sourceforge...

Now we might just start getting this project going again... Who Know's...

[delacroixp]

On the other issue of Stage6, you can be assured that is not taking too much attention away from other things anymore. We've actually split it off entirely from DivX. It's now (or about to become) a totally separate entity.

Does this mean that DivX will put some effort back into it's tools? How about the Doctor, will any work start on it? I would help development on the Doctor but my C++ skills are lacking.

Your rock-solid enthusiasm, for a project that many deamed unnecessary and simultaneosly unattainable, has certainly been a beacon of light for the entire Dr DivX II project...
However, I think, your inspiration is worth more than any amount of hands-on 'nuts and bolts' programming...


Keep the light burning bright... the dream is alive and well !!!


:):devil::D
Pascal

[Ajax_Undone]

Does it look like there is hope or am I just smoking some of my own home grown, and seeing things that aren't really there...

[delacroixp]

Does it look like there is hope or am I just smoking some of my own home grown, and seeing things that aren't really there...
Probably all three !!!
All good !!
np !


*** EDIT *** (http://forums.divx.com/forum/viewTopic.php?id=4750&page=1#c25726)
A certain group of people love movies, divx and encoding (not necessarily in that order) and they would like an advanced tool/app which includes all three.

DD II and H263 is a contradiction in terms since H263 is no longer the advanced codec (DD I was probably at the peak of it's game). However, having said that, H263 will still perform a usefull role in the community for sometime to come.

Perhaps, Dr DivX III, could support H263, H264 and "H265", as an advanced DivX application for all three... possibly in Visual C++.


:):devil::D
Pascal

[dannyv]

Hi dannyv, sorry I've taken so long to reply, things have been a bit hectic around here lately with fires and such. :eek:

I don't have concrete answers to the Dr. DivX question, unfortunately, except to say there is still development on it, but no set ETA on new versions. I wish I could be more helpful, but that's all I was able to find out right now.

On the other issue of Stage6, you can be assured that is not taking too much attention away from other things anymore. We've actually split it off entirely from DivX. It's now (or about to become) a totally separate entity.

Thank you for your responce and I hope DR DIVX will restore our faith in it with a new release. For now I will continue to deal with its quarks until something better comes along as far as an easy to use front end app for DIVX. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Ajax_Undone]

Thank you for your responce and I hope DR DIVX will restore our faith in it with a new release. For now I will continue to deal with its quarks until something better comes along as far as an easy to use front end app for DIVX. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Dude don't ever settle that's what makes this world what it is...

"The man that settles is weak and useless in the eyes of many, but in the eyes of the settler. He sees the truth of those who mock him are the ones who gave up first, and unto them is the detriment of all society"...

~A.J.~

[xruntime]

The cost of bandwidth has been declining since forever, if Stage6 doesn't survive now, eventually we will have a high quality site just like it. I'm confident in Stage6 though, because while it may appear to be a flawed business model, I doubt Divx is just standing around letting their money go. They must be making up at least some of that investment via advertisements or something of the like.

Especially those front page ads, don't you see them? The PS3, Crysis...they must receive some good money for those.

If they don't grow as fast as Youtube did, they'll be fine.

But to be honest, I could care less about their business model, but instead that I get to watch high quality, sometimes HD videos and even save them to my hard drive!

[Fluffbutt]

The cost of bandwidth has been declining since forever

Huh!, not here in this arsehole of a country (Australia) - they've just put the price UP by $480/year for my 80G connection.

[Amdh]

I Guess That's Pretty Normal .. AVC Gives By Far Better Quality Than DivX, So People Choose It Over That Old *X, Anyway, We'll Be Waiting For The AVC Edition Of DivX To See What DivX Networks Can Do There.

[Shinigami-Sama]

I Guess That's Pretty Normal .. AVC Gives By Far Better Quality Than DivX, So People Choose It Over That Old *X, Anyway, We'll Be Waiting For The AVC Edition Of DivX To See What DivX Networks Can Do There.

main concept's encoder was already pretty decent, so I wonder what they're going to do with it
I'm hoping that they actually make decent players that support the real standard, and not the half assed ones in their current product lines

[xruntime]

Huh!, not here in this arsehole of a country (Australia) - they've just put the price UP by $480/year for my 80G connection.

well, more so for the companies than the consumer, here in the US internet connections are slower than much of the rest of the world

I have 768/128 :(

[IgorC]

well, more so for the companies than the consumer, here in the US internet connections are slower than much of the rest of the world

I have 768/128 :(
All internet of Latin America is derived from U.S internet. Vastly most of connections is cablemodem 640/128 and sometimes 1024/256

[Amdh]

I'm Right With You Friend, In Terms Of AVC H.264 We Do Not Need Encoders Anymore, x264 And The Upcoming Xvid AVC Are Fairly Enough, We Need Decoders/Player And Some Hardware Support And That's What DivX Will Bring To The World Of AVC. I Consider That When DivX Will Release It's AVC Codec, More People Will Know About AVC, More Content Will Be Encoded In That Format And So Hardware Player Producers Will Be Encouraged To Integrate AVC Support To Their Players, Anyway, Wish Them The Best .. Good Luck DivX, It Won't Be That Easy To Sell DivX AVC When x264 Is Here And Free Of Charge, So Again Good Luck.

[weaver4]

AVC right now is a mess. Content for ipods, psp, ps3, quicktime, apple tv, xbox, and others won't play on each others. Hopefully DivX-AVC will be able to fix that.

One of the falsehoods as I see is that AVC is much better than DivX. According to this site's testing Divx is just as good as AVC if you give it 25% higher bitrate. I am willing to live with that to have hardware compatibility. [This is the only double blind MOS test I know of.]

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/subjective_codecs_comparison_en.html

BTW: Xvid-AVC has been close for over 2 years.

[Dark Shikari]

AVC right now is a mess. Content for ipods, psp, ps3, quicktime, apple tv, xbox, and others won't play on each others. Hopefully DivX-AVC will be able to fix that.AVC has very specific profiles, unlike MPEG-4 ASP, which is a total mess of different support that you can't really count on.

"DivX AVC" will not change anything; DivX is a tiny, tiny player in a huge industry, and all that really matters are the official profiles supported by the big players.
One of the falsehoods as I see is that AVC is much better than DivX. According to this site's testing Divx is just as good as AVC if you give it 25% higher bitrate. I am willing to live with that to have hardware compatibility. This strongly depends on the source and the bitrate. At high bitrates, yes, AVC is only marginally better. At low bitrates, it is vastly better; I'd say, for example, for compressing EVE Online fan videos, the reason I got into H.264 in the first place, H.264 has a 300-400% advantage over DivX at the bitrates normally used; 1000kbps at 720p is usually sufficient to equal DivX at 4000kbps.

If you're dealing with a grainy, messy source, the only advantage H.264 really has is CABAC, of course.

I don't see why one would want to use DivX over AVC for future compatibility though; the former is a standard endorsed by only a single company with generally iffy hardware support, while the latter is backed by dozens of companies and is already being used for broadcasting--something that DivX never managed to do in all of its years of desperate marketing.

DivX is still useful in the present though; if you need to archive HD in a format that doesn't require much CPU to play back, MPEG-4 ASP as a whole is still a very useful format as long as you're willing to allocate more hard disk space. And of course DivX has more hardware support simply due to the fact that it is quite a bit older and has had much more time to become supported. So while DivX will be less useful in the future, today it still serves its role.

[weaver4]

DivX has done a great job of working with Manufactures and Silicon manufactures to come up with profiles that are very portable (from device to device) in the ASP market. I am hoping they can do the same thing in the AVC market. Right now if you make AVC content for the psp it won't play on anything else; same goes for the Ipod, same goes for Apple TV, ect. I am in hopes that DivX will be able to do the same thing for the AVC world it did for the ASP world.

I have never ever found "iffy hardware support", if it is "DivX certified" I have found it will play all my content.

I have had 4 DivX certified DVD players in my home. every single one of them played my collection of DivX movies flawlessly. Never had to recode any movie to play on a new player. On the other hand my AVC movies (done with nero digital) won't play on a single hardware device not even my Apple TV. What do you think the chances are that these AVC movies will play on my new Popcorn Hour A-100....absolutly none....I will have to encode all my movies again...and again....and again.

AVC is better than ASP I just want it to be more portable, from device to device.

[Dark Shikari]

AVC is better than ASP I just want it to be more portable, from device to device.The point here is that AVC has been out for only a couple years, while DivX has been around for three times that...

[Manao]

Ipod / PSP /Apple TV all supports (A)SP, yet none are compatible with one another. The problem with those three piece of hardware and AVC portability doesn't lie in AVC, but in the devices' manufacturers (Apple/Sony).

And DivX will definitely not be able to force those two to make their devices be compatible with one another (the purpose of Sony/Apple being to tie the customer to the hardware, portability isn't a plus for them)

As for portability aside from those three hardware devices, AVC is self sufficient. No need for extra profiles created by a third party company.

[weaver4]

The problem is with the chipset manufactures as well. To make a piece of silicon that would run AVC in its entirety would require a very very expensive chipset. So all of these manufactures attack the problem a little differently by selecting subsets of the AVC to support. A third party company providing direction is exactly what is needed.

Lets admit it, DivX and XviD are going to be popular until the torrents quit supporting the content. And as as long as you need to have multiple files to support the same content for every AVC player (Ipod/PSP/Apple TV) the torrents are not going to rapidly move to AVC.

And the most widely uses ASP content on the Mac is Divx/Xvid, on the PC is is DivX/XviD, PS3 just announced DivX, XBoX 360 just announce DivX. So DivX has shown they can encourage the use of their codec on big time Manufactures.

[Dark Shikari]

The problem is with the chipset manufactures as well. To make a piece of silicon that would run AVC in its entirety would require a very very expensive chipset.Like the couple-million transistor dedicated hunk of silicon on nVidia's 8500 that costs a few dollars to make and decodes H.264 High Profile at Blu-Ray bitrates?

[weaver4]

Like the couple-million transistor dedicated hunk of silicon on nVidia's 8500 that costs a few dollars to make and decodes H.264 High Profile at Blu-Ray bitrates?

More than a few dollars; yeah but like that.

[Dark Shikari]

More than a few dollars; yeah but like that.Not really; it isn't as if its half the price of the card, given that its only a few percent of the entire chip.

[weaver4]

A full spec AVC chip would be 22-25 times larger than a standard DivX chip. A subset of AVC that is "good enough" for dvd players and portables would be about 3-4x larger than a DivX only chip. This is from a Chinese manufacture of hardware DivX players. Unfortantly I don't know what the price of a DivX chip is, I would guess that it is around $2.00.

This would be a good topic to get SMD (See More Digital) to comment on, he is over in the Hardware Forum and probably does not look here.

[SeeMoreDigital]

This would be a good topic to get SMD (See More Digital) to comment on, he is over in the Hardware Forum and probably does not look here.Sigma already has a few chip-sets that can decode: WMV9, VC-1, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2 and MPEG-4.10 ;)

These new chip-sets are no larger in physical size than previous chip-sets...

[Shinigami-Sama]

Sigma already has a few chip-sets that can decode: WMV9, VC-1, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2 and MPEG-4.10 ;)

These new chip-sets are no larger in physical size than previous chip-sets...

I'd worry if it were more than 1.5x larger...
you have any links for these chipsets?

[weaver4]

Sigma already has a few chip-sets that can decode: WMV9, VC-1, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2 and MPEG-4.10 ;)

These new chip-sets are no larger in physical size than previous chip-sets...

But the die size is larger, right? I heard that they require roughly 4x as many gates as a DivX chip.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Lets put it this way....

Sigma's really old EM8475 chip-set, which offers std-def: MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.2 support only, was around 27mm square.

MediaTek's MT1389xx and Zoran's Vaddis 888 chip-sets, which offer std-def MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.2 support are 30mm square.

However, Sigma's EM8622L chip-set, which offers high-def: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2, MPEG.4.10 (aka: AVC) and VC-1 support, are also 30mm square.

So the above would suggest that the chip-set are not getting massively bigger at all...


Cheers

[IgorC]

But the die size is larger, right? I heard that they require roughly 4x as many gates as a DivX chip.
Some information about Moore's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Each 2 years the size of transistor is getting twice smaller and cheaper.

I.e. quad core CPU (45-65 nm) has the same size (and the same price as P4 4 years ago) as top single core P4 class CPU (130 nm).

That's why today for chipmakers AVC support has very low cost.

[Shinigami-Sama]

18 months on moores law but close enough

don't forget price goes down as you make more units
so if they only make 1M units rather than 2M it will cost more to the consumer

which is why I think they're biding their time a bit in the AVC market, most savvy people know about it and use it
but the masses still have their blinders on, at least until the X-Mass rush for hi-def discs
then it should be interesting

[weaver4]

SMD: Thanks, great stuff.

[delacroixp]

A full spec AVC chip would be 22-25 times larger than a standard DivX chip. A subset of AVC that is "good enough" for dvd players and portables would be about 3-4x larger than a DivX only chip. This is from a Chinese manufacture of hardware DivX players. Unfortantly I don't know what the price of a DivX chip is, I would guess that it is around $2.00.


Sigma already has a few chip-sets that can decode: WMV9, VC-1, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.2 and MPEG-4.10 ;)

These new chip-sets are no larger in physical size than previous chip-sets...

Quad core CPU (45-65 nm) has the same size (and the same price as P4 4 years ago) as top single core P4 class CPU (130 nm).

That's why today for chipmakers AVC support has very low cost.

As IgorC has pointed out... a Penryn (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/intel_penryn_4ghz_with_air_cooling/), produced on the 45 nm fabrication process is streets ahead of a dual-core produced on the 65 nm process eventhough the die-size could be pretty similar...
It's not so much the size (less is more) but what's inside that counts...

A DivX chip costs only $2 to manufacture... but the cost of the final product is exponentially greater, after all the middle-men have taken their cut.
If an AVC chip were to cost $6... the SAP could conceivably cost double the price of regular DVD players of today...

SAP's may cost less than last year... but advanced models still cost more than average models at any point in time...
(Cheap is relative to how much you are willing and able to spend)


:):devil::D
Pascal

[xruntime]

Tbh, it's doesn't matter much to me if AVC gets released or dies, the current Xvid codec is excellent, and at higher bitrates, there barely is any difference...and as I mentioned before, with consumer internet becoming faster and faster the need for small video will eventually disappear and make way for a codec that gives better quality at higher bitrates (which both ASP and AVC can do equally well).

[Shinigami-Sama]

Tbh, it's doesn't matter much to me if AVC gets released or dies, the current Xvid codec is excellent, and at higher bitrates, there barely is any difference...and as I mentioned before, with consumer internet becoming faster and faster the need for small video will eventually disappear and make way for a codec that gives better quality at higher bitrates (which both ASP and AVC can do equally well).

true
but look at all the other consumer widgets out there
video/mp3 players
video phones
hand held game systems

[SeeMoreDigital]

Tbh, it's doesn't matter much to me if AVC gets released or dies, the current Xvid codec is excellent, and at higher bitrates, there barely is any difference...Well, you could say the same about MPEG-1, when it's generated at the same (higher) bit-rates as MPEG-2 and resolution (ie: 720x480/576 or above).