DivX goes AVC !

[lancelot]

Some news for today :) DivX is joining the family of X264/H264 codecs http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSWNAS249320071114

[clsid]

DivX has bought MainConcept. So they probably won't be making a new encoder, but just use the one that MainConcept has already made.

[communist]

Ah the good ol' - too late to play catch-up with new tech? Just buy the know-how and expertise :)

I'm surprised that MC is 'only' valued at 22M and could be bought out be DivX.. guess I always thought of them to be much bigger.

[Mtz]

If I was DivX I was going for "buy" one, (two or three) members from doom9 forum and create in a month the DivX AVC for... let's say 50K?

enjoy,
Mtz

[Dark Shikari]

Mainconcept for 22 million?

That's a steal.

[Inventive Software]

Didn't Mainconcept previously provide Nero with their AVC encoder, or was that Elecard?

And $22m for a video technology company is an absolute steal. I'm sure On2 is worth more...

[lazyn00b]

I wonder if this means we might see a cheaper version of the Mainconcept encoder, hopefully with a more polished GUI?

I've always thought the Mainconcept AVC encoder delivered good quality at a reasonable speed, but was crippled by a buggy front end.

[Shinigami-Sama]

maybe they got a few snaps shots of the headmen with some hookers with extra bits...

either way, I'd have rather seen divx make their own, but I guess its just cheaper at this point to fix up one thats not bad already

[Blue_MiSfit]

Ateme makes the Nero codec FYI :)

That's a good buy IMO. Mainconcept has some good stuff, and Divx can always use more IP.

~MiSfit

[R3Z]

Awesome, we will see film grain effect for playback for AVC sooner than later.

I bet thats what your all not thinking !

[ChronoCross]

Just seems kinda pointless to me. I would be excited had they made their own rather than buy something already made.

It's kinda like a pepsi with a coke label on it. Instead of improving their own products they just buy out the competition.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Just seems kinda pointless to me. I would be excited had they made their own rather than buy something already made.

It's kinda like a pepsi with a coke label on it. Instead of improving their own products they just buy out the competition.

to bad it'd be the other way around, seeing as how pepsi only has a real market share in NA from what I've seen

but I do agree totally

[lucassp]

It was easier for them to buy something that already works fine, instead of investing lots of time and money in their own AVC codec. I hope they invest further in the project and port it quickly to stage6.divx.com...Adobe will do AVC in FLV very soon.

Edit: ...there is hope for AVC in cheap stand alone home DVD players :)

[smok3]

Adobe will do AVC in FLV very soon.
i know there is beta out, but how soon?

[lucassp]

i know there is beta out, but how soon?

You can find news here: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/

...I wonder what encoder will they use, an self made one or some encoder from ateme/mainconcept?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hmmm...

All I can think about is what container DivX will use to place AVC video in....

Lets hope it's not .DIVX (ie: .AVI with bits added) :eek:

[Gusar]

Just seems kinda pointless to me.It's not pointless. From the perspective of Mainconcept, it's brilliant. People will be buying it just because of the name DivX.

[kuka2]

And $22m for a video technology company is an absolute steal.

Mainconcept sold to DivX "talented team of engineers", but there is no this team since they split with Elecard. Thus $22M for three codec developers is not that bad.

[kuka2]

I'm surprised that MC is 'only' valued at 22M and could be bought out be DivX.. guess I always thought of them to be much bigger.

DivX market cap is approx $620M with yearly revenues at $80M - price to sales ratio is about 8. So, if Mainconcept was sold for $22, based on the same P/S their revenues was less then $3M a year.
Rather big company :-)

[Schrade]

Adobe will do AVC in FLV very soon.

Hrm.. Adobe uses the MainConcept decoder for its h.264 implementation in Flash. And it uses regular .mp4 files too.

[lancelot]

I think that the main reason of getting ready made codec is - timing.. DivX Inc. has money to invest in new containers, but the market can not wait longer for it.

I hope that this news as well as signing the contract with Sony to get DivX into PSP3 is a major step forward to get DivX a real meaning for mp3 of video.

[lucassp]

Hrm.. Adobe uses the MainConcept decoder for its h.264 implementation in Flash. And it uses regular .mp4 files too.

so I don't need an FLV Muxer for AVC Streams. nice :D...so the next Flash Video Encoder will output to .mp4.

[St Devious]

does this mean we will be able to upload AVC/AAC combo video's to stage6 soon ?

[IgorC]

Mainconcept sold to DivX "talented team of engineers", but there is no this team since they split with Elecard. Thus $22M for three codec developers is not that bad.
H.264 was written only by Elecard developers for Mainconcept. So Divx bought only a source code of MC H.264. And 22 mln is reasonable price for that.

[bob0r]

I find this all so funny to read.
On more and more forums i see people scream for x264 and .mkv support, on many dutch video/tweakers forums its all they talk about.
And if some people want ps3/xbox360/applytv support, they remux to .mp4 (still use x264) and reencode audio to aac.

My point is: xvid and x264 are by far the most used and the number of releases daily online is increasing each month.

Then i find it funny that products as Nero and now Divx offer AVC, but who uses it? Can someone tell me who uses it?

I guess its a problem to sell videos (ones you have recorded) encoded with x264? Or can you as long as you provide the sourcecode? Or even better, directly pay pengvado? :D

I never understood these markets.....

[akupenguin]

I guess its a problem to sell videos (ones you have recorded) encoded with x264? Or can you as long as you provide the sourcecode? Or even better, directly pay pengvado?
Why? Even if I wanted to, I can't tell anyone what to do with streams encoded by x264. That would be as ridiculous as Microsoft owning the rights to all text files that were written in Notepad.

[Mtz]

bob0r, I think they need a fast move on AVC. They have good connections with chipset producers of standalone players. Maybe one of them (Mediatek) is prepared to release a new chipset with AVC support. As SMD posted, the question is about container and regarding this, they will support also mkv as supported xvid? When AVC will be supported by DivX, will be released new standalone "DivX Players" with AVC support. Then you'll can play "everything" except HDVD or BR at a small price. But I don't think they will support MKV because is a free competitor. MKV is already supported by tivx and divx need a fast move on standalone market.

enjoy,
Mtz

[bob0r]

And that is what will be so interesting:
no .mkv support , noone will buy it, support mkv and you kinda admit how useless mp4 is. And asking the mkv guys if they can use .mkv as output format will be painful and will never happen i guess :D

It will be very interesting to see how x264+mkv will develope, and i hope for the best: ALL big companies will adapt to support mkv!

[nm]

And that is what will be so interesting:
no .mkv support , noone will buy it, support mkv and you kinda admit how useless mp4 is. And asking the mkv guys if they can use .mkv as output format will be painful and will never happen i guess :D
No need to ask for permissions since Matroska is an open format and even has complete LGPL and BSD licensed muxers and parsers readily available. Nothing prevents DivX from using Matroska as a basis for their own container format either (which would be stupid, but they've done it before).

[IgorC]

Last time there were a lot of acquisitions. Dolby acquired Coding Technologies (creators of HE-AAC)

[MfA]

H.264 was written only by Elecard developers for Mainconcept. So Divx bought only a source code of MC H.264. And 22 mln is reasonable price for that.
It's what you pay if you are short on time ... even if you hire top talent that's many 10s of thousands of man hours. If they had started in time they could have build a codec a couple times over for that money.