Divx version 7. Release date?

[3NC0D3_Y0_A$$]

Sorry to make such a shoddy noobish topic.

But does anyone have a rough idea as to when we can expect to see a brand new codec of divx being released?

Divx 6 has been out for about 4 years now.

What improvements can we expect?

[buzzqw]

hope: a total new codec.. maybe avc (from mainconcept)... !

BHH

[fibbingbear]

Divx 6 has been out for about 4 years now.


True, but Divx 6.8 has only been out for a few months. They actually add quite a bit of improvements in each new release.

That being said, I have no idea when DivX 7 will come out. :p

[3NC0D3_Y0_A$$]

True, but Divx 6.8 has only been out for a few months. They actually add quite a bit of improvements in each new release.

That being said, I have no idea when DivX 7 will come out. :p

divx 6.8 hs actually been out for about 6-12 months.

a new build (divx 6.8.2 beta 1) has come out in the last few days though, which is has been the first new build in several months.

[3NC0D3_Y0_A$$]

hope: a total new codec.. maybe avc (from mainconcept)... !

BHH

I heard h.264 was being implemented into divx7. If that even makes sense, as my knowledge of codecs and containers and how they relate fully is sketchy.

[Ajax_Undone]

I heard h.264 was being implemented into divx7. If that even makes sense, as my knowledge of codecs and containers and how they relate fully is sketchy.

Hey bro divx 7 will be realesed sometime near the end of 08 maybe even the start of 09...

I don't think it will include avc because MC is still a corp sales depot (not for consumer use) type codec...

With any luck there is still a slim chance of avc support... (Don't count on it...)
:rolleyes:

[DigitAl56K]

I can't give you a release date just yet but you will be hearing more about the future generation of DivX in the not too distant future!

Who says the MainConcept AVC codec is not for consumer use? ;) DivX has also been spending time considerable time with H.264, and what you're likely to see emerge is a hybrid solution that consolidates and builds upon the best of both technologies.

IMO the 6.x format still holds a lot of value though. Encoding is super fast, decode requirements are light, and there are literally hundreds of millions of devices that support the format, making it one of the most open and accessible platforms you can work with today.

We are excited to move forward with new technologies, and I'll let you know as soon as we have something up on DivX Labs (http://labs.divx.com) to look at.

[Ajax_Undone]

Thanks DigitAl56K We will be happy to wait, but know this. With the OSS world taking a firm grasp onto h.264 I wouldn't put my money on Divx comming through with anything better... (I have been wrong in the past though.)

If Divx wants to recapture my imagination they will effectively Kill the OSS Dr. and Remake a Proprietary Video encoder for their codec... If not Kill the Dr. then just keep it up to date and remove the OSS bit... Nobody in the community wants to mess with it... Kamiwa is and was an exception but he hates C++ with a passion...

[DigitAl56K]

Ajax_Undone: I think this community does incredible work on the majority of its projects. I think that as in past we will see times where DivX solutions exceed in performance and/or quality, and times when solutions like x264 take the lead. Putting the somewhat inevitable perception of (a friendly!) technology race aside, as exciting as it always is to us all, hopefully we can also look at the broader picture and realize that perhaps the most significant benefit of all the tools that we each create is the ability of end users to take their content, whatever that may be, and move it into formats that let them use their video on their PC, PMPs, cell phones, DVD players, live over the web, and so forth. After all, it is often the inability to transform content into forms that are most useful to us that fuels a lot of the work that takes place here in the first place. I also believe that if we work together to some extent we can all see benefits. For example, can we bring DivX's ability to establish a standard across a wide range of hardware devices and through working with the community developers provide options for the end user that allows them to take advantage of this without necessarily locking them into a proprietary application or workflow?

I am curious as to why you are looking directly to DivX for first-party proprietary tools for working with video. When you consider all the possible things people want to do with video (working with different sources types, formats, processing techniques, and so forth), it seems hard to imagine a single application that can fulfil every desired use-case well and with a high degree of reliability. If we look at tools like GKnot, AutoMKV, and the like, we see applications that are quite flexible because they are built upon essentially atomic worker utilities that do the heavy lifting in their specialist areas that can be chained together with relative ease such that it's quite straightforward to adapt to new goals and demands.

I certainly think that it's important to provide the core tools, e.g. an encoder and a mux, to enable this kind of development so that anyone who does see value in our new format can easily integrate it and generate fully compatible content in the same sort of way that today people are integrating tools like x264. At the same time, just as XviD in later revisions implemented profiles compliant with DivX Certified profiles, I would love to see us work with x264 to provide options ensuring compatibility in the case where this was the users prefered codec.

If Dr DivX OSS isn't fulfilling your needs, are there other community products that do or retail products that you think DivX should be making greater efforts to integrate with? Tell me your opinions, your needs, and what kind of approach you'd like to see from us. Tell me what you think is wrong with the software landscape and how you would change it. Or perhaps you just prefer a consolidated, simplified approach to video encoding?

I realise that's a wide net to cast, and likely to take this thread off topic, so if you would rather reply to me directly you can e-mail me at amayo [at] divxcorp (dotcom), please include your Doom9 user name in the subject line. Realize that product decisions involve a large team and I may not be able to give you all the answers that you want to hear, but I am interested to hear from anyone who would like to comment. Your input can influence how DivX moves forward :)

[weaver4]

DigitAl56K, DivX is the one making the tools:

> they make the converter which is way to limiting.
> they started Dr DivX and did not stick with it, and it remains buggy.
> they sell/develop DivX Author which is buggy and has very little codec control.

So DivX has made the decision to make the tools, the community is just asking that you do it well. If your tools are going to continue to be "weak" then get out and others will know they need to pick-up the slack.

I had thought once about making a OSS generic DivX tool, but felt as though I was competing with DivX and would not be able to generate any revenue from my efforts...so I never started.

Three good tools are Staxrip, Avi.net and AutoGK. I would think that DivX could go to one of these authors and say "If we paid you $30,000 would you add the following features to completely support our Codec and Container..........". The response would probably be "yes" and you would end up with a great tool that you could refer your customers to.

[DigitAl56K]

Hi weaver4,

I also think Converter, certainly in it's current form is too limiting for this audience. As I was saying to Kamiwa just yesterday, it does have its market - there are many people who just need a simple drag and drop utility to convert their video, but it's unlikely that it will ever fulfill the needs of someone here at Doom9 to their complete satisfaction. However, it was not really intented to. To do this would involve exposing too many technical details that essentially make it unsuitable for the novice user. I would not look to Converter to become a highly complex encoding application, at least from the point of view of what is exposed at a UI level.

Dr DivX OSS was in part a response to our users demand when we decided to stop working on the original Dr DivX. Many people asked us for an application that exposed more of the "medium-level" features that Converter missed, and also to create it as an open-source project so that the community could be involved in its development. We had goals to make it cross-platform and support a wide range of input types while also exposing a lot of the same settings that can be accessed directly through the codec. I think perhaps because of certain design choices (the libraries we depended upon, the way ffmpeg was leveraged, and so forth), the project became more difficult to maintain than we had intended and this may have been a reason it failed to attract much attention from the community devs, even though it does have quite a large user base. I don't think it's completely fair to say that we did not "stick with it" - it was always our intent to turned it over to the community developers, and when it was released it was rather fully featured, but even with limited community development support there had to come a time where we step away from the project somewhat.

I have to admit I'm not too familiar with the DivX Author roadmap, so I will leave it to someone else to add their comment on that.

What I do appreciate is your sentiment that we should either provide solid tools to fulfil a need, or else open up the field for others to do so and support them in their efforts. I don't believe Converter should step on the toes of the community tools too much because the audience is vastly different, but I can understand that Dr DivX is perhaps an application that is addressing a sizeable user base with limited momentum.

Certainly what we want to do is to work more closely with authors of community products and support them in integrating support for DivX, both current and future versions, and we're in the process of creating materials that ought to make that easier in the near future. You mention paying the community developers to integrate our tools, and that is something we can think about. More than this though, I hope we're creating something that is interesting enough that they'll want to integrate it anyway :)

Good post, btw.

[Pulp Catalyst]

it would also be nice to see a converter that supports the 3rd audio track in the DivX container, i have tried so many programs and no one supports it,

Dr DivX does, but come on, i have never seen such a unstable application, personally the way Dr DivX behaves it should be called a Alpha release not beta, it's so unstable,

AutoGK does, but the quality from this apps is dreadful, Chroma and Luminosity levels are way of the mark, especially in a space scene with stars and nebulas.

2nd thing would be nice is to fix the DivX installer for x64 bit platforms, (Syswow64, not system 32) and the shortcuts created in start menu. easy to fix for the person who knows how this stuff works, but the general public barely know what a network cross cable is, net alone changing and reconfiguring shortcut locations in windows.

and 3rd thing is your Converter application is falling behind the Codec, it seems like your waiting for Dr DivX to pick up the mark, but it won't happen, license then open source.... and oh, Dr DivX is good now, back to license. people just won't go there.

your codec has come so far, and is so good now, but it's hard for people like my self to find any decent application that is easy, and supports DivX full capabilities.

the only program i found (with exception of not utilizing 3rd audio track capability) is Fairuse Wizard, your Codec (and Xvid) shines brilliantly from this program, the quality produced from this app makes the image look almost true to the source.

there are so many app's that use your codec now, but none of them do any good job, and kind of embarrasses your codec.

the only free solution that is out there requires 6 months investment of learning a thousand settings that needs to be configure, OK for the real master converters out there, but for the average person who wants a point click, and encode option but to have great quality true to source just doesn't exist (not yet any way, although DivX converter does have potential, but still miles of Fairuse Wizard)

I'm suprised that you haven't cashed in on creating a really good converter application, considering how many rippers and converters that are around that do a piss poor job (but are easy admittedly) I'm surprised your not annoyed how many programs use your codec yet produce so bad quality,

good luck, and keep up the great work, it's so good to see DivX codec coming along so nicely, a hee ho to your development team for sure.

[buzzqw]

automkv can support 1, 2 or ALL audio streams.. and latest beta added DivX support!

BHH

[Pulp Catalyst]

you missed what i said mate, that program is way to complicated, powerful yes, but not for the lame, most people do not want to have to spend 6 months learning all the different settings, which even i have to admit, are hundreds of them on so many screens,

people that like and enjoy AutoGK do so because of it's ease of use, and reasonable quality, use to be good quality 2 -3 years ago, but not any more.

people in general work hard, spend time with family, and don't have much time for ripping and encoding,

the more automated the better for most, even for me, i like the idea how a program can make nearly all intelligent decisions for me. but without the sacrifice of image quality which nearly all program seem to do,

i don't see why a program that is automated in nearly all respects means MAX quality can not be achieved, in this day of age that should not be the case any longer,

be nice to have more programs coming out like AutoGK and Fairuse wizard that does it for you but give MAX quality, AutoGK held the thrown for so long, but now it's Fairuse Wizard, and i'm sure in time there will be another in the future, but why are they so far in between, there are hundreds of converter out there, nearly all comercial and there sh*t i so many ways, some more then others of course.

just a shame that we don't see more automated programs coming out of the scene that maintains the best these codecs can achieve.

[buzzqw]

you missed what i said mate, that program is way to complicated

i hope you have at least tryed it

BHH

[Pulp Catalyst]

yes i have, 5 days ago

and here,

http://automkv.a.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page

is the main wiki page,

already one can see over 20 settings on this page alone, heheheh LOL, even that would scare most of,

and,

http://automkv.a.wiki-site.com/index.php/Help:Contents

come on mate, have a laugh, this is not what I'm talking about, people in general just don't understand this type of instructions,

hell for most people, they would need instructions to help them understand these instructions,

you've obviously tried AutoGK, and hopefully you've tried Fairuse Wizard, your not suggesting are you that they are in the same league as AutoMKV in ease of use.

AutoMKV is for advance users, hell, Gknot is far easier end even that would not be understood by so many.

[DigitAl56K]

Hey guys,

Let's stay on the topic of how DivX can move forward, we can discuss the pros and cons of AutoMKV in another thread :)

Again, thanks for your comments, it's great feedback!

Side: Pulp Catalyst, I logged the SysWOW64 issue the other day, and I agree it's easy to fix. It's in our queue now.

[buzzqw]

thias will be the last reply, since the OT is gone to far.

Automkv will be perfectionally fuctional with all default settings, it's a matter of selecting input, codec, container, width, disk settings.

hope the best

BHH

[Ice =A=]

Well, just as a sidenote: There are more and more HDTV television sets that can do motion compensation (compute new frames between two "normal" frames) to make playback more fluid.
I don't know of a way to playback DivX files with motion compensation on PCs, and that would definitely be a big improvement!

[Ajax_Undone]

@DigitAl56K

I hope you take this as constructive criticism because thats what its meant to be...

I also think Converter, certainly in it's current form is too limiting for this audience. As I was saying to Kamiwa just yesterday, it does have its market - there are many people who just need a simple drag and drop utility to convert their video, but it's unlikely that it will ever fulfill the needs of someone here at Doom9 to their complete satisfaction. However, it was not really intended to. To do this would involve exposing too many technical details that essentially make it unsuitable for the novice user. I would not look to Converter to become a highly complex encoding application, at least from the point of view of what is exposed at a UI level.

Well if one were to look at the start and fallow the trail it might look like this.

Dr. Divx 1.x.x was almost just such a tool for experts. Then it got its source pulled and made into that cr*p app Converter.

Divx tryed despretly to get an OSS Project that could replace the Dr. and then stoped because they couldnt keep the PR up in the cubicles so they lost the two developers that started that effort to Core.

Then pegasys for what ever reason sold its soul and made an eye candy program specifically for the "community Version of the Codec" Nothing More. UserXP's Free app is much better.
Forever scarring them in my eyes.

It completely befuddles me why you couldn't just use the source from the Dr. and make that worthless app and still keep the Dr. and posibly make it better.


Dr DivX OSS was in part a response to our users demand when we decided to stop working on the original Dr DivX. Many people asked us for an application that exposed more of the "medium-level" features that Converter missed, and also to create it as an open-source project so that the community could be involved in its development. We had goals to make it cross-platform and support a wide range of input types while also exposing a lot of the same settings that can be accessed directly through the codec. I think perhaps because of certain design choices (the libraries we depended upon, the way ffmpeg was leveraged, and so forth), the project became more difficult to maintain than we had intended and this may have been a reason it failed to attract much attention from the community devs, even though it does have quite a large user base. I don't think it's completely fair to say that we did not "stick with it" - it was always our intent to turned it over to the community developers, and when it was released it was rather fully featured, but even with limited community development support there had to come a time where we step away from the project somewhat.

Part of a buggy incomplete effort that leaves much to be desired and nobody even cares enough to look at the svn anymore.


And to say *you* stepped away is the biggest farthest cry from a sad excuse I have ever heard of. The two people who started and maintained the project left the company.


The fact is Divx has lost the interest of the Pros and gained the interest of people who just "like that cool looking thingy".

If there is to be a Divx on an afterbirth. They will need some big Forceps to remove it.

Three things will Need to happen before I ever come back to you as a codec company.

1. A professional app made to work with every aspect of the codec.
2. AVC/h.264 both Decoding and Encoding w/ full support from the above mentioned.
3. More community action from the developers so we the users can get first hand help with problems.


:)Hope I wasnt too harsh but this is just the way I see it.:)

[DigitAl56K]

Ajax_Undone: No worries, it is good to talk about these things.

First up, though, we don't have cubicles! I'd sooner shoot myself than work in a cube :)

We did indeed lose robux4 to Core, and very recently LordRPI also, who did the Mac port. It was actually d00kli and robux4 who wrote the vast majority of Dr DivX. d00kli is still with us, cranking out code for DivX Connected (http://labs.divx.com/Connected).

1. A professional app made to work with every aspect of the codec.
2. AVC/h.264 both Decoding and Encoding w/ full support from the above mentioned.
3. More community action from the developers so we the users can get first hand help with problems.

I'm not sure that we can whip up the worlds best proprietary app overnight, but I'm hopeful we can at least work on numbers 2 and 3.

[Ajax_Undone]

Thats all I ask... Love the Cube remark. LOL

[ricardo.santos]

Hey guys,
Let's stay on the topic of how DivX can move forward,

isnt that what we are doing? Buzzqw choose to support divx.

yes i have, 5 days ago..and here....is the main wiki page,already one can see over 20 settings on this page alone, heheheh LOL, even that would scare most of,


Sorry i totally disagree with you, i know the creator is italian but the program is in english, its easy to use, sure it supports other codecs, just load the video,select audio and subs, select divx and profile you want to use and you're away.....

Autogk does the same thing, avi.net does the same thing, staxrip does the same thing, drdivx does the same thing, what is your definition of easy because on my book it can't get any easier than that.

come on mate, have a laugh, this is not what I'm talking about, people in general just don't understand this type of instructions...hell for most people, they would need instructions to help them understand these instructions,

WHAT?????? load,selectaudio,select sub.select codec, cant it be any easier than this?


Then pegasys for what ever reason sold its soul and made an eye candy program specifically for the "community Version of the Codec" Nothing More. UserXP's Free app is much better.


I agree, Divx should hire him, dont know where he is now but his apllication is miles away from the pegasys one, last time i "spoke" with him he said he was going to make more user friendly mode for it but he disappeared leaving just the "not so easy mode".

[weaver4]

AutoGK does, but the quality from this apps is dreadful, Chroma and Luminosity levels are way of the mark, especially in a space scene with stars and nebulas.

I read this last week and it still bugs me. I have been using the latest version of AutoGK and I think the results are great with DivX 6.8. I have not seen anything that is not as good as Xvid 1.1.3 and most stuff is better. Maybe I don't look a nebulas enough.

FairUse Wizard is a great program if you only want to rip DVD's.

[3NC0D3_Y0_A$$]

Are there any test comparisons between xvid 1.1.3 and divx 6.8?

[Ajax_Undone]

Not my knowledge but you are free to experiment if you please

[iwod]

I wonder what hybrid solution means... Any speculation ?

[gizzin]

ya you guys should really work on #1...badly... Divx is still around? thought it got the axe years ago cough xvid :) some divx 6.8 vs xvid 1.1.3 would be nice too see.

[Ice =A=]

Nice!

[p6120]

The MKV container makes it incompatible to Flash. I guess this is no coincidence.

The online video market is ruled by Flash (in the furture probably Silverlight gets part of the cake). I can't remember when I started a program other than my browser to watch a video online. The offline retail video market will be Blueray and stolen (ripped) mp4 videos can already be played on every device from mobile phones to living room players.

What is DivX there for? Can someone explain this to me, please?

[Dark Shikari]

The MKV container makes it incompatible to Flash. I guess this is no coincidence. Of course, DivX owns Mainconcept, and Mainconcept makes the Flash decoder for H.264... its all a big loop :p

[GodofaGap]

and stolen (ripped) mp4 videos can already be played on every device from mobile phones to living room players.
How many standalones actually support AVC mp4s?

[SeeMoreDigital]

How many standalones actually support AVC mp4s?Any device fitted with Sigma's SMP8634/35 chip-set will do!

Sigma's older EM8622/23/24/25/26/27/28/29 chip-sets can also play MPEG-4 AVC.... but have slower video processors with less on-board memory!


Cheers

[GodofaGap]

Any device fitted with Sigma's SMP8634/35 chip-set will do!
That's not really an answer. How many players expose this functionality?

[Danisan]

Plenty of 'em out there is you actually bothered to search. Popcorn Hour A-100 is a good one. There's also TViX, Curanta and others. Even Apple TV supports it.

[prOnorama]

Plenty of 'em out there is you actually bothered to search. Popcorn Hour A-100 is a good one. There's also TViX, Curanta and others. Even Apple TV supports it.

These are pretty much niche products though.

AFAIK no regular DivX/Xvid capable DVD players from big manufacturers like Philips, Sony etc. support H.264 as of yet.

This might possibly change when DivX Inc. enters the H.264 playing field, they have the resources and expertise to work together with the big hardware manufacturers to make it work on standalone players (like they successfully did with DivX ASP). .

[SeeMoreDigital]

AFAIK no regular DivX/Xvid capable DVD players from big manufacturers like Philips, Sony etc. support H.264 as of yet. Technically all "big brand" manufactured Blu-ray players (fitted with Sigma's SMP8634 chip-set) could be firmware upgraded to support the .MP4 and .MKV containers, complete with AAC and WMAPro audio...

Don't expect this to happen though, as it would not be in their commercial/financial interest.

[Ronin-7]

Well the PS3 could conceivably get DivX 7 support as Sony specifically licensed DivX.

Great news either way that DivX is going to be using MKV.