Roll up, roll up, get your DivX Certified device here today...

[DigitAl56K]

Just a quick note to say that we updated our Hardware page over on DivX.com today:

http://www.divx.com/hardware/

Here you will find a lot of information about DivX Certified devices, and where you can go to purchase them. With some units selling for as little as $60-$70, its time to get your DivX collection off your PC and on to your TV folks!

Aside from DivX Certified DVD players, we also have certified encoding hardware, and other devices.

Expect more devices and more sales sites to pop up in the near future!

</plug>

[bond]

when will dxn start to push and certify players (with a special certification) able to handle the full mpeg-4 advanced simple profile @ level 5?

the limitations of the current certification (aiming at the compatibility with weak chips, not with strong ones) dont reflect the power of the last 2 chips anymore by far

[SeeMoreDigital]

I have to agree with bond here!

It's all well and good encouraging people to buy DivX certified players but when we asked thekid about DXN's future plans regarding Mpeg4 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=498456#post498456), the question went unanswered.

Our questions about support for Mpeg4's generic container (MP4) also went unanswered.

Correct me if I'm wrong but was in DivX who introduced packed bitstream encoding. An implementation that some 'non DivX certified' stand-alones have trouble with and limits compatibility with the generic container. And was it DivX who introduced 1 warp-point GMC, an implementation that is arguably 'next-to-useless'.

It seems that while Mpeg4 technology, in both software and hardware, has moved on, DivX's implementations have not. I would even go as far to say that DivX's certification policy is now harming Mpeg4's long term future.... A future that you guys have not yet confirmed you'll remain part of!


Cheers

[DigitAl56K]

Here's an answer:
DivX is doing anything <i>but</i> harming the future of MPEG-4. You guys might want 3-point GMC, QPEL, custom quantization matrices, PAR etc. in your video stream - but the truth is not every player out there can support this.

Why don't we release a completely new set of players with an enhanced feature set? The problem in making DivX, or "MPEG-4" if you wish to generalise, become the next big standard is that devices <i>have</i> to be compatible with all of the content - if we release an enhanced version of the profile right now and people started creating MPEG-4 streams with all of these features enabled, we'd break half the existing DivX Certified players and people would become disinterested because of poor reliability and performance.

Continually moving the goal posts wreaks havoc for establishing any kind of standard platform, so while the "MPEG-4" standard contains several features that we would all <i>like</i> to use if we had the choice, the DivX Certified standard has to move more slowly in order to become adopted.

You will see that right now we're starting to see units pushed through retail outlets in large quantities - imagine if we broke all of those units tomorrow just so that you could use 3-point GMC and get an extra 1.5% PSNR score? Is that really worth it? ;)

[SeeMoreDigital]

The problem is with your certification policy... it's flawed!

When you get down to it there should be two types of players. Those that can cope with Advanced Simple Profile material properly and those that can't.

Unfortunately DXN have confused this issue because you took in upon yourselves to adopt just a few ASP features (ie: 1B-VOP and 1S-VOP) which effectively says to all player manufacturers "these are the features you have to include if you want to join our club". And in doing so you've built a rod for your own back and everybody else!

But not everybody wants to join a club with limited membership!

Every old Mpeg4 player should be able to decode 'simple profile' encodes. Every MediaTek chip-set player should be able to decode 'ASP' encodes including those with multiple B-VOP's, but the fact is they can't because they've always got to include your codecs limited features (weather they are in your club or not). The worst of which is your S-VOP implementation.

Sure, some of us want more encoding toys and yes we know that some owners of old players will get left out. But this should not be used as an excuse for you not to keep up with the changes... If you are that worried about it, why not create an more flexible GUI for your codec, one that has options for 'Old DivX Certified Players' and 'New DivX Certified Players'

I'm always a little amused as to why you did not include a DivX Certified 'stand-alone' player option in your codecs GUI anyway. That way you could have done away with the confusing Qpel option and maybe even packed bit-stream!

Don't get me wrong, I like what DivX has done for Mpeg4 but in my opinion you should never included 'part' ASP implementations for stand-alone players, it should have been 'all' or 'nothing'.

It would be less confusing for us customers if the was an option in all stand-alone players that let us to switch 'DivX Certification' on or off. But I doubt you would allow this in certified players!


Cheers

[bond]

sorry, but i feel the need to bring this divx certification advertising down to the reality, which is that there are basically 4 chips existing, from which 2 support the full advanced simple profile (with the exception of 3wp gmc) and future chips will surely not be able to go down with the supported feature set again...
so from the support on the hardware side, its 2:2 "against" the divx certification ;)

also features like qpel or custom quants, which are not included in the divx certification, are highly important for the achieved quality!
and they didnt become supported on the 2 newest chips because of divxnetworks' "certification", but because the users simply want to use the full feature set of mpeg-4 asp and they indeed use it
therefore the divx certification also serves no purpose in bringing new features to the hardware players, better supporting more powerful mpeg-4 codecs than divx5, in fact it hinders the adoption of newer chips, as old, cheaper chips are divx certified anyways...

all in all the divx certification is outdated and imho serves no other purpose anymore than bringing a divx logo on the devices

still of course i fully understand divxnetworks doing this and there is nothing wrong with this as long as other people exist telling the user that they should look out for MPEG-4 ASP@L5 ;)


edit: in fact the upcoming "nero certification" does exactly the same: the aim at compatibility with the weakest solutions existing, so the nero logo can be placed on as much players a possible. this tactic is a good soution for nero and dxn, but a poor solution for the consumer, who wants quality which excludes grap chips
its like everyone agreeing on VCD to be the best way to encode a movie, simply because its least common denominator, supported everywhere... but what about the quality?

[DigitAl56K]

So you would like us to roll out one set of DivX Certified devices that can play all DivX content (ASP), and another set that will only play some of it, and you think that will actually drive standards adoption?

What planet are you living on? :)

Also, we are not certifying players for MPEG-4 playback, we are certifying players for DivX playback.

If we had pushed CE manufacturers to support MPEG-4 in its most complete form from day 1, you would see precisely zero certified devices out there today, and there would be no standards. You would not be able to tell whether your CE device could reliably play your content or not, because every device would be different.

Think about what you're asking for, then try to come up with an actual solution that will work for the mass market...

[SeeMoreDigital]

The solution is easy!

Dump your useless 1WP GMC option replace it with 3WP GMC and create an codec that allows multiple B-VOP's

And when you release a new encoder. Create two options, one for MK1 DivX certified stand-alone players. And another for everything else!


Job done!

[DigitAl56K]

Yeah, you try telling all your CE partners you just broke all their devices, and several million consumers that their new DivX Certified players won't actually play new DivX movies...

Not gonna happen ;)

You need to stop focusing on the next best feature, and start considering the benefits in compatibility.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hey Alistair,

We are trying to help you (DXN) out here!

In my opinion DXN cocked up when as soon 'DivX certified' players were launched because you did not design your encoder with two options. A hardware player option. And a software player option!

I wonder how many 'DivX certified' stand-alone player users have generated encodes with Qpel for-instance?

If DXN wants to carry on with your method of certification then why not provide different versions of certification (ie: Mk1, Mk2 etc), to keep pace with player advances in technology.

It's obvious that player technology will move on and so should your certification. As long as your encoder is well laid out and clearly lists the hardware and software player options, everyone will be happy and no CE devices will be broken!

Sounds quite sensible to me!


Cheers

[thekid]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Hey Alistair,

We are trying to help you (DXN) out here!


and we appreciate it!


In my opinion DXN cocked up when as soon 'DivX certified' players were launched because you did not design your encoder with two options. A hardware player option. And a software player option!

Cheers

I (and others here) agree with you

but... problem is those files are never contained and always get out into the DivX ecosystem and users would never be able to tell a DivX Hardware encoded file vs. a DivX Software encoded file and thus the user expierience would suck quite hard...

The reason for our certification and the lower standards it has is when we started this off there were absolutly ZERO hardware chips that could handle the advanced features. We can dig up some old posts on this if we need to but i know you will remember these discussions.

That said, hardware will advanced and of course we will advance with it and make new and higher profiles that will incorporate new features, more features, tons of cool stuff etc...

But for right now, we are trying to deliver the best possible user experience through hardware that we can. In doing so we might be excluding some of the higher end features but they are being sacrified for the greater good of playing (most) DivX files on all your DivX devices.

stay tuned for some bigger, better, super advanced profiles in hardware and in software

thekid...

oh and DigitAL? we are setting your status back to newbie

[DigitAl56K]

Aiight, me and TheKid are off to spill some blood here, anyone want to make bets? ;)

[thekid]

the dust has settled... and the kid won...

thekid...

[DigitAl56K]

Aiight you're in trouble now! :P

[CruNcher]

@DigitAl56K
@TheKid
@Junto
@Gej
@and all the others

I dont't see the problems user encounter @ the moment in things like 3 Warppoint GMC more in the problems MediaTek and others have to make good Firmware that works with XviD aswell with DivX correct infact i can fully understand that SOC manufactures don't like to include a tool like GMC into their Chips which has very low benifits but needs alot of processing Power @ all, but thats not the the point the real point in this discussion is the problem about interoperability and thats a bad thing Chip wise the current situation is ok with the 2nd Chip Generation now, but on the Firmware side their are still alot things that have to be done and i think for example MediaTek enginers are a bit lazy in that matter and im happy to see that Kiss/Sigma are gonna try to change that hopefully not only for DivX customers and don't let us play those fooly games here the Scene brought you where you are today you should never forget that especialy in the CE sector and please dont try to make people belive without you Mpeg-4 codecs wouldn't exist today sure CE Devices wouldn't have come so fast but would they have the problems they suffer today ?.

[DigitAl56K]

@Cruncher & all

I did not intent to suggest there would be no players out there without DivX, sorry if I came off this way, I was just trying to throw some ideas out there real quick around compatibility and interoperability with respect to some of the features you guys are asking for, which obviously didn't work too well on my part :)

In your eyes, how can we make players better?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
In your eyes, how can we make players better? By not tying the hands of player manufacturers, who adopt DivX certification, behind their backs!

Give them the freedom to create firmware that can support 'all' ASP features including multiple B-VOP's and 3WP GMC (as well as 1WP GMC).

Also, is there any reason why packed bitstream needs to be used?


Cheers

[DigitAl56K]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
By not tying the hands of player manufacturers, who adopt DivX certification, behind their backs!

Give them the freedom to create firmware that can support 'all' ASP features including multiple B-VOP's and 3WP GMC (as well as 1WP GMC).

Also, is there any reason why packed bitstream needs to be used?


Cheers

No manufacturer is limited to the feature sets of DivX Certified profiles - these are only the minimum requirements. Any manufacturer is free to go above and beyond that and support any MPEG-4 feature that they like.

We use packed bitstream to improve seeking and audio/video sync.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
No manufacturer is limited to the feature sets of DivX Certified profiles - these are only the minimum requirements. Any manufacturer is free to go above and beyond that and support any MPEG-4 feature that they like. Will they still have your permission to put your DivX logo on their units though?

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
We use packed bitstream to improve seeking and audio/video sync. But you do realize that in creating this AVI hack, you've created an Mpeg4 in MP4 compliance problem. And that many 'non' DivX certified players struggle with it?

Is this the reason why you keep stalling over the issue of adopting the MP4 container (having dropped it after DivX5.0.2) because you realize your own streams are no longer compliant?


Cheers

[DigitAl56K]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Will they still have your permission to put your DivX logo on their units though?


Yes they will :)


But you do realize that in creating this AVI hack, you've created an Mpeg4 in MP4 compliance problem. And that many 'non' DivX certified players struggle with it?


Actually, this is a misconception. Our bitstream is compliant, it is simply the way that it is stored in the AVI container that is different. Thus, non-certified devices may have problems with packed bitstream in AVI containers if the manufacturer did not consider this in their design. Certification ensures that these issues are caught before a player goes to market.

[Bez]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
[B]Is this the reason why you keep stalling over the issue of adopting the MP4 container (having dropped it after DivX5.0.2) because you realize your own streams are no longer compliant?

No. The MP4 container format issue is more complex than that. Junto explained it well in earlier thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55458). (See his second post in the thread.)

Cheers.
:bez

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Bez
No. The MP4 container format issue is more complex than that. Junto explained it well in earlier thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55458). (See his second post in the thread.)

Cheers.
:bez I thank you for you post Bez but you are referring to something that is a year old now.

And as an MP4 'hardware' player user I did not agree with it then and I sure don't agree with it now!

I really don't know where Darrius was coming from with this statement but I can assure you from my experience MP4 files play fine in hardware. And in my opinion, if more manufacturers had supported MP4 a year or so ago there would be a lot of red faces over at DXN right now.

I don't reckon there's a single DXN person with an Sigma Xcard. If there was, they would have retracted that statement in a heartbeat!

Rest assured, Mpeg4/AAC works perfectly in both hardware and software!


Cheers

[Zhnujm]

I dont think you can compare a Xcard with a hardware player.
The container parsing/splitting is done by the pc or am i wrong ?

Also i think the problems with xvid and packed bitstream are "homemade", at the time when nearly all players supported non-packed bitstream xvid the developers decided to change the default to packed bitstream. :rolleyes:

[pogo stick]

I have a question for DivX guys:
Are you gonna stay with avi for your next release? It seems kinda strange. While 3ivx and Ahead trying to move mp4 on, you do absolutely opposite things: throwing away mp4 and inventing packed bitstream. Don't get me wrong. I am not telling you what to do. I just want to know what direction will you follow. And I think I am not the only one.

It's written even on your main page:
Anything else is just not cool. And all the cool kids are doing it. You want to be cool, don't you? :D

[DigitAl56K]

Heh - pogo stick - nice ;)

We will be going with AVI for 5.2, this is necessary because all DivX Certified devices use AVI file format. AVI is also the most compatible file format for Windows applications, and works well in all media players.

If you look at Darrius's old post, this was the section that Bez was referring to:


One good example of some of this oversite is the MP4 file format. It sounds great and could be great. Try implementing it in hardware So as many of you know it is based off of QT. The MP4 file format keeps all of it's important timing data in one location\chunk, etc.. at the beginning of a file and must be indexed to achieve proper audio\video\data synch. A movie a few megs could have a couple hundered kbytes of index date. AVI although old, has simple interleaving which does not require this. So imagine having a 2 hour movie in the MP4 file format and trying to support it in a DVD\DivX type of player. What happens is for proper synch you have to keep all this index data stored in memory during playback PLUS have enough memory to handle playback (video data). The index data alone can be > 8MB and then you add in what is needed for video playback, menus, etc.. and you have a device that is going to be expensive to build because of a large memory requirement. So for the near future there is a cost problem of even building consumer devices at reasonable costs that support everything that is required for the mp4 standard. Many seem to be moving very slow and not necessarrilly thinking of the big picture which includes cost of implementation not including licensing cost and not also thinking about what users need\want at a minimum. Sorry such a long description I just wanted to list *one* example of how complex this has been and how it is not just a basic technology issue we have to try and overcome. This is just ONE example. Damn this has been tiring.... yet fun.

[CruNcher]

@DigitAl56K

sure Memory constraints are important but how much does memory cost today ? a MTK player with AVI @ the moment costs in the cheapest GE version today in Europe arround 60-70 € and even DE players are available for that price upgrade the memory and the price per unit would be like 80-90 € so i think thats a price that users still would pay for a DSP/SOC solution i think the price per unit @ MTK for a GE player is arround 30 € @ the moment im curently designing a prototype player with alot more power then a DSP/SOC based solution today can offer surely not in the price region like a MTK or SIGMA player but i try everything to get the price in valid regions by adding more features that alot of people want seeing the X-box MediaCenter moding hype and alot of other so called Media Center Systems. The problem i see is the closeness to the customer demands today its just bringing out the Device making promises that never get fullfiled and leting the user die with the Device before bringing another Device out wich has the features that could also be in the 1 Generation but their they would make no money and im sad and also angry about this behaveiour on the market today.

[DigitAl56K]

Thanks CruNcher - that's great feedback.

We're always looking for ways to enhance the DivX experience on existing players, so that, for example, we take advantage of everything the first generation of players have to offer. Often, this is a tough balancing act between what features we would ultimately like to give you guys and what we need to do to ensure that we maintain a good experience in terms of reliability and consistently high performance across all devices. That being said, we have already been investigating several new features that are as yet unreleased but which will be supported by the current breed of player.

Believe us guys - we're trying to give you what you want :)

What would really help us do that, is a ranked list of what you personally miss most from your current DivX experience, and why?

[CruNcher]

ok you want to know what i miss XviD compatibility AAC-HE playback support Mp4 container support Matroska support Real Video support in general i miss the CHOICE on the customer side see the reallity DSP/SOC only solutions are dieing you will see that in the coming years ;) CE Devices will change they will be smarter more adaptable not bounded to one company who thinks it can own the market with their wanabe standards :rolleyes:

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
I dont think you can compare a Xcard with a hardware player.
The container parsing/splitting is done by the pc or am i wrong ?You can run an Xcard quite happily on a 200MHz PC - That's not a P2 or P3, that's just 200MHz!

Some Cell phones, digital camera's and mp3 players have greater computing power than this today... and remember we are talking about a product that's around two years old now... a year older than Darrius's old post!

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Also i think the problems with xvid and packed bitstream are "homemade", at the time when nearly all players supported non-packed bitstream xvid the developers decided to change the default to packed bitstream. :rolleyes: At least you get the choice of generating B-VOP encodes without packed bitstreams!


Cheers

[bond]

about DivX 5.2, i dunno what new features will be included, but i assume multiple b-frames, mpeg (maybe custom quants?) aso...
how will these features fit to the current certification? will you create a new profile? or will you simply disable the new features when the user is choosing the hime theater profile? or...?

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
Also, we are not certifying players for MPEG-4 playback, we are certifying players for DivX playback. thats exactly what i wanted to point out
and i also said i have absolutely no problem with that dxn is doing this...
still it excludes (or at least does not support other mpeg-4 codecs) and thats why its important to point out that people have to look for that their devices support MPEG-4 ASP@L5 as private stuff, like a divx or nero certification, is simply too limited

You would not be able to tell whether your CE device could reliably play your content or not, because every device would be different.i cant say this today too
mpeg-4 devices should play mpeg-4 content, independant of the used codecs, thats why the mpeg-4 standard has been created

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Give them the freedom to create firmware that can support 'all' ASP features including multiple B-VOP's and 3WP GMC (as well as 1WP GMC).exactly. for real compliance with 99% of the existing mpeg-4 streams, its important that the manufacturers aim at supporting mpeg-4 asp and not the private divx certification
and thats what i fear: currently they aim more at divx than at the mpeg-4 standard itself
but of course i know, the first generation chips aso... with them the divx certification was useful, but it only was a beginning, the final thing is the adoption of the full mpeg-4 asp

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
Our bitstream is compliant, it is simply the way that it is stored in the AVI container that is different. Thus, non-certified devices may have problems with packed bitstream in AVI containers if the manufacturer did not consider this in their design.well there are also devs around, who are deep into mpeg-4, like michael niedermayer from ffmpeg, which have the optinion that packed bitstream breaks the compliance with the mpeg-4 standard
also a decoder written by following the mpeg-4 standard only, might not be able to decode packed bitstreams. for being able to decode pb extra code has to be added, thats not what i call mpeg-4 compliance
but still packed bitstream is here and will not go away (unless people adopt the mp4 container)

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
If you look at Darrius's old post, this was the section that Bez was referring to: about MP4 on hardware: its a fact that ahead will bring MP4 playback support on the firmwares of the new AND even the old mpeg-4 decoding chip line of sigmadesings, so in fact it will work
also this reminds me a little bit about the talking from dxn representatives that qpel will never be implemented on hardware, as its too power consuming, etc... etc... ;)

Originally posted by CruNcher
i miss the CHOICE on the customer side see the reallity DSP/SOC only solutions are dieing you will see that in the coming years ;) CE Devices will change they will be smarter more adaptable not bounded to one company who thinks it can own the market with their wanabe standardsyou dream cruncher ;)
the next big thing will be HD-DVD only, all the rest we discuss here is for freaks only and will never make it to be widely adopted comparable to DVD or the to come HD-DVD

[stephanV]

Originally posted by CruNcher
ok you want to know what i miss XviD compatibilityThats wrong, we miss MPEG4 ASP compatibility. I couldn't care less if it was compatible with XviD or not. So if XviD is MPEG4 ASP compliant, you shouldn't have to worry.

AAC-HE playback support Mp4 container support
thats again just general MPEG4 support (please, use punctuation in your posts, they are almost unreadable! ;) )

Matroska supportFull matroska support is something thats impossible IMO (sorry Christian :rolleyes: ). We don't have AVI support either now do we? We've got MPEG4-in-AVI support. So perhaps we will get MPEG4-in-matroska support and perhaps even Real Video, but I don't think there will be any player out there that will fully support the matroska container, unless players just become like PCs where you can upload your own codecs to let the player play whatever you want. (not a bad idea actually...)

Real Video supportYeah really, DivX should really help us with getting Real Video support... :devil:

CE Devices will change they will be smarter more adaptable not bounded to one company who thinks it can own the market with their wanabe standards bah...

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
At least you get the choice of generating B-VOP encodes without packed bitstreams!


Yes, thats right but i fear that many non-experienced users just see that xvid wont work in their players and never use it again. I dont think many people search for solutions if they simply can avoid them by using divx instead.

Also i did not want to say that its not possible to implement mp4 in current players, but its a bit unfair to compare it with a full-blown pc (even if its only 200MHz)
Im surely the first one to use mp4 if its possible.
(all my movies are on dvd+rw ;))

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Yes, thats right but i fear that many non-experienced users just see that xvid wont work in their players and never use it again. I dont think many people search for solutions if they simply can avoid them by using divx instead. This has been my fear also.

Given that this may be the case, maybe it's time to suggest a 'hardware player compatibility option' to the XviD guys!

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Also i did not want to say that its not possible to implement mp4 in current players, but its a bit unfair to compare it with a full-blown pc (even if its only 200MHz) Sadly, I don't think it will be possible to upgrade many (if not all) existing stand-alone players to support the MP4 container. And if some of them could be upgraded, I wonder how many will decode AAC audio too:(

As far as I'm aware, stand-alone players based around the Sigma chip-set, used a version that did not support on-board AAC decoding. So no AAC audio for those chip-sets either?

You know more about the other chip-sets (MK, ESS etc) than I do... So what do you think?

By all accounts, the Philips DVP 642 can 'kinda' support MP4 but without more testing (and maybe a further firmware upgrade) we don't yet know it's limitations.


Cheers

[niamh]

Given that this may be the case, maybe it's time to suggest a 'hardware player compatibility option' to the XviD guys!

Based on which hardware standard though? Players like the H&B DX3220 already support gmc and Qpel, most don't ....So it'd be more like a DivX certified compatibility option button then? ...Then you have to add the audio, that has to be compatible too...big headache if you have to put warnings on every encoder out there, never mind going backwards :)

I much prefer the idea of users pushing the demand forward to a general mpeg4 standard

Anyway, as I see it from a non-tech point of view, what would be required is a "DivX certified" logo, and a "Mpeg4(or whatever) certified by DivX" one?
Problem is, isn't the aim of Dxn to make people encode with the DivX codec preferably? If "divx certified" players, potentially advanced or not, support generic mpeg4, why bother using DivX? (I know I wouldn't, I actually don't even own a standalone, and will not until they come up with something decent, but how many people out there who use divx to back up uniquely for compatibility with standalones?)
It doesn't look to me from here that it's in the interest of dxn to certify too high a standard for now, until the codec can keep up, otherwise they'd just be pushing the competition :)

Please correct me if I'm wrong, this is just the way I see it :)

[bond]

Originally posted by niamh
Based on which hardware standard though?
...
Anyway, as I see it from a non-tech point of view, what would be required is a "DivX certified" logo, and a "Mpeg4(or whatever) certified by DivX" one?what is needed is a player which states that he is able to handle mpeg-4 advanced simple profile at level 5 (mpeg-4 asp@l5)

[niamh]

what is needed is a player which states that he is able to handle mpeg-4 advanced simple profile at level 5 (mpeg-4 asp@l5)
Yes, that's the one I was looking for.I was too lazy to browse back to find the exact term :D
The question is, is it in the interest of dxn to "DivX certify" that type of player right now? (and trust me,I want it too, but is there a hope in hell that it's going to happen?)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is there a definitive list of all the ASP profile levels?


Cheers

[Doom9]

You can run an Xcard quite happily on a 200MHz PCYou should know better than to make such statements. Intel and AMD have certainly proven in the last years that you can't compare MHz. My 400 MHz PDA is definitely a lot less powerful than the 400 MHz development machine I had when I was working on my thesis.. I had to be really careful porting software from my PC to my PDA not only API wide, but things just were dead slow on the PDA..

[SeeMoreDigital]

I am of course using Sigma's own documentation as a source. Which says: -
Intel® or AMD-based PC with 200 MHz or higher CPU As I mentioned before, this product was released around 2 years ago. At a time when Intel and AMD were behaving not quite as badly as they are doing now

But yes, processor speeds are not tested and measured equally and unfortunately using the expression 'MHz' no longer offers a very good representation of a PC's performace... which is a shame really because it was quite simple to understand....

Can somebody think of a new expression.

Why not, 'horse power'? It's an oldie but a goodie. Oh, but hang on even this can be fudged... should it be measured at the gear box or at the wheel?

Nar... forget about it!

[thekid]

man this thread took off...

Ok it is way too early for me to be thinking with any coherant stream of conciousness but i'll try to asnwer some of the quesions here.

but first let me preference this with two things. First, i am not a hardware guru and do not work in in certification program, so don't take this as gospel but as a best effort to get you guys good inside information.
Second, if this information is not what you wanted to hear don't kill the messenger.

ok, where to start...

SeeMoreDigital:
About the post that is a year old regarding MP4 playback. Sadly its as true today as it was back then. The reason you can play your MP4 files with AAC on your xcard is because you have your PC to back it up. the difference between the chipset in the xcard and those found in CE devices is that the ones in CE devices have a co-processor piggybacked onto the decoder chip. This chip is less than 200Mhz which is where your discussion with doom and all was heading... Also the memory requriements for the xcard are also handled by the PC so it is not fair to compare this to CE devices. CE simply can't/won't pay the extra money for features/formats/hardware they don't need to sell thier device. Their BOM (bill of materials) vs what they can sell it for has dropped so low they are watching every penny. this is why you don't see MP4 file format, AAC audio etc.

Now that said... you've all seen Nero's press release with sigma and you see the Philiphs player playing some sort of MP4 file format. As far as the press release, this only covers sigma saying they will handle support all the goodes in the chipset which is all fine and good but still requires the cost of the memory and all the licensing to fall down to the CE manufacturer. Don't get me wrong i am sure we will see devices supporting more MP4 features but probably not as soon as we'd like. For the Philips device i don't have enough information on this yet. I'd like to get some good time testing and playing with one but i'm busy with a lot of other things so who knows if i'll get to it as fast as i'd like to.

and that leads me to my next chapter... ;-)

yes we know that the DivX certification is limited but again this ties in directly to when we started this program and what chips were available and were going to be available. Remember this was back in the day when XviD didn't even have b-frames let alone all the cool features it had today. Future devices will have more power and more compatability but the entire purpose of certifying DivX players was to give users a good and consistant experience so when they go to their local store and see a DivX logo on a box they could assured as to what it would play.

To bonds point, users who see MP4 on boxes today think it should play MP4 but as you guys have found out that is not the case. CE manufacturers don't always take into account the best users experience when they place another badge on thier box. As to users seeing mpeg-4 asp@l5 on the box, i think that would just cause more confusion to users. Remember outside of this post, not a lot of people know what that is. Not a lot of people know what MP4 is at all. All they know is that when they find a DivX file or create a DivX file they expect it to play on the device with the same logo.

And again this obviously ties directly back to why we disable features from our codec in our certification profile. Yes this is not optimal, but outright removing those features would cause an even larger flame-fest. And please believe me when i say there were many many many screaming and arguing sessions held over wether to disable these features or wait until better/faster/more powerful chips came out. But when it came down to it, these devices were going to ship with or without us but would all continue to use our logo and an MP4 logo and would ship without even the level of quality control that DivX Certification provides now.

man this post is way too long. This is a good time to take a break. Get up stretch your legs, get a snack.

ok welcome back

Now the happy ending...

There are features that are in available in these certified devices that haven't been used yet. And these features will roll out in the next few versions of our codec and products. Maybe you will like these features, maybe not, but all that to say, there is some life left in this rev of chips. As far as the next rev, there will be a much larger menu of options to choose from and some great new features that should give you guys exactly what you want. And then of course there is the whole High Definition hardware profiles and players coming soon. Also be on the lookout for DivX Certified Cameras, PVRs, more portable devices, cell phones, wrist watches, toasters etc (kidding about those last ones...for now ;-))

I hope this information helps keep the discussion going

I'll try to get more information from the CE guys and bring it here to answer your questions and dispell any rumors.

thekid...

[bond]

nice, long answer, i really appreciate it and also that this discussion didnt develop into a flamewar or so

i think the whole point can be summarized with the sentence of DigitAl56K:

"we are not certifying players for MPEG-4 playback, we are certifying players for DivX playback"

thats exactly the point, thats exactly describing the advantage and the disadvantage of the divx certification and any other "to come" private certifications


still i have the opinion that the mpeg-4 standard defines everything needed for 100% interoperability between any mpeg-4 encoder and decoder (including hardware ones), if someone can proove the difference i would appreciate it ;)
of course as you meant the guidelines of the mpeg-4 standard (profiles, levels aso...) werent really matching the possible reality when looking at the first generation chipsets, but with MP4 container enabled devices and more powerful chips coming up, we are getting closer and closer to the point on which it can be said that private certifications will not be necessary anymore at all and 100% interoperability between different existing mpeg-4 implementations is reached

amen ;)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Agreed...

And I've finally been able to generate an XviD Mpeg4/mp3 .MP4 that will play with the Philips DVP 642 stand-alone player.

Make of that what you will people ;)

[thekid]

well said bond...

let us hope that the future brings us all the high tech goodies we crave!

thekid...

[bond]

Originally posted by thekid
let us hope that the future brings us all the high tech goodies we crave!and the first thing to happen for reaching 100% interoperability between different mpeg-4 implementations is to bring .mp4 file creation back to divx and make it default output in dr.drivx, so that this field is not only covered by ahead ;) :D

hm something tells me that "Q" will not be simply .mp4, but something proprieatary :p

[CruNcher]

hm something tells me that "Q" will not be simply .mp4, but something proprieatary


im sure Qs codec will be just another mutated h264 codec the rest marketting as allways, on the container part dunno ;)
But you should hear my words CE Devices of today can't be compared with CE Devices of tommorow.