Divx5 playback with Xvid

[Hitokiri]

Hi,

I just tried to play some Divx5 files with the newest Xvid codec. Some of them work perfectly, others stutter: some frames play forward, then backward and so on..I think you ppl know what I'm talking about. I've searched on the forums but didn't find anything about it. I opened the files with some hex editor and it seems they've been encoded with "DX508".
I was just wondering if someone could explain to me what exactly causes this incompatibility, and I wonder if this problem CAN some day be solved by the Xvid developers? :confused:

Tia.

[Mug Funky]

"DX50" is the fourCC code for divx 5.x. the "8" is probably the next character along in the header (i don't know the avi format backwards yet).

the stuttering is a b-frame issue. divx's files aren't mpeg-4 compliant in their handling of b-frames, but xvid's decoder is (to the best of my knowledge). hence it's not an xvid problem but a divx problem.

you could use ffdshow to do your decoding. it's hella fast and will decode almost anything (divx, xvid, wmv7, sorenson apparently, cinepak, huffy, etc etc etc) if you tell it to.

it's worth it for the speed - it means you can make your encodes larger and have them play back fine.

search this site for the latest ffdshow build. i keep forgetting what site has them (leffe.athos.something... bad memory). i'd give you the link, but i'm a couple thousand kilometres from my bookmarks :)

[Hitokiri]

I see. Well tnx for the info. :)

I've used fddshow before, great tool. But it just would have been nice if xvid could play all my divx5 encodes. :)

About the 8 in DX508..i'm using the ogm container, so maybe it has something to do with that.

[Koepi]

I have no problems like that when using OGM as container.
Maybe the files are really broken... can you please check if they play correctly when using ffdshow to decode it ( http://athos.leffe.dnsalias.com/ ).

Then we'd know we have to adopt the xvid decoder a little more.

Regards
Koepi

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
the stuttering is a b-frame issue. divx's files aren't mpeg-4 compliant in their handling of b-frames, but xvid's decoder is (to the best of my knowledge). hence it's not an xvid problem but a divx problem. Interesting....

Did any of you guys read what DigitAl56K (of DivX/DXN) had to say about this subject: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. Needless to say our very own bond, was able to present an argument: 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)I really think it's time that this issue was ratified once and for all. Obviously such a topic can't be located in either the XviD or the DivX sections of the forum, because this is affects all manufacturers of Mpeg4 codecs (including Nero/Ahead/Ateme) so I suppose it will have to be placed in either the "New A/V Formats - Codecs" section or the "General Discussion" section.

One thing is clear. If this issue is to continue to remain unresolved we'll never be able to have true Mpeg4 interoperability. We need to know who's right and who's wrong, so we can all move in the same direction and enjoy a less confused market.

What do you guys have to say?

[Hitokiri]

Originally posted by Koepi
I have no problems like that when using OGM as container.

I was talking about the 8 in DX508, not the stuttering. :)

Maybe the files are really broken... can you please check if they play correctly when using ffdshow to decode it

I've already checked the files with a divx5 codec and ffdshow, they work fine.

[dwrbudr]

I confirm that DivX playback with XVid is not ok. I was playing BBC The Blue Planet series which are DivX 3 encoded and the 'blue' sea gets pink for 5-6 seconds, after that (maybe at a keyframe) it gets blue.. again pink.. and so on. I'm using XVid 1.0.1 and I have no other decoders installed (except these which come with XP itself). Well, I installed ffdshow and the colors are OK now.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by dwrbudr
I confirm that DivX playback with XVid is not ok. I was playing BBC The Blue Planet series which are DivX 3 encoded and the 'blue' sea gets pink for 5-6 seconds... I'm not surprised!

Your DivX encode is DivX3 and not DivX5. XviD's decoder can play DivX5 with no problems.


Cheers

[niamh]

Well, I have something else.....I wanted to try one of my DivX with XviD decoding to check the output, but XviD quite simply refused to decode my DivX file.....I disabled ffdshow, so it was then decoded by DivX , clicked decode divx and dx50 in the XviD tab(no go), tried to blacklist divx and summon XviD in TCMP(I ended up with nero DVD decoder!), tried graphedit(won't agree on a connection), reinstalled XviD, quite simply, it wouldn't do it ... I had to unregister the divx decoder dll to get XviD to playback divx :D
Anyway: I found an old 5.05 that got problems, I see no going forward and backward, but XviD seems to drop a frame every so often, and it loses synch too..then it catches up , until the next dropped frame, and the synch goes again. ffdshow handles the playback with no problem.

[SeeMoreDigital]

niamh and All,

If you have multiple decoder filters installed (like I do and other forum members), visit all your decoders settings and make sure make nothing is enabled - ie: don't force the decoder to recognise and play with any type of Mpeg4 stream!

Also, make very sure that in the DivX decoder filter settings that 'Support Generic Mpeg4' is not checked!

After following this process you should now find that, your DivX encodes will play with the DivX filter, your XviD encodes will play with the XviD filter, your 3ivx encodes will play with the 3vix filter, etc, etc.

Now. If you want to force DivX files to play via XviD's filter, just visit the XviD filter and enable DIVX and/or DX50 setting in the boxes provided.

Your DivX5 encodes should now play via XviD's decoder....

Let us all know how you get on?


Cheers

[dwrbudr]

And why then it plays DivX 3 movies ? They have different fourcc code - DIV3 I think

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by dwrbudr
And why then it plays DivX 3 movies ? They have different fourcc code - DIV3 I think Why does 'what' play DivX3 movies dwrbudr?

[niamh]

Now. If you want to force DivX files to play via XviD's filter, just visit the XviD filter and enable DIVX and/or DX50 setting in the boxes provided.

That's what I did, read again ;)
My point was to try to get XviD to decode DivX for the purposes of this thread. The issue was I had to unregister the Divx dll to get it to do that.It seems, on my system, XviD was unable to override DivX to decode. I thought it was worth mentioning, that's all. If you ask ffdshow to decode divx , it does just that, if you ask divx to decode xvid, it does just that, and sometimes even if you don't ask it.When I asked xvid to decode divx, it didn't do it :)
now as to that :
Let us all know how you get on?
That's the bit that came after "anyway:" :)

[Hitokiri]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Your DivX5 encodes should now play via XviD's decoder....

Not all of them though..

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well it works for me everytime when using Media Player Classic!

On all my PC's and on all my boot drives!

With DivX, care should be taken that the encodes are DivX5 and not DivX3/4.

Remember, not many decoders can decode DivX3/4 material correctly... and XviD's decoder is not one of them!


Cheers

[celtic_druid]

DivX 4.xx should be ok, however XviD is an MPEG-4 codec so no DivX3 which is DIV3 and DIV4.

[Prettz]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital

With DivX, care should be taken that the encodes are DivX5 and not DivX3/4.

Remember, not many decoders can decode DivX3/4 material correctly... and XviD's decoder is not one of them!

I thought Divx4 was pretty much MPEG-4 compliant?

Seriously though, who is unfortunate enough to have Divx4 encodes? I made one once and it was just... ugh...

[Hitokiri]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Well it works for me everytime when using Media Player Classic!

Just tried mpc, doesn't work. And yes, they are genuine divx5 encodes, or so their 4cc says.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Hitokiri
Just tried mpc, doesn't work. And yes, they are genuine divx5 encodes, or so their 4cc says. Ok then!

Change the encodes 4CC to XviD (using Nic's 4CC changer tool). There's no way it wont play with XviD's DSdec filter after this.... unless it's not installed correctly!


Cheers

[Hitokiri]

already tried that..the files won't open since they're ogm

why don't i send you a sample so you can see for yourself? :)

[celtic_druid]

Same goes for ogm, you just use ogmfourcc instead. If you don't have it and can't get it due to corecodec being down I could post a link.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I forgot you were using the ogm container.

I must admit I don't use this container, so please disregard my previous comments as they are related to .avi


My apologies

[Hitokiri]

Originally posted by celtic_druid
Same goes for ogm, you just use ogmfourcc instead. If you don't have it and can't get it due to corecodec being down I could post a link.

I found it with google, and it works. If I change the 4cc to XVID the stuttering is gone, but if I change it back to DX50 I can't open the file in mediaplayer any more, anyone know why? And why does it work with XVID and not with DX50?
Good thing I always make backups. :)

btw, np SMD

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hitokiri,

I'm so pleased you've managed to find a solution to your problem but I must admit I'm confused as to why XviD's DSdec filter is able to work better than DivX's!

Can you try something for me please?

If you have Nero Vision Express/ShowTime player installed, can you try changing your encodes 4CC to NDIG. This should force the stream to use Nero's DSdec filter!

I'm interested to see what happens.


Cheers

[Hitokiri]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Hitokiri,

I'm so pleased you've managed to find a solution to your problem but I must admit I'm confused as to why XviD's DSdec filter is able to work better than DivX's!

Maybe because xvid is better? :D

But, if I understand it correctly xvid uses divx5 to play divx5 encodes?

Can you try something for me please?

If you have Nero Vision Express/ShowTime player installed, can you try changing your encodes 4CC to NDIG. This should force the stream to use Nero's DSdec filter!

I'm interested to see what happens.

Well, I'm as interested as you are, but unfortunately I don't have either of them installed, and I'm not about to mess around with my current nero installation. :)
Is there a standalone version of this ShowTime player, or any other way I can try this?

[Koepi]

XviD doesn't use divx for anything. it doesn't even look for divx installation or anything. How did you get that idea? Is there someone spreading false rumours?

Regards
Koepi

[Hitokiri]

Because SMD said something about xvid's dsdec filter being able to work better than divx's..I just wonder what he means by that :confused:

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Hitokiri
Because SMD said something about xvid's dsdec filter being able to work better than divx's..I just wonder what he means by that :confused: I did not exactly say that. What I said was... "I'm confused as to why XviD's DSdec filter is able to work better than DivX's!"... This means in relation to your ogm problem!

That said... if you were to ask me which DSdec filter (out of the two) I prefer. It would be XviD's.


Cheers

[Hitokiri]

Yes well, that's what I meant ofcourse. :)

But this DSdec filter, what does it do? It has something to do with 4cc's? What exactly happens when I play a file with an altered 4cc?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Hitokiri,

Microsoft describes 4CC (FourCC) as being this: -

Four-Character Codes (FOURCC), a set of codes that are four characters in length, was introduced by Microsoft to clearly identify video data stream formats. The unique FOURCC value assigned to every compression format and pixel layout allows video frames to be passed between file and codec by ensuring the FOURCC of the source frame matches a FOURCC supported by the codec. FOURCCs describe the software technology that was used to produce multimedia data. By implication, they also describe the format of the data itself.

Cheers

[Leak]

Originally posted by Hitokiri
Yes well, that's what I meant ofcourse. :)

But this DSdec filter, what does it do? It has something to do with 4cc's? What exactly happens when I play a file with an altered 4cc?

Ummm... actually, what's meant by DSdec is a DirectShow decoder filter - there's one from DivX Networks that comes with DivX 5.x.x, and there's one that comes with XviD; the 4cc plays a part in the selection process where DirectShow decides exactly which filter to use to decode the video stream.

Since both the DivX and the XviD decoder (and ffdshow's decoder, the Nero Digital decoder, 3ivX's decoder and quite a few others) can be set to decode each other's files and 4cc's everyone here wants to know exactly what decoder was used on your side when you tried to play your files.

While in theory each decoder should be able to decode files for the other (them all being MPEG-4 codecs) each one's prone to have different bugs that can lead to different problems for the same file.

np: Autechre - Gaekwad (Peel Session 2)

[Hitokiri]

Tnx both.

Well, I tried the file on my other pc that only has the latest xvid and never had any divx(5) codec installed . When I change its 4cc to XVID it works on this pc, but it doesn't do so at all on the other, whatever 4cc I use..it still stutters.
Isn't that strange. :eek:

[video_magic]

When I had Win98se installed a couple of years ago, I was able to play Divx 3 videos, DiVX 5 and XViD, and I think this was in BsPlayer and MPC.

Anyway, to keep it short I now have had WinXP SP1 installed for several months. I have XViD curently XviD-1.1.0-Beta2-04042005 Koepi.

I don't have DiVX official installed since I got rid of Win98se.

I am able to play back XViD videos and DiVX 5 videos now, but whenever I try and play DIV3 I have to use MPLAYERGUI latest from
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php for which I have added the latest win32 full codecs pack.

I don't want to install DiVX any version for the moment, what I would like to know is if there is any DIV3 decoder that I can install just to play back DIV3? something that won't try to 'take over' or mess up anything else! Just a little thing I can install and watch my DIV3 videos in players which I think are Directshow.

Thanks. p.s. just to repeat, this is something I would like to install alongside my XViD without conflicts - my XViD plays Divx5 without problems and I think DivX4 also.

[celtic_druid]

Yep, XviD supports DivX 5.x and 4.x decoding, no DivX 3 support as XviD is purely a MPEG4 decoder and DivX3 isn't MPEG4.

ffdshow can decode DivX3 as can I think Nero and 3ivX.

edit: 5.x and 4.x

[video_magic]

aha thanks Celtic Druid. Yes I had been wary of DiVX because I had thought they said it was backwards compatible from DiVX 5.x TO DiVX 4 and DiVX 3, and they said to use DiVX 5 to play back older content. That's from what I remember on their forums a while ago, but if DiVX 5 is compatible with their older versions, and XViD is compatible with DiVX for playback I don't get it that I have problems playing DIV3 content. Never mind I'm just finding all this a kind of nightmare keeping track of different codecs and things and suddenly playback stops working, it's happened so often and it's so frustrating, I think I remember that Div3 video and audio is somehow derived from Windows Media which I'm scared to get involved with in case I mess up Windows again.
I have noticed on your site your compiles which include FFDShow, but although I know a lot of people like that, I tried a build in January and I am worried about it taking over so much. Sorry for my ignorance :( but could someone tell me in simple words how, if I try and use FFDShow, to make it ONLY come on for DIV3 playback, and in no way interfere with the playback, nor encoding, of anything else.
Thanks a lot for helping because as soon as I get somewhere with one thing (mpeg2 encoding and playback) I find shortly that something else stops working for some reason! :scared:

[celtic_druid]

Just make sure that it is the only thing that you have ffdshow enabled for. So in the decoder tab, only enable DivX3, same goes for the VfW decoder config and in audio enable nothing. You could also turn down ffdshow's merit in the decoder config.

Really though ffdshow has a lot of usefull decoders other than DivX3.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi video_magic,

If you can, you may find your whole situation would be easier if you just installed DivX's direct-show decoder and not their entire encoder and decoder (ie: codec).

The decoder filter that cames with DivX 'Fusion' Build 1461 offers a fair degree of flexibility, even PAR/DAR signalling detection: -

http://img88.echo.cx/img88/1456/divxdsdecfilter8sn.png


Cheers

[video_magic]

Thanks a lot for both of your help guys! I can play Divx3 just fine now I got FFDshow setup I think it's only being used to decode Divx3 anyway now!

I saw the long list of options in FFDshow for decoding and will check them out for other codecs shortly like Xvid when I get more experienced at all this. :thanks: for your time guys and your work