DivX IRC Chat event, Wednesday Oct 6th

[LordRPI]

I’d like to announce the first official DivX IRC chat event that’s going to take place between the hours of 12-1pm PDT (7-8pm GMT) on Wednesday, Oct 6th . So come join us at #DivX on Afternet! You can use your favorite IRC client. If you're not an IRC guru, we'll provide a link to mIRC and a short primer.

Topics will change at fifteen minute intervals and topics will include the state of DivX, the future of DivX, and what’s new on our labs including our new nifty DivX browser plug-in. If you have any burning questions that you really want answered, send me a PM with your question and we’ll try to put it on the queue for the chat.

See you there!

[LordRPI]

I'm sure you guys know how to use IRC and everything. Here's a link to make it easier to get to: click here (irc://irc.afternet.org/divx)

[Sirber]

Wouldn't it be simpler to post it all here? IRC can be messy sometimes :)

[LordRPI]

Well, it would be simpler, but just much less fun. Besides, when can you ask Gej a question and expect an answer back in seconds?

Anyway, I'm going through the chat. I'll post some highlights.

[LordRPI]

Ok, here are some of the highlights of the discussion. Enjoy!

Do you guys get to play with beta production samples of the next divx certified players / encoders ?
Thekid: yes, we have stacks of them
Thekid: its quite a site really
Thekid: rooms full of palyers, floor to ceiling
Digit: That, and rooms full of *parts* of players


Any timeframe for divx 6 ?
Digit: We can never give release dates, but we are planning several betas
Bez: we'll roll things out on DivX Labs over the next few months
Gej: ...before the end of the year
Bez: what's most important to you in the next version?
DivX IRC Participant: I'm all for quality improvements
Gej: on the codec side Quality imporvemnt is the #1 focus


Will Divx 6 be AVC ?
Gej: No it'll be DivX certified compatible
Gej: better than DivX 5 as good as AVC base
DivX IRC Participant: Quality and speed ?
Gej: as fast as DivX 5.2.1


What else you guys planning for divx ?
Digit: Well, to kick things off
Digit: you should see DivX going HD in a big way soon
Digit: more trailers
Digit: DivX Certified HD DVD Players
Digit: then, on top of that, more features
Digit: subtitle support
Digit: support for metadata
Digit: multiple audio tracks
Thekid: it also washes your car
DivX IRC Participant: does it wax it too ?
thekid: only in the pro version

What was the sources for those HD files ?
Thekid: D5 tape
Gej: Source on D5 then capture and store in HuffYUV

On the plugin…
Bez: the plugin is another one of those things we've had in the back room for a long time and finally are pushing it out
Bez: We don't always do a good job of showing people what's going on behind the scenes
Connyosis: Bez: any plans on a version for firefox/mozilla/opera?
Bez: I think, yes
Bez: we definitely want the plugin to be inclusive of all modern browsers
Digit: Yes the plugin will support firefox and mozilla
Bez: so we'll work for that
Digit: I use Mozilla 99% of the time
Digit: so I'm a big advocate for a Mozilla version :)


Al on Jazz:
Digit: Jazz is one of our tech-ops team
Digit: every time the website goes down we prod him with sharp objects
Connyosis: Digit: and you enjoy every second of it right?
Digit: hell no, he's bigger than me!
Fluffy: Digit is a 5 ft tall norwegian sailer - he totally outclassed by techops
Connyosis: oh those norwegians
Connyosis: what are they good for?
Fluffy: yeah, lets not go there, he just got out of therapy...
• Digit throws fluffy overboard
Connyosis: play nicely boys
Digit: he started it...\

[bond]

Originally posted by LordRPI
Any timeframe for divx 6 ?
Digit: We can never give release dates, but we are planning several betas
Bez: we'll roll things out on DivX Labs over the next few months
Gej: ...before the end of the year
Bez: what's most important to you in the next version?
DivX IRC Participant: I'm all for quality improvements
Gej: on the codec side Quality imporvemnt is the #1 focus

Will Divx 6 be AVC ?
Gej: No it'll be DivX certified compatible
Gej: better than DivX 5 as good as AVC base
DivX IRC Participant: Quality and speed ?
Gej: as fast as DivX 5.2.1hum, so divx6 will be mpeg-4 asp compliant :( (why call this divx 6?)

hopefully dxn doesnt miss the train... vc-1 and h.264 as hd-dvd/bluray will kick buts soon

[virus]

H.264-like quality using MPEG-4 Visual? :eek:

Come on, this is a joke...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bond
hum, so divx6 will be mpeg-4 asp compliant :( (why call this divx 6?) Agreed!

Sounds like the "Same old, same old" is happening over at DivX....

Unfortunately for DivX, the next generation of stand-alone players will end up being cleverer and more advanced than DivX's "certificated" codec!

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by LordRPI
Will Divx 6 be AVC ?
Gej: No it'll be DivX certified compatible
Gej: better than DivX 5 as good as AVC base
DivX IRC Participant: Quality and speed ?
Gej: as fast as DivX 5.2.1


Does anybody remember the old news that divx 6 would be proprietary? At least this quote only refers to "DivX certified compatible".

[JohnV]

http://news.zdnet.com/DivX+Networks+touts+new+studio+deals/2100-9588_22-5427731.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

"Ghaman said DivX Networks expects to unveil the latest version of its software, DivX 6.0, in the fourth quarter of 2004. Ghaman said the upgrade offers 33 percent better compression than H.264, the latest video codec approved for use in the MPEG-4 standard."

It's interesting to see how they manage to improve 33% from h.264. :rolleyes:
That would be phenomenal technological advancement in video compression technology. Even more incredible if they plan to do it in the boundaries of current divx certificated profiles.

It will be interesting to refer to that statement after DivX 6 is out. :)

[CruNcher]

Yeah for now this can be surely taken as Marketing blab blub bleh, before they dont show Evidence of this "fact" and we all know DivX Networks are Masters of Marketing, else they wouldn´t be where they are today.

Yeah also somehow Gej and Ghaman speak away from each other it´s clearly stated in the Zdnet article quote:
"He also said DivX is cheaper to deploy than MPEG-4 and Windows Media, in part because it requires less computing power, allowing consumer electronics makers to use cheaper chips"
but Gej says quote: Gej: No it'll be DivX certified compatible

one of them lies here and i doub`t its Gej as one of the Head Developers :P

The Question how can something Properiatary but still mostly based on Mpeg-4 DivX 6 couldn't be playbacked on any ASP Chip today as Ghaman said it, but Gej says it can something doesn´t fit here.

Maybe they do everything Decoder based in DivX 6 add things to the bitstream that only the DivX 6 Deocoder Engine would understand so that old Players could still playback those files something yeah like Mp3 Pro hmmm.

[LordRPI]

I'd just note that the article is a bit.. strange, even to the point where they didn't spell the name of our president correctly. The correct spelling is "Ghanem". Take away what you like from that.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by LordRPI
I'd just note that the article is a bit.. strange. Even to the point where they didn't spell the name of our president correctly. The real spelling is "Ghanem". Take away what you like, I know I was sitting by Gej during the IRC chat. Hi David,

Is the proposed DivX6 really able to offer an 33% improvement over h.264? And if so, who's build/version of h.264 did you assess it against?

Given the claims, DivX6 should look way better than DivX5 (let alone h.264). If DivX6 is backwards compatible, are you able to provide any "like for like" test clips (at the same bitrate and frame size) for us all to have a look at?


Cheers

[Latexxx]

Originally posted by CruNcher
but Gej says quote: Gej: No it'll be DivX certified compatible
But who says it is compatible with contemporary divx certified players? They are likely to mean upcoming players.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Latexxx
But who says it is compatible with contemporary divx certified players? They are likely to mean upcoming players. I do hope DivX is not playing with their own words!

This would beg the question. What about the infamous backwards compatibility DivX likes to champion?


Cheers

[MfA]

Since they are going to certify new HD capable players anyway, they might as well have rolled H.264 and HD into a new certification level ... it would have been stupid not to, unless they are really going to produce a proprietary codec which can compare favourably with H.264. Without that the scene would switch to H.264 and leave them behind. Even so, assuming they have an upcoming proprietary codec, they have to ship it pretty fast before useable H.264 codecs surface.

I doubt an enhancement layer to MPEG-4 could beat H.264 BTW.

[bond]

i dunno if ready-to-use chips able to play HD h.264 content in realtime exist already and if they wouldnt be very expensive (too expensive for the average "i rip my movies to divx" user)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see what DivX is up to... again!

They certainly know how to hype their products. But personally speaking I've seen no "mind blowing" improvements in DivX since DivX5.0.2...

Whatever DivX6 turns out to be... it better live up to their hype and expectations they've levied upon us....

And don't forget Nero will be launching some serious competition in the form of Mpeg4 AVC.


Cheers

[unmei]

you probably have to read the 33% improvement over h.264 in the light of

Gej: better than DivX 5 as good as AVC base

..i for one understand "AVC base" as something with lower bound the current fraunhofer/mpegable/vss and upper bound the ateme betas, so divx6 better be at least better than the lower bound by the release time :).

[RadicalEd]

Probably means baseline profile, as opposed to main, extended, and high.

[plonk420]

Originally posted by unmei
you probably have to read the 33% improvement over h.264 in the light of



..i for one understand "AVC base" as something with lower bound the current fraunhofer/mpegable/vss and upper bound the ateme betas, so divx6 better be at least better than the lower bound by the release time :).

Ateme is upper bound? there goes most of my hopes of it being Quicktime 6.Next (or 7) compatible :( ..or is that just in terms of quality? :)