Announcing DivX Fusion and the DivX Media Format

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by bond
also i doubt that anyone will have the bandwidth to store the same movie two times in a file:
one time normal resolution and than in HD. this is mainly a theoretical discussion...

Yes, this was mainly an example that it could be done. I do believe there were some questions regarding having multiple video tracks with different resolutions on a http://forums.divx.com thread. I hope this clears that up as well.

[AsTimeGoesBy]

I'm looking forward to test this build, but as before some questions are still open specially...

a) Will there be any tool for DivX Fusion similar to 'EKG' to set personal bitrate preferences?

b) Why does the DivX log (map.log) file for a 2-pass encoding have an entry 'nframes=#' whereof this # is equal to the number of frames plus 2?
(It seems that there also are 2 more rows than really existing frames.)


You may wonder about question b)... i try to make up my mind if i shell start the adventure to write my own C++ tool to save my preferences i have set by EKG to a text file for further use, eg. then a new DivX is released in future.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I want to view my video content on a screen in my living room, not stuck behind a small PC screen or laptop!

speaking of watching this on a tv...
you still use fullscreeen video overlay I assume/hope
seeing as how I donlt have a SAplayer and won;t for for a while because of the price seeing as how I;m a student...
anyways I'll check when I get time later today
hope it works :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Shingami-Sama
speaking of watching this on a tv...
you still use fullscreeen video overlay I assume/hope
seeing as how I donlt have a SAplayer and won;t for for a while because of the price seeing as how I;m a student...
anyways I'll check when I get time later today
hope it works :) I can use my Sigma Xcard (for hardware playback) or MediaPlayer Classic or ShowTime (for software playback).

I also have a wide range of connection options open to me for use with my 42" screen, such as, VGA, DVI, component RGB, component YUV, S-video and composite :)


Cheers

[Ishan]

My god!
I just found this topic and well I'm totaly stuned!
Why the hell do you still use that crappy old avi format when standard stuff like .mp4 exist? Can't you just use what's already available and heavily documented? (and don't complain about patent fee balbla, if you are using MPEG-4 ASP in DIVX you already payed for it, am I wrong?)
I can't force anyone to do anything but hacking old stuff cause it's easier and conveniant is not really respectfull of your present and futur customers.

My point, sorry if I sound dumb or anything...

[stephanV]

Originally posted by Ishan
(and don't complain about patent fee balbla, if you are using MPEG-4 ASP in DIVX you already payed for it, am I wrong?)
yes you are :)

while the container itself is free from fees, im not sure about interactive content.

[thekid]

I hate to keep re-iterating this, but let me try one more time and i'll try to be more clear

Originally posted by Ishan

Why the hell do you still use that crappy old avi format when standard stuff like .mp4 exist?

Because the AVI format is widely adopted and used in numerous software applications and is adopted in hardware. .mp4 is from a standards body but is anything but standard. Simply browse some of the other forums in on doom9 or ask Bond or Seemoredigital. You can see the pain everyone goes through in trying to get an mp4 stream to play the same way on two different software or hardware players. We stress interoperability in the DivX Certification platform above all.

Originally posted by Ishan

...hacking old stuff cause it's easier and conveniant is not really respectfull of your present and futur customers.


While perhaps building off of the AVI specification is not what you wanted, we did it with every intention of being respectful of present and future customers. If we had switched to MP4 all of the 20+ million DivX Certified devices out on the market now would become useless for the new format. Building off of AVI and keeping our new format backwards compatible was the best option when thinking about our users. We want all users who have DVD players today to be able to take advantage of the new features.

we are trying to give users what they want in a way that is both easy to support from software and hardware providers and doens't break all existing implimentations out in the market today.

thekid...

[bond]

edit: as thekid said, its understandable they kept on using .avi, as all the existing divx certified players are based on it, and it wouldnt surely be a wise decision in dxn to make all these incompliant with new files
thats why we all have to hope that nero will finally give us 100% compliant mpeg-4 menus ;)

Originally posted by stephanV
while the container itself is free from fees, im not sure about interactive contentmpeg-4 systems is not license free, but its standardised and very powerful
and systems is not only about interactivity, it can also do all sorts of animations (eg like flash)

Originally posted by thekid
You can see the pain everyone goes through in trying to get an mp4 stream to play the same way on two different software or hardware players.i dont really know of these problems...
basically the main mp4 creator tools all produce compliant .mp4 files, not causing problems on software and hardware (mp4ui has some problems (mainly with b-frames), yes, thats why i always tell people not to use it)

[Darrius "Junto" Thompson]

Originally posted by Ishan
My god!
I just found this topic and well I'm totaly stuned!
Why the hell do you still use that crappy old avi format when standard stuff like .mp4 exist? Can't you just use what's already available and heavily documented? (and don't complain about patent fee balbla, if you are using MPEG-4 ASP in DIVX you already payed for it, am I wrong?)
I can't force anyone to do anything but hacking old stuff cause it's easier and conveniant is not really respectfull of your present and futur customers.

My point, sorry if I sound dumb or anything...

I think we've discussed the issue's around .mp4 to death in some threads so I'll try not to go into to much detail.

Main points were:

1. We look at a problem from the direction of. What are the features we want and what is the most simple way to implement so that a variety of applications and hardware users will use can quickly utilize it widely and get the features we really want. If you start from the direcion of, "wow, the MP4 file format has a menuing spec and start from their spec you are already starting from perhaps the perspective of "overdesign". We start from "what features do we want" and what are the constraints. I think this thread even validates that if we picked something that was hard to support and implement then we would have created something less powerful.

2. .mp4 was to heavy for wide adoption into a wide variety of hardware at reasonable prices

3. If you add in features like menuing you get really heavy given how the spec defines it... And then if we want to add even more cool features we become limited in what we can implement because we've taken up memory space we could have otherwised used for something else.

4. AVI might be old but it is already supported everywhere and was very easy to extend with the underlying RIFF format. READ MY POINT ABOUT MP4 and it's age below.

5. .mp4 DOES in fact have additional licensing issues. You have to pay for the "Systems Layer" license as well as the Video License. Ouch.

>do anything but hacking old stuff cause it's easier and conveniant is >not really respectfull of your present and futur customers.

We built great simple technology that works and utilizes something proven and that is easy to extend other capabilities. If this wasn't the case we would have chosen a different approach. I wouldn't call that hacking old stuff.

No one is complaining about the .mp4 file format being old are they? Oh you think it's new? No it's based off of QuickTime. It's old! Quicktime was released on December 2nd 1991!!! This is what MP4 is based off of. Yet is anyone complaining? No but you can extend it to different things, powerful things. When was video for windows and thus AVI released, November of 1992. Hmmmm.... :eek: So my point is, focus on the things users want and then find the best way to build it in a way that works well and wide.

Beautiful design is not about what you can put in but what you can take out while building what is really needed. In fact our decisions were primarily based upon thinking about present and future users. Think about all the DivX DVD players in the market today and tommorrow. Think about the penetration of the .mp4 file format into authoring and viewing apps. ITS ZERO. If we would have had a different approach we would have forsaken compatiblity. Now I wouldn't want to be on the thread trying to defend that :)

So can we end this debate for at least a few days? :) C'mon it's the weekend!!!!

Darrius Thompson aka "Junto"
Co-founder DivX

[DigitAl56K]

Has anyone managed to make a home movie with menus and subtitles, and a directors commentary yet? You could still be the first in DivX history to do so... :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by thekid
Because the AVI format is widely adopted and used in numerous software applications and is adopted in hardware. .mp4 is from a standards body but is anything but standard. Hmmm!

I'm actually very happy with my .MP4 muxes!

Most of my encodes are generated using 720x480/576 pixels with 16:9 DAR and played back in hardware (using Sigma Xcard).

I've found mp4UI generates encodes that work reliably in every software player I've tried (except QuickTime). True... it would be nice if MPC supported Nero's "multiple" subtitles (it already supports chapter seeking). And yes it would be great if VLC supported chapter seeking (it already supports Nero's subs and multiple audio tracks).... So it's only a matter of time before, one or the other can support all of Recode2's current implementations!

Of course Recode2 encodes work fine with the Siemssen stand-alone player. And so it seems do mp4UI muxes and even DivX .avi's ;)

It's true to say mp4UI is not perfect... "yet". But it's very simple to use and looks very likely to improve soon (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=602381#post602381)!

Now I guess, what would be kind of amusing, is if the Siemssen can play .divx files :D


Cheers

[Zhnujm]

I have some questions about muxing subtitles with fuse.exe for sa playback,

-how to change the font size and text position ?
-it says qpel not supported ?
-how can we mux xvid files with it ;)

[thekid]

the fuse parameters are listed here:

http://labs.divx.com/archives/fuse.html

you can't change font size or text position in this release
Make sure your encodes are done with the proper certification profile selected. Qpel and GMC are notsupported. And if you are muxing Xvid streams use the 1.1 version that has the DivX profiles built in to ensure compatabiltiy with DivX Certified devices.

thekid...

[Darrius "Junto" Thompson]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
I have some questions about muxing subtitles with fuse.exe for sa playback,

-how to change the font size and text position ?
-it says qpel not supported ?
-how can we mux xvid files with it ;)

I'll let someone else more capable than me answer the font size, text position question. I'll answer the how to mux xvid files question. That ones easy. Just like you would a video file encode with DivX :) Actually I just wanted to say we don't do anything to prevent you from not doing so. The way I look at the DivX Media Format (DMF) is more like a DVD. Meaning it is more than just audio and video. In DVD's you can use any branded MP2 codec as long as it is DVD profile compliant right? We look at using other MP4 codecs like Xvid the same way. You can use it within the DMF as you can use any MP2 DVD Profile compliant encoder within the DVD format. Hope that makes sense. It's Friday and I don't think clearly on Fridays.

All we ask is to please use DivX Certified features to ensure compatiblity with DivX Players in software and more specifically hardware that users will want to play these files back in. Otherwise we might face even more interoperability confusion. So that probably answers your Qpel question as well. (Essentially use Xvid as a DivX Certified type of file)The xvid team already has the divx profiles sitting in their source code tree and I see it's in their 1.1 beta build but still not completed or updated to the latest profile changes. Having this though should make this easier.

[Zhnujm]

Well, then it seems the problem was that the xvid files use qpel and not that they are just xvid files...

I hope this is just a limitation of the beta version or are there any reasons not to support qpel and gmc ?

[Darrius "Junto" Thompson]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Well, then it seems the problem was that the xvid files use qpel and not that they are just xvid files...

I hope this is just a limitation of the beta version or are there any reasons not to support qpel and gmc ?

The reasons are as discussed in many of the past threads here on doom's forums as well as the DivX forum. I"m long winded so I'll just say... "search" for the old topics. It's really the same old story.... If you look at "quality improvement" multiplied by "requried complexity" (required horsepower) tradeoff you might find that the benefit of such features have limited value when given a choice of other features to focus on especially when CE (consumer electronic) devices are limited in power. For example would you rather have interactive menu's, subs, metadata, mutliple audio tracks, our new connected technologies allowing you to show any cool GUI from your PC on your connected CE device and interact with it (shown at CES :)), access your network content... or trade all that for GMC? A few percent gain in compression that is hardly noticable to most except those of us who might stare at individual frames isn't as compelling as other potential tools. We have to tradeoff features knowing what our constraints are and agreeing upon what features have the highest *OVERALL* value to users.

Darrius

[Jeffster]

Originally posted by Darrius "Junto" Thompson
I'll let someone else more capable than me answer the font size, text position question. I'll answer the how to mux xvid files question. That ones easy. Just like you would a video file encode with DivX :) Actually I just wanted to say we don't do anything to prevent you from not doing so.

Actually that's not strictly correct, it appears one has to change the FourCC first before it will accept an XviD file


Processing beginning chunks.
Processing all chunks.
Track is not DX50 VBV Test Skipped
0 Incorrect 8cc: [xvidXVID]

Result: FAIL

aborting

[LordRPI]

‘Sup guys?

Earlier this morning, a few of us at DivX headquarters decided it would be a cool idea to hold a contest for DivX Media Format video creation. We found some Philips DVP-642 DVD players and we will be awarding them to the first 3 who create functional DivX Media Format files meeting the following criteria:



About 30 seconds long
Home Movie
* Nothing Obscene
* You must own the rights to the video
* You must allow us to showcase your .divx on DivX Labs
Subtitles
Audio tracks, which can be
* Main Audio
* Your Director’s commentary
* Preferably in International English, but Gibberish and/or Scots Gaelic is OK
Menu - at least two elements
Under 50 MB in size



Submit by your .divx by emailing it to me, LordRPI at: lordrpi at gmail dot com

Good luck!

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by Darrius "Junto" Thompson
The reasons are as discussed in many of the past threads here on doom's forums as well as the DivX forum. I"m long winded so I'll just say... "search" for the old topics. It's really the same old story..

Well, all my hardware devices can play qpel+gmc. Most of my files use qpel and gmc.
And now the only reason why i cannot mux subtitles in them is a limitation in the muxing programm fuse.exe ?
Is this a real problem in the file format or just a "if qpel=true then goto end" ? :)
A switch to allow muxing files with qpel would be veeeery nice.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
And now the only reason why i cannot mux subtitles in them is a limitation in the muxing programm fuse.exe ? I think finding suitable muxing tools is a major problem for use with most containers!

As you guys know, I like my .MP4 files. And I think it's true to say that with the right muxing tools and a little knowledge, it's possible to generate .MP4 encodes that will provide the same level of functionality that DivX's Fusion/Media Format does!

However, unlike DivX's Fusion/Media Format, even if we .MP4 users were able to create such encodes, we don't have a free "closed" player, to view them with.

Hell, as far as I'm aware, we .MP4 users can't even agree on which subtitle format to adopt or how menus can be created and linked to chapters.... And so, as a consequence, nobody appears to be sticking their necks out (or working together) to provide suitable muxing tools or even "closed" software players!

I have to give credit where it's due and congratulate DivX for this... there latest innovation. It's obvious they've all worked hard to make this work... and to keep as many software player and hardware player users as happy as possible!

Jeez... it sounds like future versions of DrDivX (or what ever it will be called) are going to be a bit of an animal :eek:


Cheers

[schnuffix]

Hi,

I encoded some movies with fusion b2 and find it very good!

Now I'm wondering how to do menus and chapters. Is there any info about that out there?

[bond]

its not possible to mux dxn subs with a mpeg-4 video stream that uses qpel and gmc??
thats bad, not everyone aims at compatibility with hardware players, not everyone has a crappy hardware player not handling qpel :/

Originally posted by Darrius "Junto" Thompson
I'll let someone else more capable than me answer the font size, text position question. I'll answer the how to mux xvid files question. That ones easy. Just like you would a video file encode with DivX :) Actually I just wanted to say we don't do anything to prevent you from not doing so.well i think even if you would want to, its not really possible to prevent muxing any mpeg-4 video stream into .avi, as all streams are mpeg-4 compliant of course (and as already mentioned, fourccs can be changed)

still its funny, people will mux "xvid" in your extended .avi and theoretically should use the ".divx" extension :B
i wonder how long it will take till the first ones rename .divx to .avi

[Zhnujm]

I still cant believe it, THE solution for AVI playback with subtitles on standalones, able to fix all known problems with seperate files, size, position, colors, fonts, special chars, already working on all certified devices and its not supporting qpel and gmc streams....

Hopefully some other program can do that in the future.

[skal]

Hi,

@DivX guys: are there any patents attached to the ... hmm... inventions you propose as new Media Format. Are the licenses more interesting than MPEG4-system container, say?

-Skal

[RedDwarf69]

Since new players will support AAC and AVI-Mux GUI supports AAC on AVI, can I suppose I will be able to mux AAC on this?

[Zhnujm]

If somebody is interested in a version that allows qpel and does not care about the fourcc then send me a pm.

[Shinigami-Sama]

very nice demo
it had some problems mirroring on my tv when it started but it worked on the second time through
shin likes
maybe I'll start makin encodes with this :)
and hte hd was very nice
and quite small
very nice work guys thumbs up :)

[ChronoCross]

well the new container is a good idea however I think that there are already way better containers out there (mp4, mkv) so using .divx is well pointless to me. anyway I tested out the latest release fromt he fusion series and I gotta say that on my machine uning insane mode is impossible. I'm kinda a quality person but I really can't stand the new insane modes 1.2fps rendering. I can easily get better quality on xvid at 9-12fps witht he same avs script. The only downside to xvid is that it's not guaranteed to play in hardware players (I don't have a DVD player anyway *poor college Student*) but other than that it's great for my backup/enhancement needs.

positive things I did notice however are the introduction of a higher quality qpel as well as multi consecutive B-vops which is a great move forward in terms of divx gaining even more compressability/quality. Additionally the gui is much better than before in my opinion and now loads immediately rather than a 30 second delay with 5.2.1 pro. Much easier navigation. I haven't tried out the noise removal/deinterlacing functions (kinda weary to try them until the final release) The new divx player and the divx decoder does have a bunch of speed improvements that I really notice on my machine. Post processing seems to be one of the best enhanced features.

Thanks again divx I'll keep testing the codec on different anime sources I have and see how they turn out in comparission to xvid.

[Shinigami-Sama]

just a question
I havn;t gone very far back in this thread yet
>.>
but it never realys comes up much htat I've seen but
seeing as how /divx is basicly an avi does it still reject vorbis?
because I find vorbis is the best audio imho and if it still doesn;t well that means I won't realy uise it that much
oh well sooner or later it will be :)
-edit-
right I just read it al the way through I did;nt se anymention of it yet just people whiniang about extening an avi and such..

[sterlina]

Originally posted by ChronoCross
[B]well the new container is a good idea however I think that there are already way better containers out there (mp4, mkv)I do agree, and I (personally) find unuseful to have another container or an ("avi-extended-not.specs.compliant") that will fight for domination... anyway, that's the world :rolleyes: and we have to deal with it

Originally posted by Skal
@DivX guys: are there any patents attached to the ... hmm... inventions you propose as new Media Format. Are the licenses more interesting than MPEG4-system container, say?that's interesting... are any patents on it?

[bond]

Originally posted by skal
@DivX guys: are there any patents attached to the ... hmm... inventions you propose as new Media Format. Are the licenses more interesting than MPEG4-system container, say?good point!
what does dxn charge for their "new container" (which again actually is simply an extended .avi and not a new container designed from scratch :p )

[IgorC]

it will be good idea to care more about videocodec and not about container and other misc. stuff since avi-container works fine.

[temporance]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
...already working on all certified devices and its not supporting qpel and gmc streams...Perhaps the reason why it will work on all certified device is that it does not support qpel and gmc!

[bond]

Originally posted by temporance
Perhaps the reason why it will work on all certified device is that it does not support qpel and gmc! so you think that it might be possible that subtitles will not work on existing hardware players that already support qpel? come on ;)

[temporance]

Originally posted by bond
so you think that it might be possible that subtitles will not work on existing hardware players that already support qpel? come on ;) [Of course some certified device will qpel and gmc. But not all. And I quoted...
...already working on all certified devices and its not supporting qpel and gmc streams...If a stream uses QPel or GMC then it won't work on all certified devices. This is likely why QPel and GMC are forbidden.

[Zhnujm]

Well, what i meant was, the subtitle solution works on all (most) certified players.
I dont think theres a reason to limit that to streams without qpel.
Anyway, this problem is already solved ;)

Next problem, changing size and position of the subtitles.

[bond]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Well, what i meant was, the [B]subtitle solution works on all (most) certified players.
I dont think theres a reason to limit that to streams without qpel.yep, thats what i meant too (seems there was a misunderstanding)

Anyway, this problem is already solved ;)hrhr :D

[magnop]

Just to say that i tryed "The Making Of Last Man Standing" on my standalone player, a Pioneer 575 and it identified 3 audio, 5 subtitle streams and played them ok. No menu available.
Picture quality is very good but the subtitles are too big.

[DigitAl56K]

Hi all,

We will soon be releasing a new version of Fuse that will not prevent you from using QPel and GMC, but be aware that if you use these features your file is not guaranteed to play back in all DivX Certified devices. Keep this in mind when encoding your video.

With regards to the various questions around the DivX Media Format, patents, and pricing: Yes, we have patents around the file format. Are we going to charge you for using it? No. The SDK is free for personal, non-commercial use. That means you can use the tools and libraries in the SDK to create as many DivX Media Format files as you like. If you want to create a commercial application simply contact us for more information on licensing. The whole reason we published the SDK in the first place, rather than simply licensing it, was to make sure that you guys had access to all the documentation and tools that you needed to work with the format. We're also working to ensure that other technologies, such as XVID, are interoperable with the DivX Media Format and enabled for compatibility with all DivX Certified devices.

We're anticipating good things from you guys around the DivX Media Format. Stop reading the forums and get to work... ;)

[baer999]

OK it is very well to see that DivX is still working hard on improvements ! But means this statement in the post that no commercial media player is allowed to playback DivX 6 without license for this ? The SDK is great but i'm not good enough @coding and the Compression Area (I learn only VB 6 @school...) but I think here are some Well coders which maybe will produce a few fantastic freeware Programms. My most wanted Feature is the promissed Menu (I hope I can use the DVD Original Menu, too). Will there be an easy GUI for this part of the new Version ?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is there a list somewhere of DivX compatible stand-alone players that can play DivX Media Format files?

I realise some players will currently support more features than others... but some kind of cross-referenced list might prove useful.


Cheers

[thekid]

all Certified players should be able to handle the multiple audio and multiple subtitles today. The rest of the features, chapters, menus, metadata etc will be ignored on current players and will be handled with a firmware upgrade. Until then these devices will play the main title within a DivX Media Format file skipping the extra features.

the list of certified devices can be found here:

http://www.divx.com/hardware/certified/products.php

i belive that list is mostly up to date. i'll double check.

I'll also try to get you some names and dates of when new players will hit shelves that have the full features set enabled

thekid...

[LordRPI]

Oops...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by thekid
all Certified players should be able to handle the multiple audio and multiple subtitles today. The rest of the features, chapters, menus, metadata etc will be ignored on current players and will be handled with a firmware upgrade. Until then these devices will play the main title within a DivX Media Format file skipping the extra features.

the list of certified devices can be found here:

http://www.divx.com/hardware/certified/products.php

i belive that list is mostly up to date. i'll double check.

I'll also try to get you some names and dates of when new players will hit shelves that have the full features set enabled That's great news... And that's one hell of a list already!

One interesting aspect of your sample encodes is their high-def element... I'm sure High-Def IO-DATA LinkPlayer AVLP2/DVDLA player owner/users must be getting rather excited.

Thanks again

[Shinigami-Sama]

which reminds me
I'll check out the high-def part right now
hmm
looks good on my tv
had to play wit hhte setting on it though
but yeah
other than a crash
pretty sweet high-def:cool:

[jggimi]

Originally posted by jggimi
Well, my standalone is a JVC XV-NP10S, and therefore I have lowered expectations. (IMO, this product did not get sufficient QA before being released into production, and its problems are not being properly addressed.)

I will try your samples out this weekend ... we'll see. Test results with LastManStanding demo: .divx file extension recognized. No difference in behavior between .avi and .divx files.

Menu ignored.

SD stream (640x352) recognized. HD stream (1280x720) ignored.

3 audio streams recognized, and selectable.

5 subtitle streams recognized, and selectable.Attempts to open Slideshow.avi and Slideshow.divx fail, with error message: Resolution Not Supported.

[thekid]

the slideshow file is a High Def file. It will not playback on a home theater certified DVD player.

thekid...

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've asked some people over on the AVS forum, with High-Def IO-DATA LinkPlayer AVLP2/DVDLA players, to give the "Last Man Standing" clip ago ;)


Cheers

[LordRPI]

Wait, I have one of those back in my apartment connected to a Sanyo 27" fishbowl CRT TV...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by LordRPI
Wait, I have one of those back in my apartment connected to a Sanyo 27" fishbowl CRT TV... Well what are you waiting for? Get over there right now and do the biz!


Cheers