so does .divx have any practical use at the moment? [Archive]

bond

27th June 2005, 19:41

excuse the dumb question, but is there any tool available from divxnetworks which lets people use the already strongly promoted features ("new era") of the .divx (aka extended .avi) format?

from what i saw divxnetworks provides no tools for placing chapters, subs or menus in .divx
all i see is the divx6 vfw codec (the successor of divx5 vfw) and that converter tool (which seems to be the successor of dr.divx)

so what can the normal user do with .divx at the moment he/she cant do with .avi already?

SeeMoreDigital

27th June 2005, 20:15

And what about the prospect of new (and/or existing) "DivX Certified" stand-alone players/devices, gaining access to the full raft of .divx implementations/features?

Cheers

bond

27th June 2005, 20:17

well my point is:
whats the sense of asking for players able to handle .divx files with subs, chapters and menus if we are not even able to create such files...

SeeMoreDigital

27th June 2005, 20:57

You'll get no argument from me there - but that's not a surprise ;)

A few days ago I created an 50 second Mpeg2 .VOB source with 3No audio and subtitle tracks, and twelve chapters.

I ran the source thru' DivX Converter, to create a .divx encode. But when I tried playing it in DivX Player, the subtitles were not displayed and there were no chapters!

Plus, when I span the .divx file in my DivX Certified Pioneer DV-575A player, the subtitles were not displayed, there were no chapters and I could not switch between audio streams.... not a very inspiring start!

Cheers

Surlyrich

28th June 2005, 00:38

Apparently the tools to create divx media are being released in the SDK. Not sure when that will be, not sure how well they will work, not sure if I am going to need to get lessons in XML. I think the problem was that the new codec was finished ages ago, thats why we have the release of helium because the codec team had allready started work on a new codec why the rest of the team was working on the player, encoder and what not. What a dissapointment. We were waiting ages for the release and all we got was a program that looked like a five year old had made in a day. Let's just hope the divx team pull their fingers out and get a fully functional, fully loaded encoder which lets you create menus, edit Xtags, add chapters, specify bitrate and output size, speciy audio etc.

CrashUK

28th June 2005, 00:49

Hope to see divx6 players soon.. Xvid is too messed up to be playable on divx hardware..

CruNcher

28th June 2005, 01:44

@Bond
Come on you don't see any creation tools because Licensed ISVs will provide them like Intervideo or Cyberlink :P

bond

28th June 2005, 10:03

ok so my question has been answered: no tools available at the moment for creating chapters, subs and menus in .divx :(

still nice hype around something that practically isnt existant till now ;)

SeeMoreDigital

28th June 2005, 10:36

Hope to see divx6 players soon.. Xvid is too messed up to be playable on divx hardware..Actually no... it's not!

As long as you understand the limitations of your stand-alone player/chip-set, XviD is able to work fine on a DivX Certified player.

Where things start goings "tits-up" for XviD... and DivX, is if you elect to generate encodes with say Qpel or GMC... But these implementations are included for use within DivX Certification anyway.

As long as you stay away from players with names you've never heard of, who doubtless offer "zero" customer support/firmware upgrades, you should be fine.... You get what you pay for!

Cheers

weaver4

28th June 2005, 15:01

bond

28th June 2005, 16:00

The problem with XviD is that you cannot control how others encode. So when you get an XviD file from some source you don't know if it has been encoded so that your hardware can play it.
you cant control that with divx either. people just have to use qpel as an example and it will not play on all divx hardware players anymore

divx uses profiles to control compatibility with hardware players, and so does xvid (which offers the same profiles as divx)
if people dont follow the profiles its not xvid's fault

SeeMoreDigital

28th June 2005, 16:02

The problem with XviD is that you cannot control how others encode. So when you get an XviD file from some source you don't know if it has been encoded so that your hardware can play it. About 50% of the XviD content I get from other sources will not run on my DivX player; I have never found a DivX file that will not play.

How would someone else know "the limitations of your stand-alone player/chip-set".Well for a start I would not recommend you obtain XviD encodes from third parties anyway. But it sounds as though I could generate a DivX encode, that won't spin on your player!

Look when DivX came up with there certification system, the chip-sets of the day could not support ASP implementations such as Qpel and GMC... and often not even multiple B-frames.... which is why these implementations are not covered by their certification

Things have moved on and chip-sets such as the MediaTek MT1389xx, Zoran's Vaddis 776 and Sigma's EM8620L can support far more ASP features than DivX's limited certification allows.

If you end up with an XviD encode that just happens to contain say, Qpel and your stand-alone player does not support Qpel, then it wont support a DivX encode with Qpel either!

I suggest in future, you ask your friends to generate XviD encodes that follow DivX's profiles.... (and never, ever use XviD's 3 warp-point GMC).... Or treat yourself to a newer, more flexible player!

Cheers

weaver4

28th June 2005, 20:01

You are right of course. But I am only looking at it statistically, I don't give a flip about warp-point, Qpel, Vaddis, ESS or any of that other stuff. All I know is that all of the DivX content that I downloads works and only half of the XviD stuff works. My players says DivX/XviD/MP4 compatible. And based on responsed that others have made in this group and others I don't think that my results are out of line with others. The fact that you have to change the way you encode depending on the player you are using has an ESS chip in it is a little silly.

I guess the fact that most people that encode DivX stay with a standard profile and Xvid users don't is not a problem with the Codec.

Maybe Xvid should have a profile called "Maxium Portability" so that we would all know what profile to set it to to make it work anywhere and the hardware manufactures could make sure that at least that mode works all the time.

I would love to get a more flexible player, but I can't seem to find one here in the US.

Koepi

28th June 2005, 20:10

Honestly, it's the encoder's mistake if he wants his files to be playbacked on limited hardware and he doesn't use the profiles which xvid has built-in for that.

Also, I want to make sure that you all are still aware of rule number 6. (Re-read it please.)

And as my last point - this thread is about the enhanced avi-container called .divx and it's practical use for now. Make sure to stay on-topic.

So on-topic again: has someone already created a tool to produce .divx with menus, subs and so on? I as well only know of the samples on the divx homepage.

Cheers
Koepi

jggimi

28th June 2005, 20:12

...all of the DivX content that I downloads (sic) works and only half of the XviD stuff works....Take complaints about content incompatibilities with standalone players to the content provider. We do not support discussion of downloaded content in general, because the vast majority of it represents IP theft, and we do not condone the practice.

For more on our policies, please see This announcement from the Newbie forum (http://forum.doom9.org/announcement.php?f=6) , Rule #6 (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm), and Doom9's Fair Use definition from his Piracy & Copyright Disclaimer (www.doom9.org/disclaimer.htm).

In any case, this entire path of discussion is Off Topic to the thread's premise.

Gej

29th June 2005, 00:41

SeeMoreDigital

29th June 2005, 01:01

SeeMoreDigital: Converter is able to create multi audio and multi subtitle *.divx out of MPEG2/VOB file. Also it can create menu automatically when is being feed several source with the same characteristics (same resolution and frame rate)Yes thanks Gej,

I can confirm I'm able to switch between audio streams if I play my play my .divx encode in DivX player, however, I can't see the subtitles at all :(

Do you have an std-def .divx test sample we can download, with multiple audio, subtitles, menu and chapters... It would be most useful to have a fully approved working .divx reference file.

Cheers

Gej

29th June 2005, 01:04

Like this one: http://www.divx.com/movies/lastmanstanding.php ?

SeeMoreDigital

29th June 2005, 01:24

Like this one: http://www.divx.com/movies/lastmanstanding.php ?My apologies Gej.

The last time I downloaded this file it contained an high-def element. I was not aware this version was different :eek:

Might I suggest you include more detailed information about the files stream properties, on your web page?

Cheers, and many thanks indeed

bond

29th June 2005, 10:13

I don’t want to seem like beating a dead horse, but we are working to get some tools out there for the community.
When ? I can hardly said, 2, 4 weeks something like this, we are currently making it nice and as easy as possible to create menus, keep in mind than the first batch of tools will command line tools, but they will be perfect as a foundation for community apps.
thanks for clearing this up. its funny that it takes someone from dxn to answer this if you look at how people are screaming around asking for support of the features in lots of other tools, still noone seems to have actually tried to make such a menu already so he could answer my initial question...

SeeMoreDigital: Converter is able to create multi audio and multi subtitle *.divx out of MPEG2/VOB file. Also it can create menu automatically when is being feed several source with the same characteristics (same resolution and frame rate) hm does this mean that converter already is able to produce menus automatically? cause if yes, this contradicts your message above somehow saying that such a tool is to come?

neo_anderson

29th June 2005, 11:21

whoa, 2-4 weeks, that's a lot of time to release sdk tools, which will contain updated fuse.exe, if i am not wrong!

Gej

29th June 2005, 17:36

The future tools will allow a user to create *any* menu, using your own graphics, your own navigation structure, and the sky is the limit here; Converter allow you to create a menu pre-defined based on a template (for our hacker friends it’s here: C:\Program Files\DivX\DivX Converter\Images). Obviously not for the same audience...

Jeffster

29th June 2005, 22:31

If LastManStanding is a reference file for the DivX Media Format then I found the experience a little disappointing...

The subtitles were positioned too low, with the bottom edge of the characters hidden behind the overscan on my TV, and they were off-center. Also while playing the clip, for a split second there was a tear in the picture, which seems to happen at randon places when a file contains internal subtitles. I don't know if anyone else has experienced something similar with their standalone but it doesn't inspire me to adopt the format. :(

Gej

29th June 2005, 22:56

We can't control the way the overscan is implemented, the tearing is more troubling, what DivX-DVD player are you trying to play it in ?

Jeffster

29th June 2005, 23:08

@Gej

It's a Philips DVP 640k/75

I just hooked the player up to another TV and the bottom of the subs are hidden on that one too. Perhaps you can't control the overscan, but presumably you have some control over the positioning of the subtitles?... if they were just a few lines higher then they'd be compatible with more TV's.
(I've never seen a DVD where the subtitles were obscured)

SeeMoreDigital

29th June 2005, 23:18

I tried "LastManStanding" myself earlier today, via my Pioneer DV-575A.

There was no tearing that I could see :)

Agreed, the subtitles might appear a little low but this will depend on how well your TV has been set-up for over-scan (and even the stand-alone player)... On my TV the subtitles have a very small amount of video below them!

Cheers

Gej

30th June 2005, 00:22

Jeffster, I’m sorry to tell you that I think this is an issue with you player, I know by experience that the Philips Player is very much at the limit when it come to DivX certification, and the Load put on it by the Last man standing high motion+Multiple Subs+Multiple audio may be a little too much for him. That’s our bad we should have reduced the resolution a bit: it turn out that the same clip is playing fine in my personal Philips DVP642.

Jeffster

30th June 2005, 00:46

Thanks Gej, I suspected it was a limitation of the player, Certification notwithstanding.

I'll be curious to experiment with a single audio and subtitled file when tools become freely available to create one... and like many others, continue to wonder if Philips will eventually release new firmware that improves performance of existing features, if nothing else. :rolleyes:

Gej

30th June 2005, 00:49

Agreed, it's not easy to get the manufacturer to provide firmware update

neo_anderson

30th June 2005, 03:52

Agreed, Philips suck at providing firmware update...
when is mp3 surround coming?

SeeMoreDigital

30th June 2005, 09:41

when is mp3 surround coming?I would not bother even going there....

In order to hear it, your stand-alone player would either have to: - Be fitted with 6Ch analogue outputs to offer an analogue connection
Be able to transcode MP3 surround to AC3 to provide an digital connection
In essence, we'll end up with the same problem we have now with multi-channel AAC-LC/HE and WMA Pro!

Cheers