Brand of video codec products by DivX, LLC
This article is about the video codec. For the company, see
DivX, Inc.
For the videodisc format, see
DIVX
.
DivX
is a
brand
of
video codec
products developed by
DivX, LLC
. There are three DivX
codecs
: the original
MPEG-4 Part 2
DivX codec, the
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
DivX Plus HD codec and the
High Efficiency Video Coding
DivX HEVC Ultra HD codec. The most recent version of the codec itself is version 6.9.2, which is several years old. New version numbers on the packages now reflect updates to the media player, converter, etc.
History
[
edit
]
The "DivX" brand is distinct from "
DIVX
", which is an obsolete video rental system.
[1]
The winking
emoticon
in the early "
DivX ;-)
" codec name was a
tongue-in-cheek
reference to the DIVX system. Although not created by them, the DivX company adopted the name of the popular
DivX ;-)
codec. The company dropped the
smiley
and released DivX 4.0, which was actually the first DivX version to
trademark
the term
DivX
.
[2]
[3]
DivX ;-)
(not DivX) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions refers to a
hacked
version of the
Microsoft
MPEG-4 Version 3
video codec (not to be confused with
MPEG-4 Part 3
) from Windows Media Tools 4 codecs.
[4]
[5]
The video codec, which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant, was extracted around 1998 by French hacker
Jerome Rota
(also known as Gej) at Montpellier. The Microsoft codec originally required that the compressed output be put in an
ASF
file. It was altered to allow other
containers
such as
Audio Video Interleave
(AVI).
[6]
Rota hacked the Microsoft codec because newer versions of the Windows Media Player would not play his video portfolio and resume that were encoded with it. Instead of re-encoding his portfolio, Rota and German hacker Max Morice decided to
reverse engineer
the codec, which "took about a week".
[7]
In early 2000, Jordan Greenhall recruited Rota to form a company (originally called DivXNetworks, Inc., renamed to DivX, Inc. in 2005) to develop an MPEG-4 codec, from scratch, that would still be backward-compatible with the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 format. This effort resulted first in the release of the "OpenDivX" codec and source code on 15 January 2001. OpenDivX was hosted as an open-source project on the Project Mayo web site hosted at projectmayo.com
[8]
(the name comes from "
mayonnaise
", because, according to Rota, DivX and mayonnaise are both "French and very hard to make."
[7]
). The company's internal developers and some external developers worked jointly on OpenDivX for the next several months, but the project eventually stagnated.
In early 2001, DivX employee "Sparky" wrote a new and improved version of the codec's encoding algorithm known as "encore2". This code was included in the OpenDivX public source repository for a brief time, but then was abruptly removed. The explanation from DivX at the time was that "the community really wants a
Winamp
, not a
Linux
." It was at this point that the project
forked
. That summer, Rota left the French Riviera and moved to
San Diego
"with nothing but a pack of cigarettes"
[9]
where he and Greenhall founded what would eventually become DivX, Inc.
[7]
DivX took the encore2 code and developed it into DivX 4.0, initially released in July 2001. Other developers who had participated in OpenDivX took encore2 and started a new project?
Xvid
?that started with the same encoding core. DivX, Inc. has since continued to develop the DivX codec, releasing DivX 5.0 in March 2002. By the release of version 5.2.1 on 8 September 2004, the DivX codec was substantially feature-complete. Changes since then have tended to focus on speed, and encouraging wider hardware player support, while the company has also focused its time on the formats and next generation codecs.
In February 2011, DivX was acquired by
Rovi Corporation
, upon completion of its acquisition of
Sonic Solutions
.
[10]
In 2014,
Blackstone Group
and
Parallax Capital
acquired DivX from Rovi for $75 million. On January 5, 2015, it was announced that
IPTV
company
NeuLion
would acquire DivX for $62.5 million.
[11]
In February 2018, a deal was finalized to sell certain DivX assets, intellectual property and subsidiaries from NeuLion, Inc. to
Fortress Investment Group
.
[12]
DivX, LLC
continues to operate from their headquarters in San Diego and release new versions of DivX Software for Windows and macOS.
DivX formats
[
edit
]
DivX Media Format (DMF)
[
edit
]
DivX 6 expanded the scope of DivX from including just a codec and a player by adding an optional
media container format
called "DivX Media Format" ("DMF")
[13]
(with a .divx extension) that includes support for the following
DVD-Video
and
VOB
container like features. This media container format is used for the
MPEG-4 Part 2
codec.
This new DivX Media Format also came with a "DivX Ultra Certified" profile, and all "Ultra" certified players must support all DivX Media Format features. While video encoded with the DivX codec is an MPEG-4 video stream, the DivX Media Format is analogous to media container formats such as Apple's QuickTime. In much the same way that media formats such as DVD specify MPEG-2 video as a part of their specification, the DivX Media Format specifies MPEG-4-compatible video as a part of its specification. However, despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is an extension to the AVI file format. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in
RIFF
headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even
VirtualDubMod
supports them. DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial
backward compatibility
with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB subtitles) can at least play that primary video stream (usually the main movie if the DMF file contains multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials). Of course, the DivX codec and tools like
Dr. DivX
still support the traditional method of creating standard AVI files.
Since version 5.0 of DivX, the
FourCC
(identifying code) for the DivX MPEG-4 Part 2 codec is DX50.
[14]
Previously it used DIVX.
DivX Plus HD
[
edit
]
DivX Plus HD is a marketing name for a file type using the standard
Matroska
media container format (.mkv), rather than the proprietary DivX Media Format. DivX Plus HD files contain an
H.264
video bitstream,
AAC
surround sound audio, and a number of XML-based attachments defining chapters, subtitles and meta data.
[15]
This media container format is used for the
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
codec.
DivX profiles
[
edit
]
| This article needs to be
updated
.
Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
(
October 2010
)
|
DivX has defined profiles which are subsets of MPEG-4/AVI and H.264/Matroska standards.
[16]
Because the grouping is a specific subset of what is in the standards, there are certification processes for each of the profiles that device manufacturers must follow. All DivX certified devices bearing a DivX logo will adhere to one of the profiles outlined in the table below as would any tools that support the DivX profiles.
[17]
[18]
Profiles
|
Handheld
|
Portable
|
Mobile Theater
|
Home Theater
|
HD 720p
|
HD 1080p
|
+HD 1080p
|
DivX Codec (MPEG-4 Part 2)
|
5,6
|
5,6
|
5,6
|
3,4,5,6
|
5,6
|
3,4,5,6
|
n/a
|
DivX H.264 Codec (MPEG-4 Part 10)
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
1.x
|
File Extension(s)
|
.avi, .divx
|
.avi, .divx
|
.avi, .divx
|
.avi, .divx
|
.avi, .divx
|
.avi, .divx
|
.mkv
|
Max. resolution (px×px×Hz)
|
176×144×15
|
352×240×30
352×288×25
|
640×480×30
|
720×480×30
720×576×25
|
1280×720×30
|
3/4:
720×480×30, 720×576×25
5/6:
1920×1080×30,
1280×720×60
|
1920×1080×30,
1280×720×60
|
Max VBV bitrate (
bit/s
)
|
|
600000
|
4854000
|
4854000
|
9708400
|
20000000
|
VCL: 20000000,
NAL: 24000000
|
Min. VBV buffer size (
KiB
)
|
32
|
138
|
384
|
384
|
768
|
2097
|
VCL: 3200, NAL: 3840
|
Macroblocks (per second)
|
1485
|
9900
|
36000
|
40500
|
108000
|
3/4: 40500
5/6: 244800
|
244800
|
Subtitles
|
optional
|
optional
|
optional
|
8×XSUB
[19]
|
8×XSUB
|
8×XSUB, XSUB+
|
8×
SRT
,
SSA
|
Audio
|
|
1×MP3
|
1×MP3
|
8×MP3, MP2, AC3
|
8×MP3, MP2, AC3
|
8×MP3, MP2, AC3
|
8×MP3, AC3, AAC
|
DivX Video on Demand
[
edit
]
DivX Video on Demand (DivX VOD) is DivX's version of
digital rights management
(DRM), which allows content copyright holders to control distribution. In 2009, DivX, Inc. received format approval from major Hollywood studios including Sony, Paramount, and Lionsgate, which has allowed content retailers to sell protected videos that will play on current and previous generations of DivX certified devices.
[20]
The terms of the contract are not known, so it is unknown if that approval is still in effect.
[
needs update
]
Dr. DivX OSS
is capable of transcoding many video formats to DivX-encoded video. The original closed-source Dr. DivX terminated at version 1.06 for DivX 5.21. That was the last version of DivX capable of running on
Windows 9x
. An open-source version has since been made, which supports DivX 6.
Dr. DivX
offers greatly expanded features over the free DivX Converter application, that was bundled with the codec from version 6 onwards.
[21]
Dr. DivX is not compatible with DivX Plus HD.
DivX has released a command line interface (CLI) for the
divx264
encoder used in the DivX Converter as beta, free for non-commercial use.
[22]
To complement the CLI
divx264
encoder released on DivX Labs, DivX has also released a DivX AAC encoder CLI as a Windows beta binary.
[22]
Finally,
DivXMKVMux
has been released as a free Windows CLI through DivX Labs with documentation on the DivX Developer Portal; DivX describes the release as a reference mux to demonstrate DivX Plus MKV extensions like
World Fonts
and
Smooth FF/RW
.
[23]
Hardware support
[
edit
]
DivX, Inc. markets a certification program to consumer electronics and IC manufacturers for the purpose of guaranteed compatibility and playback of video files that fall within DivX profiles. Devices that have been DivX certified usually brandish one of the following marks:
[24]
- DivX Certified
- DivX Certified for HD 720p and 1080p
- DivX Certified for DivX Plus HD
- DivX Connected
- DivX Certified for DivX Ultra
DivX certified devices have included DVD players, car stereos, mobile phones, televisions, Blu-ray players, and even alarm clocks.
[25]
Aside from verifying proper decoding of files conforming to the DivX profiles the certification also confirms the device can play back DivX Video on Demand content, which includes Hollywood content that can be purchased from Internet retailers.
[26]
Gaming system compatibility
[
edit
]
On 4 December 2007, native MPEG-4 ASP playback support was added to the
Xbox 360
,
[27]
allowing it to play video encoded with DivX and other MPEG-4 ASP codecs.
[28]
On 17 December 2007, firmware upgrade 2.10 was released for the Sony
PlayStation 3
, which included official DivX Certification. Firmware version 2.50 (released on 15 October 2008) included support for the DivX Video on Demand (DivX VOD) service, and firmware version 2.60 (released on 20 January 2009) included official DivX Certification and updated Profile support to version 3.11.
[29]
With introduction of DivX to Go in the DivX Player for Windows, a PlayStation 3 icon is readily available on the interface, which will invoke a transfer wizard for freely converting and copying video files via USB or optical disc.
[30]
The output from DivX to Go's PlayStation 3 preset is also playable on the Xbox 360.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time"
. 26 May 2006. Archived from the original on 3 July 2008
. Retrieved
5 April
2010
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link
)
- ^
"DivX Trademarks"
. Archived from
the original
on 26 May 2010.
- ^
"An Intellectual Property Case Study"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 30 October 2008
. Retrieved
17 July
2008
.
- ^
"VirtualDub documentation: codecs"
.
www.virtualdub.org
. Retrieved
8 August
2009
.
- ^
"Video Codec Definitions"
.
www.FOURCC.ofg
. Archived from
the original
on 23 May 2009
. Retrieved
8 August
2009
.
- ^
"DivX ;-)"
.
AfterDawn
. Retrieved
7 April
2010
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Escaping the Napster trap"
. Archived from
the original
on 15 December 2002
. Retrieved
15 March
2001
.
- ^
"Project Mayo"
. 20 March 2003. Archived from
the original
on 20 March 2003
. Retrieved
19 January
2010
.
- ^
"DivX CEO on Video, YouTube, iPod"
. Archived from
the original
on 5 February 2008
. Retrieved
8 December
2006
.
- ^
"Digital Entertainment Provider Rovi Acquires Sonic Solutions"
. Archived from
the original
on 27 December 2010
. Retrieved
23 December
2010
.
- ^
"NeuLion Buys DivX For $62.5M"
.
Multichannel News
. Retrieved
5 January
2015
.
- ^
"NeuLion Closes Transaction With An Affiliate of Fortress Investment Group"
.
GlobeNewswire News Room
. Retrieved
23 February
2018
.
- ^
"DivX Ultra Certification Program"
. DivX, Inc. Archived from
the original
on 26 October 2006
. Retrieved
7 April
2010
.
- ^
"Fourcc.org Online list of FourCC codes"
. Archived from
the original
on 23 May 2009
. Retrieved
14 October
2019
.
- ^
"DivX Plus HD"
.
DivX Developer Portal
. DivX, Inc. Archived from
the original
on 27 January 2010
. Retrieved
29 March
2010
.
- ^
"DivX-Profiles_Tech-Specs"
(PDF)
.
DivX
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 3 May 2017
. Retrieved
3 May
2017
.
- ^
"DivX Profiles from divx.com"
.
- ^
"certified listing from divx.com"
. Archived from
the original
on 2 December 2010.
- ^
"XSUB"
.
- ^
"DivX inks film distribution deal with Lionsgate & Paramount"
.
Businessofcinema.com
. 4 August 2009. Archived from
the original
on 29 September 2011
. Retrieved
1 April
2010
.
- ^
"DivX Video Converter"
. DivX, Inc
. Retrieved
11 April
2010
.
- ^
a
b
"DivX H.264 Encoder Beta 1 & Tutorial"
.
DivX Labs blog
.
DivX, Inc.
29 April 2009. Archived from
the original
on 12 February 2010
. Retrieved
29 March
2010
.
- ^
"Doom9.org - New DivX Plus Documentation"
. Retrieved
30 October
2014
.
- ^
"Program Details"
.
Partner Solutions: Certified Programs
. DivX, Inc. Archived from
the original
on 25 January 2010
. Retrieved
1 April
2010
.
- ^
"Philips Digital Photo Frame Alarm Clock"
.
Gadgeteer
. 23 November 2007. Archived from
the original
on 22 June 2009
. Retrieved
1 April
2010
.
- ^
Bond, Paul (26 August 2009).
"Film Fresh, DivX sign DVD agreement ? Deal allows users to back up their downloads"
.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
. Retrieved
1 April
2010
.
- ^
Elle.
"Xbox.com - Personalities - A Fistful of Features in the December 2007 System Update (Backup by WayBackMachine)"
. Archived from the original on 13 October 2008
. Retrieved
30 October
2014
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link
)
- ^
"Xbox 360 DivX/XviD Playback Tested (Verdict: It's Almost Perfect)"
.
Gizmodo
. 4 December 2007
. Retrieved
19 December
2007
.
- ^
"Firmware 2.60 brings photo gallery, Divx 3.11"
.
PS3Fanboy
. Retrieved
20 January
2009
.
- ^
"New DivX Plus Software Update Targets PS3 via MKV Conversion - PS3 NEWS"
.
ps3news.com
. 26 March 2010
. Retrieved
1 April
2010
.
External links
[
edit
]