Talk:DivX

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[edit] Pronunciation

I'm surprised to see the pronunciation of DivX given as [daɪvˈeks], which I understand to sound like "dive ex." I have always heard it pronounced "div ex" or "divix," with a short 'i' as in the word divination. A quick Google search finds this discussion on the DivX forums, which appears to include employees of the company itself. No one mentions a long 'i' like 'dive.'

http://community.divx.com/forum/viewTopic.php?id=264

A couple of other discussions I found also excluded the "dive ex" pronunciation. Is this a mistake or perhaps an international difference? emw 15:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The topic has moved here: [1]. So you are right that noone mentions the 'dive-ex' pronounciation that was re-added to the article on 25 October 2006 by 157.193.214.17. Some people say 'div-ex', some people say 'div-icks' and the guy from DivX says there's no definite answer, they (at DivX) all pronounce it in different ways. That's why I think the edit by 157.193.214.17 is wrong and should be reverted. — J. M. 04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, no reply, so I'm removing it from the article. — J. M. 04:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken links

In section: "Quality" there is broken links:
DivX has been beaten by XviD in the 2003[1], 2004[2] and 2005[3] tests.
Those links leads to deadend --CONFIQ 15:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] non-title

It should be MPEG-4 PART 2 not LAYER 2, right? --62.85.195.133

I don't see either one of those phrases in the article. --Mulligatawny 05:58, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What does tongue-in-cheek mean ? --200.208.45.2 02:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

http://www.answers.com/tongue-in-cheek --The number c 19:56, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Packed bitstreams

I'm removing the "compliant except for packed bitstreams" snippet because they're quite different issues.

"Packed bitstreams" refers to the reordering and pasting-together of consecutive frames within the AVI container to work around horrible limitations in the Video for Windows decoding API. ASP is the video compression algorithm and doesn't concern itself with in-file ordering or framing at all.

By the same token, I'm also removing the "compliant except for *.mp4 container" snippet because compliance with ASP (again, just the compression algorithm) doesn't imply compliance with the MPEG-4 container format.

Cheers.

—Ghakko 04:30, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

There was a biased slant to the opening description, particuarly the line that compared 700MB DivX files to full-size DVDs. I have re-written the beginning to what I believe is more neutral. -- Broken Arms Gordon 16:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's in a name...

02:42, 16 November 2005 J. M. m (Put back the smiley deleted by 209.179.168.55 (DivX ;-) was not DivX, the wink smiley was a part of the name))

Can you show that it was a part of the name? -- Lardarse 07:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Screenshot - see the DivX ;-) name there, MPEG-4 in Brief (quote: "smiley face is really part of the name"), Afterdawn.com Glossary - DivX ;-) (quote: "DivX (without smiley) supports old DivX ;-) movies and also adds new features and better compression quality than "original" DivX ;-)".
The first DivX version was DivX 4. DivX ;-) was a different software product (hacked Microsoft codec), initially made by "Gej", then came the OpenDivX open-source codec (again, the name was "OpenDivX" and not "DivX"), which, again, was a different product made by a different group of people and only then, finally, a company called DivXNetworks released their own product which they named "DivX". Only products by this company (now DivX, Inc.) are called "DivX" - it's their trademark. J. M. 11:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Royalties

If somebody could explain the DivX royalty model, it would be helpful. Must DivX capable system vendors pay royalties to DivX? Does DivX depend on MPEG patents and do DivX royalties include a license to the required MPEG patents?

[edit] EKG

I came to this page looking for an explanation for what EKG is. When searching for the acronym one comes to a disambiguation page with these links

   * Electrocardiogram
   * Electrokompressiongraph

The second link just brings one to the DivX page but unfortunately the DivX article gives no explanation as to what Electrokompressiongraph is. It doesn't even mention the acronym. If someone could include an explanation to what EKG is I think it would help a lot.

--Zigbigadoorlue 06:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Added a reference to the Electrokompressiongraph™ as well as the outmoded Dr.DivX where I thought was appropriate. Feel free to move it to where it needs to be. -JeebusSez 06:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality: What about Gator?

I put the neutrality flag up to draw attention to the fact that this article seems highly biased toward all the good features of the DivX codec.

For example, the line

   The latest generation, DivX 6, [...] expands the scope of DivX beyond "just a codec" ...

is clear advertising, for DivX is still "just a codec".

I also notice there is no mention of the adware installed with DivX. I ask that a section or at least a mention of that be put in.

  1. Actually, the sentence seems to be true. DivX Media Format was introduced with DivX 6, which really expands the scope of DivX. Plus, even earlier DivX versions included the DivX Player, which was also used for their proprietary pay-per-view system, which, again, showed that there was something more to DivX than just the codec.

    The main problem is that it's not entirely clear what DivX really is (you certainly can't tell from the official explanations on their website, which is full of marketing lies and obfuscations). They currently offer several products - DivX Play, which includes the DivX codec and DivX Player, DivX Create, which includes DivX Converter, DivX Pro codec and DivX Player and DivX 6 for Mac. So what is DivX? Is it the whole bundle? Is it only the codec (is the official name of the codec "DivX" or "DivX codec")? They call the codec "DivX codec" or "DivX Pro codec", not DivX. So DivX looks more like a brand name - actually, it's their trademark. But DivX itself doesn't refer to a particular product. (That's why the first sentence in the article could be changed - DivX is not a codec, it is also not a format, it is generally a brand name of the products made by DivX, Inc. And then the DivX codec should be mentioned separately.)

  2. You say "for example". So could you please offer any other example, besides this very doubtful one, which proves that the article is highly biased? You said that the article was "highly biased toward all the good features of the DivX codec". But if there are good features in DivX and they're mentioned (just mentioned, without any judgement) in the article, I don't see what's wrong with it. It's true and that's what matters. We could only argue about things that are not true or things that are subjective opinions rather than facts. J. M. 01:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

DivX.com has a documented history of bundling the Gator/GAIN spyware package with some of its software. The fact that this isn't documented in Wikipedia shows bias in favor of DivX.

References:
DivX apologizes for Gator and claims it won't infect anyone else:
A skeptical Slashdot reader:
216.23.105.20 07:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, adware was included in old versions of DivX Pro. So if you feel this should be mentioned in the article, you could add it to the History section, as it was a part of DivX' history. You should also specify the affected versions.J. M. 23:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality: What about it?

Why does the fact that Gator/GAIN software was included? It's no longer included in current releases so it makes no difference!

Kyle 04:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe that's the reason it should be mentioned in the article (in the History section). To make it clear that it's a part of their history and GAIN is no longer included in any DivX bundle. Some people may still think DivX includes GAIN software or other adware. J. M. 20:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about their other controversial antics?

I seem to remember a very big stink raised over how DivX asserted total control over the use of it's codec, leading to many places having to take down and/or re-encode their movies with a different codec... This should really be included as a warning to anyone seriously or even casually thinking about using this codec, not to mention the bug it places on videos encoded with it. Off the record, don't use DivX... use XviD instead so we'll all be happy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.10.142.29 (talk • contribs).

I don't know what you're talking about. But I know that Wikipedia articles certainly need stronger evidence than some vague statements like "I seem to remember that some people perhaps didn't like it for some reason, even though I don't remember why exactly." And helpful suggestions ("use XviD instead of DivX") also don't belong in Wikipedia articles - Wikipedia can only present objective facts, not opinions. Readers are free to think whatever they want to think about it. As for the "bug" you mention - DivX doesn't place any watermark into video it encodes. The DivX decoder adds it to the picture during playback, to inform the user that the video is being decoded with DivX. Besides, users can turn it off in preferences. --J. M. 22:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
That's why I didn't put it in the article, I put it on the talk page. 68.10.142.29 15:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, but then I don't understand why you're saying "This should really be included as a warning". When it's not clear what you're talking about, the warning is not convincing on the talk page either. --J. M. 04:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I put this here in the hopes that someone with a better memory would come along and verify this, I'm quite sure that it did happen, but I don't feel that this is requisite confidence to make an edit to the article. To elaborate, I believe the issue occured when sites offering pornographic videos were forced by the controllers of DivX to remove all videos on their sites which were encoded with the DivX codec because they didn't want their codec associated with such content. While this is entirely within their rights, I see such forced control as a reason to seek alternatives. 68.10.142.29 16:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This strikes me as bias

While DivX has long been renowned for its excellent video quality, its open-source equivalent XviD, also based on MPEG-4 Part 2, now offers comparable quality. In a series of subjective quality tests at Doom9.org, the DivX codec was beaten by XviD in the 2003, 2004, and 2005 tests. Objective testing, however, tells a different story with DivX achieving higher ratings than XviD.

Regarding that last link, "objective testing", that's not a good test, and objective benchmarks don't prove anything anyway. I propose to delete the last sentence in the paragraph quoted above. It sounds way too final and authoritative considering it's just a link to some guy's flawed test.

I'm worried my own deletion will come across as bias, which is why I'm talking about it here instead of just deleting it straight away. I'll probably wait a week before making this edit. Snacky 22:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

For something like this double-blind subjective tests are a good idea. And good objective tests can be developed, but it requires extensive research to determine what makes something look good or bad to a human. Note how the Q value proposed does correlate with perceived image quality.

OK, I finally deleted it. I hope people will not repeat the practice of linking to some random forum post and surrounding their link with high-falutin' text like "Objective tests, however,..." Snacky 16:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MS MPEG-4 v3

I see there have been many revert wars regarding which version of MS MPEG-4 was the progenitor of DivX 3.11. As it happens, the answer is MS MPEG-4 v3 (the "v3" has nothing to do with the parts of the MPEG-4 spec; it's a version of MS's own stupid spec/software/whatever). I thought this was common knowledge; if you'd like to see some links, try google, or just read http://www.avisynth.org/DivX . And a raspberry to all the people who kept changing it back without bothering to at least google.

[edit] What Divx is.

Do remember that a codec is not equal to a compression format, although many people seem to equate the two. Prior to the introduction of the DivX encapulation format the phrase "DivX video" was meaningless. Calling it an ASP-coded video would have been correct. That is because any codec supporting decoding of MPEG-4's ASP compression format can be used to veiw videos encoded by DivX. The term now has actual meaning, but is only correct when used to refer to video in the DivX encapulation format. I am really starting to worry about people confusing Compression formats, encapulation formats, and codecs. look at all the people talking about ogg files when they mean ogg vorbis files. Tacvek 18:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I totally and wholeheartedly agree with you. In fact, I consider this the greatest myth in computer history. I have years of (sad and painful) experience with this extremely widespread and immortal myth and its harmful effects.
IMO, this started with the absurd FourCC system in AVI, where every codec is supposed to have its own FourCC - even if it uses the same compression standard as many other codecs do (audio files don't have FourCC, so nobody thinks of a LAME-encoded MP3 file as "LAME file" or "LAME format" - yet, the same twisted logic is applied to MPEG-4 video codecs. Interestingly, not to MPEG-2 codecs, or MPEG-1 codecs... So it just doesn't make any sense.) So users are supposed to install many decoders for the same format. This fits the marketing interests of commercial companies that produce video codecs - when they sell an MPEG-4 codec for instance, their marketing departments try to please everyone with schizophrenic sentences like "Our company invented this revolutionary video codec called "XYZ" that is fully compliant with MPEG-4 standard, so check out the stunning quality of the XYZ format". Firstly, they intentionally confuse users with statements suggesting that they invented the format (which is revolutionary in the size/quality ratio - 5-10 times better than MPEG-2 on DVDs etc.; they don't say that MPEG-4 was in fact developed by MPEG). Secondly, while they cannot deny that their codec just encodes and decodes standard MPEG-4 video, at the same time they want the potential customers to think their codec is special in some way, not just one of many MPEG-4 codecs. So they say it is a format and users need their codec for using this "format".
Now, the early DivX ;-) 3.11 codec, which was immensely popular, made this way of thinking "a norm". There was the DivX ;-) codec, there was no alternative (at first), so it was obvious you had to use DivX ;-) for movies encoded with DivX ;-). Since then, almost everyone thinks that video codec is a video format. DivX, Inc. is well aware of this and takes advantage of it - the success of their DivX codec is largely caused by general lack of knowledge (and the huge success of DivX ;-), which was actually a non-standard Microsoft codec - the first codec the DivX company really developed was DivX 4, which was an MPEG-4 codec, unlike DivX ;-) 3.11) and the Great DivX Myth, which still makes many users (and unfortunately also clueless article authors) think that DivX is some unique state-of-the-art work of a genius and nothing comparable exists.
And when the XviD team made their own MPEG-4 codec, the internet is now full of "XviD movies", articles explain how to play or encode video "in XviD format" and other nonsense. And nobody knows there are many other MPEG-4 codecs, MPEG-4 video is simply called "DivX/XviD", no matter which codec (FFmpeg MPEG-4, 3ivx, Apple MPEG-4...) was actually used for encoding.
Which has disastrous consequences, distorts not only the video codec market, but also software market in other areas, harms important and excellent projects like FFmpeg (which is ignored by the whole world mainly due to this DivX/XviD myth), makes people download and install plenty of useless software (which causes many problems on their computers) and call other MPEG-4 codecs or video encoded with other MPEG-4 codecs "DivX" etc. etc. The effects are plentiful and far-reaching.
As for current DivX - it is still an MPEG-4 ASP codec and the container format they've developed for the 6.x version is still optional. In fact, I think most people still use DivX-encoded video (i.e. MPEG-4 ASP video) in the old AVI format. J. M. 04:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
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