Jerome Rota

Jerome Rota (born 1973) is a French software developer born in Montpellier, France. He also known by the name Gej.[1]

In 1999, while he was working as a graphic designer and a technical director in an advertising agency in France, he made the "DivX ;-)" 3.11 Alpha video codec (the smiley was a part of the name) by hacking the Microsoft MPEG-4v3 codec[2] (which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant) from Windows Media Tools 4 codecs.[3][4] His hack had the advantage of supporting the AVI formatted files. Initial peer-to-peer rapid spread of the program turned into its introductions to the markets. As a result, a company was established.

The new project was first given the name ProjectMayo, and an open-source MPEG-4 codec called OpenDivX was made.[1] It was later changed into a proprietary, closed-source product and the name was changed to DivX (dropping the smiley from the original MSMPEG-4 hack). Rota joined the company DivX, Inc. (formerly known as DivXNetworks, Inc.), based in San Diego, in 2000.[5] The company employed up to 300 employees by February 2007.

References

  1. ^ a b Cave, Damien (15 March 2001). "Escaping the Napster trap". Salon. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. http://www.webcitation.org/5ubbSuZaF. 
  2. ^ Allbritton, Chris (30 July 200). "MOVIE PIRATES ATTACK THE WEB New software reduces the price of a ticket to $0". Daily News. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. http://www.webcitation.org/5ubcJxt12. 
  3. ^ "VirtualDub documentation: codecs". www.virtualdub.org. http://www.virtualdub.org/docs_codecs.html. Retrieved 8 August 2009. 
  4. ^ "Video Codec Definitions". www.FOURCC.ofg. http://www.fourcc.org/codecs.php. Retrieved 8 August 2009. 
  5. ^ Stam, Nick (11 January 2005). "DivX: Full Stream Ahead!". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. http://www.webcitation.org/5ubc1GgUV.