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Format wars: Can DivX still go legit, or has H.264 already won?
Once upon a time, DivX was the hot video codec. That wasn't because any major company was backing the format. It's because it offered high quality standard and high definition video encoding at relatively small file sizes. In other words, it's ideal for encoding bootleg videos of movies and TV shows for uploading to the internet.
In fact, if you download pretty much any movie from BitTorrent or another shady area of the internet, odds are that it'll either be encoded using DivX, or open source competitor Xvid. (Basically, most video players and hardware that can handle DivX can also handle Xvid).
But what about legitimate video distribution? That's where the money is, and that's where DivX wants to be. The company has succeeded in getting its certification on a ton of DVD and Blu-ray players and other set top boxes. But some of the most popular portable media players including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Zune HD cannot support DivX video out of the box. Instead, they use the ever-more popular H.264 codec, which is also supported by the latest versions of Flash video.
Given the ever-increasing hype surrounding Flash video and the iPhone, it's easy to start to think that DivX could be on the way out. But DivX points out that there are more than 200-million DivX certified devices already on the market including disc players, digital TVs, and gaming consoles.
And today online video site CinemaNow announced that it would launch a new video download service powered by DivX. The site will go live tomorrow at divx.cinemanow.com, and users will be able to purchase and download-to-own a number of videos from the CinemaNow library.
CinemaNow offers a number of TV shows and Hollywood movies that are available for rental or purchase. Prices range from $1.99 to $19.99, and the DivX videos will only be available for purchase, not rental.
CinemaNow will also offer DivX downloads through partner stores for BlockBuster and Best Buy. So while CinemaNow doesn't exactly have the name recognition of iTunes or Amazon, the announcement could give DivX a pretty big boost in the ongoing codec wars.
So maybe it's not time to count DivX out just yet.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsDavidDec 16th 2009 7:21PM
Nobody gives a crap about Div-X.The vast majority of all video torrents (at least those anyone with a brain would download) use Xvid,period.
TheOneAndOnlyJHDec 16th 2009 9:19PM
So if you have a brain, you download Xvid and hate on DivX? Didn't you notice the point where DivX is pushing it's certification to many standalone players, and therefore enabling Xvid as well? I download DivX and xVid, since the playback codec is free, and to me they are pretty much interchangeable.
So if DivX is making it possible to also play Xvid on these players, of all the Xvid supporters I find it hard to believe that "nobody gives a crap." I would instead think you would want DivX to suceed, which would give a boost to Xvid as a sister codec in the open source market. If H264 takes over completely then you can say goodbye to DivX support, and Xvid in turn.
David RonDec 16th 2009 9:19PM
I think HTML 5 might be the most important factor. Currently, the tag in some browser support H.264, and in others,Theora. If one format wins this battle, any device that can browse the web will most likely support that format in hardware (for efficiency and power consumption reasons), and will seal the deal for that format.
JackDec 17th 2009 12:23AM
I been using DiVX devices for over 5 years. Really happy with them as of today. Once Divx had Stage6 service it was but they closed it. It really does not matter its DiVX or XVId they just work for me.
CinemaNow - Good start but one BIG problem, $$ for movies. Why anyone buy a movie which cost $19.99 on CinemaNow vs getting it from BestBuy or walmart convert them using DiVX to play on home devices. If CinemaNow sells me the same move for $5 or under I will think of using their service.
JamesDec 17th 2009 1:48AM
For me it comes down to: what can I a) play on my 360 and PS3, b) for free, c) with decent quality, d) in minimal filesize? h.264 via handbrake fits the bill great, for me.
VDDec 17th 2009 11:44AM
This article could have made some better points, i believe.
First of all DivX is legit (why wouldn't it be), and H.264 is not a codec, it's a standard. Even more, Divx 7 includes a H.264 compliant codec, with support for the MKV container format.
We could also say that Divx (the company), with their certification system, is probably responsible for the existence of so many hardware players (including Xbox and PS3) that can play pretty much any file you throw at them (if encoded right of course).
In my opinion, Divx's failure in the format wars is that they didn't get the industry's attention when war was fought. The standard Divx codec, or Xvid if you prefer, can deliver very good quality 720p on standard dual layer DVD, on hardware that was already on the market a few years ago. Instead, someone thought it was better to skip a generation, pour a lot of money on R&D to develop several competing technologies, which need three times the processing power to encode/decode, and make the early adopters pay three times more money for new players and movies. It would have been much better for consumers, and much cheaper for the movie industry as well, if Divx devices we're used when the HD revolution started, at least as a stopgap solution until a single next-gen HD format, preferably open, was developed.
In fact, I'm still not entirely convinced a new disc format was needed now. As we all know (wink-wink-nudge-nudge), a dual layer DVD can hold very good quality 1080p movie in H.264 format, okay maybe without extras, but extras can be streamed from the internet, so again why did we have the format wars when a cheaper solution could have been available even three or four years ago? It could have been that simple: take existing Divx players, put a HD decoding chip in them and internet conectivity (or at least some kind of easy firmware upgrade solution), movie industry encodes in MPEG4 instead of MPEG2 on the same medium, and that's it.
Nowadays, the cost factor is probably no longer an issue, Blu-ray players and discs are getting cheaper. However, the Divx codec could still be used to replace the old standard definition DVDs with 720p content at about the same cost, without having many compatibility issues (even the cheapest DVD players now have Divx certification). But this would most likely threaten Blu-ray sales, and I doubt anyone in the industry would want that.
porfitronDec 23rd 2009 5:52PM
Also, DivX, Inc. fully embraced H.264/MKV in the DivX Plus HD format, which was announced in the release of DivX 7 almost a year ago. The Hollywood content coming out now is DivX 6 (DivX/AVI) format because there are roughly 200 million devices out there ready to play them (that's right, devices that have been selling for years), so DivX not only has the past/present devices covered, but the future in DivX Plus HD, which is already making an impact on Windows 7 with the "DivX Plus Tech Preview - MKV on Windows 7." More info is on DivX Labs...