Will Mpeg4/DivX and WMV9 be the death of VCD/SVCD?

[NeVeRLiFt]

Press Release Source: DivXNetworks


KiSS Technology To Release First DivX(TM) Compatible DVD Player
Tuesday October 22, 8:30 am ET
KiSS DVD Player DP-450 Offers Playback Of Videos Encoded In DivX 4.xx And 5.xx

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/021022/047810.html





Microsoft and Pioneer Announce Support for Windows Media 9 Series In Pioneer's Upcoming Digital Network Entertainment Products

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/Press/2002/Jul02/07-15DigitaLibraryPR.asp

[vitualis]

No, DVD will be the death of VCD/SVCD!

Everything that S/VCD can do, DVD does better -- and it has additional capabilities as well.

I'll make a DivX discs as standard when every DVD player can play them and I can author menus...

Regards.

[NeVeRLiFt]

If you could put DivX on DVD right now you could fit 6 2hr movies on one and the quality would be as good as any SVCD are better.

I'm also excited about making my own DVD's

[Greg12]

WMV9 will be the death of it'self.


Why would u use a codec you can't decompress?
Why would u use a codec that if u can't use on other computers uneless u tell Microsoft you are?

[Thorn]

LOL... but then again asf was used a lot (not by anyone who knows what they're doing of course) and with MS backing wmv will get used.

To make a valid comparison, you'd have to compare DVD quality mpeg2 with divx encodes, and I haven't been convinced the quality is the same yet. Close, but maybe not enough for this to hit mainstream yet.

Maybe if you could legally download movies and burn them to a disc and play them on your DVD/Divx player... I think that would not only be great for geeks, but it would appeal to the average user and bridge the whole 'yea it looks great on the computer but what about watching it on the couch on a friday night?' problem. Then the market would explode and you could get these things for a reasonable price.

I'd personally like to see the market evolve to the point that you can get a DVD/divx player with tivo functionality. Then I could save myself the trouble of building a box for my living room that looks good and is quiet.

[AceYu]

sounds like the big companies getting on the divx etc bandwagon so they can add digital right managment where they can. I wouldn't say that VCD/SVCD will be disappering any time soon given the massive user base it has

Later BRETT

[Greg12]

VCD-CD will probally fade out and be replaced by VCD-DVD.

Trust me, with Sit-Coms and talk shows, MPEG 1 @ 1800kbs is more than enough.

[crahak]

Well, I fear this is going to be one of those long threads very soon I, myself, much prefer the quality of DivX, but I still use SVCD's for short episodes as they're easy to toss in the DVD player. Mind you, all these people that think DivX can only be watched on a computer drive me nuts, as any el-cheapo video card I've ever owned (or just about) even got a S-video out on it. The only annoyance to that, is you have to go turn the video output on. I still wouldn't mind the DivX players, just so the kids can play the discs easily. DivX on DVD don't sound bad at all either Oh well. M$ crap will hopefully cause it's own death I really hope for MPEG4 type of players anyhow. Can't see VCD-DVD though.

[vitualis]

By VCD-DVD I think he meant that authoring standard DVDs with MPEG-1 video rather than MPEG-2 (which you are allowed to do in the specs)...

Regards.

[Smart Dumb Guy]

Nice, here's how I see it:

Pros:

- You don't lose any quality if the source already happens to be DivX, since you don't need to transcode it (no 7-8 hour transcoding sessions).
- You can fit more on a disk (cut down on the DVD piles).

Cons:
- Noone else is gonna have one, so your friends can't borrow the disks.
- It's probably pricey.
- DivX isn't quite up to DVD standards IMHO.

Would be nice to use DivX for a next gen video disk standard.
For exampe say for a HDTV quality (1920x1080 or 1280x720) video disk. However is MPEG4 / DivX limited to 640x480?

I have heard they are working on an increased capacity DVD disk called a Blue-Ray disk, which will hold something like 25GB per side, which is 50GB per disk.

See http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/amia-l/2002/03/msg00046.html

[vitualis]

MPEG-4 is not limited to 640x480.

MPEG-4, though is a good compression method, may not be appropriate for a video disc standard (at least, not a high quality one). My impression at least, is that the fidelity of MPEG-4 doesn't match MPEG-2 when you ramp up the bitrate.

With DVD and definitely Blu-Ray, there will not be a disc size/bitrate limitation problem like there is with S/VCD on CD media. There is little benefit then it choosing a video compression method that is realistically optimised for a low bitrate solution rather than fidelity at high bitrates.

BTW, for those of you hopefuls itching to get this player so you can show off your awesome DivX collections, remember, there is a better than average chance that it may not playback your discs! DivX is hardly a standardised format (e.g., with people using all sorts of audio with it, encoding it with all sorts of funny resolutions and bitrate settings) and I wouldn't be surprised if this player will actually only play DivX video recordings of a number of strict specifications. Furthermore, this player will almost certainly NOT support DivX 3.11 alpha...

Regards.

[snowmoon]

mpeg-2 is still a very viable format. I have not seen the quality im mpeg-4 when dealing with a wide variety of sources. It is just now ( xvid ) starting to handle interlacing.

I guarentee that any STB will be incompatible with the majority of your files. These STB will more than likley start imposing restriction that can compromise quality on an overall scale as well as impose AAC, mp2, or PCM for audio. Even a good Xbox might have trouble with some of the advanced mp4 codecs availible peaking up in the bitrates.

All in all mpeg4's time will come, but not until DVD's start to wane. DVD/Mpeg-2 gives 99% of consumers everything they need. With the growing userbase of DVD burners both in standalone and PC based I double a mpeg-4 STB in real quantity will be anything more than a dream.

Mpeg-4, Blue-ray, FMD, and other technologies have been months away for years now, when I can buy a unit wake me up. 8)

[NeVeRLiFt]

I'm glad to see you guys bring up the point on the settings/profile that this DVD-Mpeg4 player may impose.
I want to see what resolutions and bitrates and audio types it can handle.
I'm curious about how it will work and if it will play Mpeg4 thats on a DVD or CD....

[medievil]

Mpeg-4, Blue-ray, FMD, and other technologies have been months away for years now, when I can buy a unit wake me up. 8)

huh??? Didn't Divx Fail once already, Commercially?
IMHO, Divx is much lower quality than a good Mpeg-2 stream. Divx fault is it's high compression. you lose to much sharpness.
Plus with Dvd burner prices dropping. Who cares about file size?

[NeVeRLiFt]

Mpeg-4, Blue-ray, FMD, and other technologies have been months away for years now, when I can buy a unit wake me up. 8)

huh??? Didn't Divx Fail once already, Commercially?
IMHO, Divx is much lower quality than a good Mpeg-2 stream. Divx fault is it's high compression. you lose to much sharpness.
Plus with Dvd burner prices dropping. Who cares about file size?

Your thinking about something else I assume.

I can upload you pleanty of 2hr movies I have made that fit 1cd and when watched on my TV people think there watching the DVD

Live and learn... are be schooled 8)

[Greg12]

It would be nice if it were possible to burn a DVD with DIVX files on it.

[bpjenn]

Divx is great if you capture or encode above 4000kbps. Below that it's worse than VCD. Stick with MPEG 1 or 2 for now. Also, WMV9 looks good above 3000kbps, but it takes eons to encode.

[xed]

Actually DiVX will spell the end of DVD, not VCD or SVCD.
MPEG-4 encoded on my computer looks significantly better than MPEG-2 at the same bitrate and the filesize of MPEG-4 is much smaller for equivalent quiality video files to MPEG-2.
MPEG-4 has much less obvious compression artifacts when you crank up the bitrate to a decent level -- say, above 3 megabits, preferably above 4 megabits. In my experience, a DiVX file at 4 megabits looks better than a TMPGEnc'd MPEG-2 file at 6 megabits.
The downside of DivX is that there are many, many more strange settings to toy with. SOme of 'em can really croggle your encoding. With MPEG-2 the settings are relatively straightforward. Some of the settings in DiVX are "black magic" stuff hose function uttelry baffles me and which the user guides basically tell you "don't touch." None of hte settings in MPEG-2 encoding are incomprehjensible, and twaeking 'em seems to gracefully degrade or enhance the video quality.
DiVX will eventually shove DVD aside because DiVX is a much more efficient encoding method. It produces better results with a smaller filesize. DVD player mfr's will be forced to universally support MPEG-4 playback because that's the only way left for DVD player mfr's to gainmarket share...by playing file formats the other mfr's can't handle.
As a result, all DVD players will handle DiVX playback within a year or two at most, and the playback will get more stable as time goes on (i.e., DVD players will handel a wider and wider variety of non-standard or oddball DiVX settings as time goes on). That last is an easy prediction because we've seen the same thing with playback of VCD, then SVCD, then XVCD and CVD and XSVCD etc.
Hollywood will find itself forced to move to DiVX support because it's so much more efficient.
I mean, look... DVD-R blanks cost money. They also take up space. Which would you prefer -- putting 1 movie on a DVD-R blank, or 6, of identical quality?
For archiving old TV shows from VHS tape obviously DiVX is a godsend. You can put the entire run of Trek - Next Gen on less than 30 DVD-Rs in DiVX format. You can put all the really good essential Babylon 5 episodes on about 14 DVD-Rs in DiVX format. The whole run of Balke's 7 will fit on about 18 DVD-Rs.
Multiply those numbers by 6 to get MPEG-2 DVDs and you'll realize why people will move to DiVX en masse and why Holywood will be forced to follow.
When we get blu-ray disks, drop those numbers by a factor of 6. All of Trek - Gen on 5 (five!) blu-ray discs in DiVX format.
Yow!

[vitualis]

I actually have to disagree with you xed.

DivX will in no way spell the end of DVD. The issue here is of fidelity.

Although at low bitrates MPEG-4 looks significantly better than MPEG-2, at high bitrates MPEG-4 does not compare as well. With DVD bitrates and specifications, MPEG-2 reaches or is near transparency. That means, it can look pretty much identical to the uncompressed source if you encode properly. That is, excellent fidelity. I don't believe that MPEG-4 fares as well at these high bitrates.

In a way, it is similar to MP2/3 vs. WMA. WMA may compress better at lower bitrates, but if you can ramp up the bitrate, MP2/3 will be better at actual audio fidelity.

With DVD and indeed, its successors, there is not and will not be the relative bitrate starvation as there is with VCD and SVCD. The logical choice, in terms of fidelity, will be not to go with DivX.

Simply, the "efficiency" of DivX is irrelevant when you don't need to be "efficient".

As for your prediction of more and more DVD players supporting DivX, that has yet to be seen, and indeed, I find it unlikely.

What is more likely is that in the interim (while DVD recorders are still expensive), there will be a handful of players that support a limited set of DivX4/5, or Microsoft's video format or the RealNetwork's MPEG-4 codec with some sort of Digital Rights Management scheme. In the long-term, these "novelty" features will fall to the wayside as most people can afford to simply use and author recordable DVD media.

Hollywood will find itself forced to move to DiVX support because it's so much more efficient.

This makes no sense at all. Why would Hollywood choose the option that would limit its profits? If it could market a product (say the entire season of Star Trek) on ONE disc versus SEVEN, it will obviously go for the option of SEVEN discs. It won't cost them a whole lot more to make, but they will definitely earn a lot more money.

As to a move to DivX en masse? I'm yet to see it or even the slight stirrings of it. The most likely thing that will happen is that more and more people will increasing move to standard DVD authoring and DivX and similar technologies will be segmented to the task it was designed to do -- low bitrate video distribution on the internet.

Regards.

[kitty]

Remember this: if there is a threat to Hollywood Studio / Recording Company profits, they will run in the opposite direction as best they can.

There is no benefit for big profit center content creators to go to divx - not retail wise & not technology wise (see Michael's posts).

From a consumer standpoint there is a good use for divx - small sizes and good quality. Making players is tough but some companies will get in there a bit. But there will be no mass introduction of mpeg4 into players and we're feeling the drag on the market as the number of entrenched players will dictate features (unless the newer players with newer features like divx are VERY inexpensive). Why should aunt Edna buy a new player (to replace the one she bought for $100 US 6 months ago) just to play the divx movie I just burned. She'd laugh in my face & say give her a disc that will play - I reencode & burn a MPEG2 and she's happy. (relative simulated)

Players with divx are the betamax of this decade - technically better but not a consumer mainstream concept.

[crahak]

Personally, I think DivX looks much better than MPEG2 if encoded right. However, like has been said in other threads, a good DivX player isn't around the corner yet. DivX players would sure play Divx 4/5 video, along with MP3 sound, otherwise... Makes me think of ogg vorbis, XviD, WMA, and every other codec some people feel like using once in a while it seems. Also, there are LOTs of issues like if it would play movies with weird resolutions, how it would cope with aspect ratios, up to which bitrates, proper VBR handling, "real" MPEG4/AAC... Lots of things like that come to my mind. I thought everything had been said already... They might be upgradeable, but they'll still be limited, even with hacks to say, play movies encoded with hacked codecs.

MPEG4 isn't advancing all that fast it seems. As for Blue Ray disc, well, I don't expect to see that anytime soon. People are STILL buying LOADS of apexand such DVD players. Hardly anyone has a 16:9/HDTV either (of course, one is bound to try to prove me wrong here). Why would one want to buy a 500$ player for their old 10 year old 20" TV when I still know lots of people who record on their VCR tapes...? I'd love a nice huge 16:9 HDTV and all the gear, but we're talking $$$ here. More $$$ than most people can afford (unless you're a spoiled kid, are a lawyer/doctor(...), or watching TV is all you seem to spend any real money on...) Only a fraction of people I know have DVD players or TVs 27" or bigger. I can't see them new things go mainstream anytime soon.

This sounds a lot like every other DivX VS (X)(S)VCD thread anyhow...
Flame away :P

[easydvd]

I'm with Virtualis....at HIGH bitrate, greater than 5mbs, mpeg4 does not stand up to mpeg2.

On to another thought.......
the only reason I haven't bought myself a DVD burner yet.........NO standardized format. Don't want a Beta machine in a VHS world

[xed]

Many thanks to Virtualis and Kitty for their thoughtful replies.
Permit me, however, to demur (ever so rspectfully) with both Virtualis and Kitty.
First I would have to agree that DiVX looks better than MPEG2 if encoded correctly -- and not just at low bitrates. However, bear in mind that I am talking about playback on my computer. For plyaback on my analog TV set let's be honest - beyond some high bitrate (let's say, 8 mbits or so) I can see no difference between DiVX and MPEG2, nor can I see any significant difference twixt the encoded DiVX/MPEG-2 file and a DV format recording of the original program material and the original program material itself. When I say "significant" here, bear in mind that there are usually slight differences involving gamma and chroma settings. Each of these needs must be tweaked differently for each encoder, in my experience (TMPGEnc tends to encode with a low gamma and to get something that looks identical to the original program source at even high bitrates, in my experience you need to bump up the gamma slightly. Vidomi also tends compress gamma values very slightly when encoding, albeit less so in my eperience than TMPGenc).
So it seems to me that Virtualis is making a distinction without a difference here. On a super-high-rez video monitor (like a computer monitor) you may indeed be able to see some slight difference twixt a high-bitrate MPEG-2 file and a DiVX file at the same bitrate, with a slight nod in quality going to the MPEG-2 file. But in the real world, most people watch TV on their TV sets -- for instance, everyone I know prefers to watch their DVDs on a DVD player through their home TV and preferably their home stereo system. Given a choice I think it's reasonable to say that most folks prefer to watch digital video through their TVs rather than their computers.
That being the case, beyond some bitrate DiVX and MPEG-2 look for all practical purposes identical on an analog TV set. However, note that at that bitrate, the DiVX file always be significantly smaller.
That means DiVX is more efficient at encoding video.
Now permit me once again to disagree with Virtualis at this point. Virtualis remarked (and I quote) "With DVD and indeed, its successors, there is not and will not be the relative bitrate starvation as there is with VCD and SVCD."
Alas, not so.
DVD is limited to 4.3 gigs in size. Blu-ray discs, although capable of holding (perhaps) 6 times as much data, will also be limited in size. In fact, even if we go to Babylon-5-style data crystals (pure sci-fi here), the storage medium will A*L*W*A*Y*S be limited in its capacity.
Thus, ALL digital recording media are always subject to "relative bitrate starvation." As time moves on and more and stuff gets released on digital video (and as capture cards get cheaper and more and folks archive onto digital storage media their old VHS tapes of, say, STAR COPS or MOTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, or what-have-you), the demand for storage space will _always_ outstrip the supply.
Now, speaking as an old hand who started with an Apple II+ whose awesome capacity of 133 kilobytes per 16-sector single-sidded 5.25 inch floppy disk stunned everyone back in 1980, I speak from some experience here. Each time we got new digital storage media (360K 5.25" floppies, 720K 3.5" inch disks, 1.44 meg 3.5 inch disks, 5 meg hard drives, then 10 megs, then 32 megs, then 100, then 1 gig, 2 gigs, 8, 13, 20, 40, and now 60 and 80 and 120 gigs...each time the computer industry assured us "this is all the storage space you will ever need!"
What a gallimaufry of gardyloo.
Pure foofaraw.
Utter codswollop from a pack of arrant thimbleriggers.
There is no such thing as "enough storage space" for digital media. Period. Case closed. End of story. I have been down this road often enough, from the Apple II+ to my PC XT to my 386 machine to to my 486 to my Pentium to my P3 and now my 1.8 Ghz P4, to know that alla vaialble digital storage space soon gets run over and used, and we *always* wind up begging for more.
This means that the efficiency of the digital video encoding *always* counts. Moreover, it counts for a lot.
Let's take a specific example to see just how mistaken Virtualis is (in my humble and doubtless ignorant opinion, of course). Let's say you want to archive the entire run of Babylon 5. That's 88 episodes. Let's call that 22 DVDs. If we assume DVD-R media cost a buck each, that's 22 bucks.
If we encode those with DiVX and store 'em on standard DVD media, we can get at least 12 B5 episodes per DVD. That's 8 DVD-Rs full of DiVX-encoded b5 episodes with equivalent video and audio quality. Total ost 8 bucks.
The savings for this one TV series comes to $14. Now multiply that by (say) 20 TV series. Total savings $240.
If we move on to archiving currently running TV shows, let's say you have 6 TV shows you want to record on digital media each week. Total cost = 6 bucks per week or roughly $300 per year. By using DiVX you cut that by a factor of 6, to about $50 per year.
Now add on trading old TV shows (or whatever -- perhaps impossible-to-find silent films off laserdisc, or anything else you prefer). If you trade (say) 20 shows per week add on another $10 per week for MPEG-2 format, but only 1/6 of that for DiVX format.
My point here is that people will always go for the lower price given equivalent quality. It's just basic economics. If a DiVX file looks identical to the MPEG-2 file on your TV and if you DVD player can play it, why _wouldn't_ you move to encoding in DiVX format?
Therefore Virtualis' claim "Simply, the `efficiency' of DivX is irrelevant when you don't need to be `efficient'" is altogether wrong, since we always need to be efficient when storing digital media.
Why?
Because (as computer folks know) our ability to fill up digital storage media expands in direct proportion to the storage space available. Another way of putting this is that if we encode using MPEG-2 our budget will force us to avoid trading for, or avoid recording, some stuff on video we would otherwise get. By using DiVX, we get more storage space and thus our budget stretches farther. So we will wind up trading for lots more videos and recording lots more videos than we otherwise would.
This is a basic reality of the computer industry. No matter how large your hard disk gets, you waill _always_ find a way to fill it -- and in roughly the same time as you fille dyour older much smaller hard disk. The same goes for DVD-R discs. No matter how much larger our digital media discs gets (whether with blu-ray, or by more efficient encoding with DiVX) we will al ways find a way to fill those recordable discs up, and in about the same amount of time we took to fill up our old CD-Rs with SVCD and VCD files.
Demand always increases to fit available supply. That's basic economics.
Now we come to a question of fact:
Virtual remarks "As for your prediction of more and more DVD players supporting DivX, that has yet to be seen, and indeed, I find it unlikely."
Good.
Let's see.
I will bet virtualis here and now that there will be more DVD players suporting DiVX playback 6 months from now than there are today. I also bet that there will be a LOT more DVD players supporting DVD playback one year from today than there are in 6 months.
Let's see who's right.
Keep an eye out!
Now permit me once again to disagree with Virtualis:
"Quote: Hollywood will find itself forced to move to DiVX support because it's so much more efficient.
"This makes no sense at all. Why would Hollywood choose the option that would limit its profits? If it could market a product (say the entire season of Star Trek) on ONE disc versus SEVEN, it will obviously go for the option of SEVEN discs. It won't cost them a whole lot more to make, but they will definitely earn a lot more money." - Virtualis.
On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. Here's how:
Hollywood will choose the option that limits it profits in preference to watching its profits disappear entirely. We saw exactly the same thing with VCRs. At first, Hollywood tried to fight home taping. They lost. They lost big-time, in every possible way. Theylsot int he courts and they failed to keep people in practical terms from taping any TV shows at home, or from copying rental laserdiscs and RCA Selectavision discs.
So in the end Hollywood gave in. If they had refused to release their movies on VHS tape, Hollywood would have lost 100% of possible revenues from VHS. Instead, Hollywood chose to sit still and take the loss of revenues from folks home-taping (say) HBO broadcasts of their movies because at least they got _some_ money from releasing official VHS tapes of their movies. Now, everybody knew good 'n well that lots 'n lots of folks who rented VHS tapes from the store copied 'em at home. So Hollywood lost a potential sale of $29.95 or $39.95 for each movie it released on VHS. But Hollywood chose to lose that potential sale income in return for getting a small piece of the rental income -- which turned out to be big bucks as time went on.
The people who run Hollywood make be greedy and corrupt, but they're not stupid. Some money is better than no money. So Hollywood gave in and released all their films on VHS eventually.
Hollywood will release all its movies in DiVX format eventually for the same reason -- some revenue is better than no revenue. Let's think about it -- suppose Hollywood tries to stonewall DiVX and keep releasing movies and TV shows in MPEG-2 DVD format.
What will happen?
I can tell you exactly what will happen. People who are disgusted with paying $88 for a box set of some TV series will buy the box set, encode it into DiVX, copy those 18 DVDs onto 3 DVD-Rs, then re-sell the box set.
Net result? Hollywood gets zero revenue from that person.
But suppose instead that Holywood gives in and releases DiVX versions of the same box set on 3 DVD-Rs and charges less money. Then Hollywood gets some revenue, instead of no revenue.
Same deal as with releasing movies on VHS. Hollywood fought it widlly at first, then gave in, and now VHS release of films represents a significant source of revenue for Hollywood. Same thing will happen with DiVX.
Now permit me to massively disagree with Virtualis:
"As to a move to DivX en masse? I'm yet to see it or even the slight stirrings of it." -Virtualis.
Pardon, sir, but the groundswell is already of tsunami proportions --and getitng bigger every day. Do a google search for "DiVX video" or "DiVX trading."
Clearly DiVX is taking the world by storm -- it's merely being ignored and dissed by Hollywood. Well, same deal as with home taping back in the day. At first Hollywood ignored it, then they tried to fight it. Both efforts failed.
Eventually Hollywood capitulated, and the same will prove true for DiVX. Hollywood will eventually be forced to give in because some revenue is better than no revenue.
Once again let me disagree with Virtualis whenhe predicts: " The most likely thing that will happen is that more and more people will increasing move to standard DVD authoring and DivX and similar technologies will be segmented to the task it was designed to do -- low bitrate video distribution on the internet."
No, quite wrong.
Here's why:
Suppose you have 1000 VHS tapes you want to put on digital disc. That's $1000 in DVD-R costs if you use MPEG-2...or $160 in DVD-R media if you use DiVX.
Question: which encoding format will you use?
(As Keanu said to the mad bomber in SPEED, "What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?")
You can chose to save yourself $840 by using DiVX. Will you?
Please.
You know the answer to that as well as I do.
---
Now, moving on to the well-considered but incorrect post by Kitty, who wrote:
"Remember this: if there is a threat to Hollywood Studio / Recording Company profits, they will run in the opposite direction as best they can."
Doesn't history prove the exact opposite, Kitty?
Hollywood *tried* to run in the opposite direction of home taping...but in the end they embraced it. Hollywood *tried* to run in the opposite direction of distributing their product over the internet...but now they've embraced that too (in a limited way. Much more will follow soon).
In fact, doesn't history show that Hollywood always run directly toward the threat to the Hollwyood Studio / Recording Company profits? Because after all, some profit is better than none, isn't it?
Moreover, there is a great deal of benefit for the Hollywood studios to go toward DiVX, contrary to Kitty's claim that "There is no benefit for big profit center content creators to go to divx - not retail wise & not technology wise (see Michael's posts). "
The benefits are many for Hollywood:
[1] DiVX will allow Hollywood studios to include even more of the "extras" that add value to a movie or TV show, since DiVX fits much more video on the same DVD media;
[2] DiVX will allow Hollywood to stamp more video footage on a single disc, reducing manufacting and distributing and pacakging costs;
[3] DiVX keeps Hollywood in the running when the rest of the world has moved to DiVX as THE video standard -- because, in the end, you just can't fight Main Street no matter how hard you try;
[4] DiVX will prove *much* more efficient for internet broadband distrbution of Hollywood content -- which the major studios are already beginning to get into, and which will soon become another major profit source for Hollywood.
Permit me also to disagree with Kitty when she claims:
"But there will be no mass introduction of mpeg4 into players and we're feeling the drag on the market as the number of entrenched players will dictate features (unless the newer players with newer features like divx are VERY inexpensive)."
Once again, history shows the exact opposite, doesn't it?
Instead of "the number of entrenched players" dictating features, we've seen just the contrary -- if Kitty's statement were true, then sicne the early DVD players did not support MP3 playback, then non-playback would become a standard. But that wasn't what happened, was it?
Instead, MP3 playback became a standard feature even though early DVD players did NOT support it.
Once again, if Kitty's statement were correct, then since the early DVD players didn't support SVCD and SVCD and XSVCD playback, we wouldn't be seeing the ability to play back those formats today due to her (faulty) "entrenched features" argument.
But in fact today's latest generation of DVD players supports XVCD and SVCD and XSVCD and CVD, don't they? And now DiVX, right?
So what does history show?
Does history support Kitty's claims?
Or mine?
Now Kitty asks a question which I should like to close my answering:
"Why should aunt Edna buy a new player (to replace the one she bought for $100 US 6 months ago) just to play the divx movie I just burned. She'd laugh in my face & say give her a disc that will play - I reencode & burn a MPEG2 and she's happy. (relative simulated)"
Here's why Aunt Edna will buy a new player to replace the one she bought for $100 US -- because either [1] her old DVD player fries and whenshe gets a new one she finds it automatically supports DiVX; or [2] Aunt Edna wants to buy that great new box set of I LOVE LUCY, but Hollywodo has only release it in DiVX format; or [3] All her grandkids are sending her videos of their weddings and so forth, but all the videos are in DiVX format; or [5] Uncle Ed wants his own DVD player because he sometimes likes watching different movies from Aunt Edna, and the new DVD player Uncle Ed gets supports DiVX.
You tell me -- are those reasonable answers?

[easydvd]

each time the computer industry assured us "this is all the storage space you will ever need!"
What a gallimaufry of gardyloo.
Pure foofaraw.
Utter codswollop from a pack of arrant thimbleriggers.

AWESOME!! I LOVE IT!!

just a couple of questions though....

what is a thimblerigger? :P :P :P :P

[BJ_M]

Don't look now, but you've just crossed into the Argot Zone, the twilight realm of underworld slang, thieves' cant and con artists' jargon. Words such as "thimblerig" are part of the secret language of social outcasts -- beggars, gamblers, con men, pimps, etc. -- that helps bind together members of the group and shield its operations from outsiders. Occasionally, "cant" words (from the Latin "cantus," the sing-song of beggars) graduate to general usage: "moniker" for "name" and "beef" meaning "complaint" are good examples. Others, such as "thimblerigger," remain largely obscure and eventually disappear.

A "thimblerigger" is a con artist who practices what is commonly known as "the shell game." A pea is hidden under one of three thimbles, which are then rapidly shuffled about on a tabletop. The "mark," or victim, then bets money on the location of the pea, and is invariably fleeced for, as one observer noted in 1752, "the odds are considerable, for the pea is under none of the thimbles." A very old trick, to be sure, but its modern descendant, a card game called "Three-card Monte," can be seen on many urban street corners today.

"Rig" is itself a very old word for "scam" or "swindle," and contributed to another word which began as "cant" and now is heard every day. Another scam popular in the 18th century was the "fawney rig," wherein fake gold rings were sold to gullible suckers. "Fawney," from "fainne," the Irish word for "ring," eventually became the word we use to describe con artists from down on the corner to up at the Governor's mansion -- "phoney."

[vitualis]

I'm sorry xed, but you are living in a dreamworld!

To Hollywood's perspective, all a digital medium needs to do is to store ONE full movie onto ONE disc. For DVD using MPEG-2, this is more than enough as is evidenced by the excellent quality video you can get from MPEG-2.

This is the same situation for Blu-Ray for HDTV digital recordings.

Let's say you want to archive the entire run of Babylon 5. That's 88 episodes. Let's call that 22 DVDs. If we assume DVD-R media cost a buck each, that's 22 bucks.
If we encode those with DiVX and store 'em on standard DVD media, we can get at least 12 B5 episodes per DVD. That's 8 DVD-Rs full of DiVX-encoded b5 episodes with equivalent video and audio quality. Total ost 8 bucks.
The savings for this one TV series comes to $14. Now multiply that by (say) 20 TV series. Total savings $240.
If we move on to archiving currently running TV shows, let's say you have 6 TV shows you want to record on digital media each week. Total cost = 6 bucks per week or roughly $300 per year. By using DiVX you cut that by a factor of 6, to about $50 per year. and so on related ranting

TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE CLOUDS AND LOOK AT IT FROM A COMMERCIAL PERSPECTIVE NOT YOUR HOME ARCHIVING ONE.

Allowing DivX or MPEG-4 recordings on a stand-alone player only benefits YOU, not Hollywood or any other content provider. As far as Hollywood is concerned, it couldn't give two hoots on what YOU do if you are not involved with a business transaction with them.

As such, there would be NO REASON AT ALL for them to move to support DivX.

Let us counter more of your, indeed ignorant, ranting.

My point here is that people will always go for the lower price given equivalent quality. It's just basic economics. If a DiVX file looks identical to the MPEG-2 file on your TV and if you DVD player can play it, why _wouldn't_ you move to encoding in DiVX format?

UM, let's see:
(1) You are assuming a circular argument that there would be commonly DivX capable DVD players at all. You can't make DivX discs to play on a stand-alone player if they are rare.
(2) MPEG-4 playback comes at a price premium. MPEG-2 decoder chips are cheap. MPEG-4 decoders chips are not.
(3) The average person on the street won't have a clue at what DivX is.

The suggestion that there will be sufficient consumer interest to drive the production of ubiquitous DivX enabled DVD players is simply ridiculous. This should be clearly seen even in the really quite poor support DVD players have for GOOD VCD and SVCD playback and even for CD-R/W reading for a while.

Regards.

[snowmoon]

There are also other factors xed forgot to take into account.

Formats become popular because on not only outstanding quality, but for the most part despite quality. VHS won over betamax because of the convienience of having up to 6-8 hrs on one tape. The features of VHS because the deciding factor in that format really appealing to the masses.

Unlimited storage != unlimited bandwidth. One of the major limiting factors in current disc based mediums is the fact that the data can only be read from the disc at a given rate of speed.

CPU's cost $$$. MPEG-4 and it's dirivitaves are extremly CPU and memory intensive. MPEG-2 has a great trade off between bandwidth, processing power and memory reqirements that make it an excellent choice for integration into STB's and other consumer equipment.

MPEG-2 is still a developing format. Mpeg-2 encoders are still undergoing vast ammount of research into further visualy unnoticable bitrate reductions. Per frame and per GOP on the fly adjustments for even forther savings as well. As mpeg-2 becomes the recordable format choice for the masses this will continute to be a hot research topic. Decoders are also undergoing some massive updates to improve perceived quality. Adding harmonics to the macroblocks before decoding to de-block them, not unlike the perceived improvement that MP3pro uses to get an additional 50% bitrate savings. Using motion vectors to help improve progressive scan quality deinterlacers.

DivX has a very high processing cost that still has not been integrated into a chip. Most software encoders, also close, do not follow the spec mpeg-4 to the letter. Any company attempting to allow these kinds of files to be played back will face a huge problem with compatibility.

DVD will be the VHS replacement. Between the invested base of DVD players with the price reductions in the DVD burner market we are approaching a point where people will have little to no reason to go to DivX. At DVD's approaching $1/disc in qty it's only a matter of time before it's addoption is as widespred as VHS.

[BJ_M]

as the voice of the entertainment representive i have to agree with vitualis
and snowmoon on this score ... and for more reasons that even outlined ..

mainly due the fact the lic terms for mpeg were only just set in july of this year and these lic terms are geared for streaming content devolopment and on-line learning (i.e. low bit rate use of mpeg4 and/or its spawns (QT, DiVX (still not considered in the pro area as not much more than a hacked codec no mater how it is marketed now) and other mpeg4 derivitives) ...

media blank costs are next to nothing for stamped dvd's - thre is no intrest to put MORE content on those dvd's as it is now unless it could sell more of them - which most likely it wouldnt .. in fact a lot of "hollywood" types would rather just see dvd's go away forever and are rolling over dead at the thought of selling HDTV disks ...

as for the lic rights of mpeg4 - there are 18 patent holders, whom dont really work togther and took forever to reach an agreement (early drafts of lic rights for mpeg4 would have made mpeg4 use so expensive as to kill it forever) ..

but believe that mpeg4 is really geared for streaming use -- it can cost you a 1million $ to use it also for streaming media ...
here are the terms of its lic structure -- which divx would fal under: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t272-s2119205,00.html

http://www.vide.net/ is one of the main websites dealing with mpeg4 over ip ...

H.264 is going to become the defacto standard for mpeg4 ... anything like xvid and divx will be distant cousins and QT will stay as a sister ..

windows media 9 is the biggest compititor

what the hell is H.264 you ask ? read this:

An international standards team is close to approving a new compression format for digital video, promising improvements as well as a few uncertainties for emerging multimedia technology.  

 
 
Known as H.264, among other designations, the new format is turning heads over claims that it can deliver DVD-quality broadcasts over the Internet using considerably fewer network resources than rivals. 

The new format was created by the Joint Video Team, a unique partnership between the ISO MPEG and International Telecommunications Union standards groups. It should be ratified as part of the MPEG-4 (Moving Picture Experts Group) multimedia standard by year's end, according to Robert Koenen, former chair of MPEG Requirements Group who is currently president of MPEG-4 Industry Forum, a nonprofit created to promote the new standard. 

 

"The codec is the result of technical advances in the arena of video compression," he said. "It's quite impressive, especially in light of the powerful hardware available today to run multimedia applications." 

The main licensing clearinghouse for MPEG-4 standards, MPEG LA, has asked companies to submit for consideration by Friday any patents they believe cover the H.264 format. The early deadline aims to ensure that technology licensing for the format, which is hammered out separately from standards-setting, does not fall too far behind the ratification process, as has been the case with MPEG-4. 

Compressing bulky data files is key for delivery of video online and onto wireless devices--two markets long coveted by media companies but effectively ruled out in part because of cost and quality issues. 

Few high-speed Internet access providers can guarantee data throughputs in excess of 500kbps, making the size of video files a top hindrance to Hollywood's Internet video-distribution plans. H.264 goes a long way in solving the problem, having demonstrated DVD-quality broadcasts at bit rates slightly under 1mbps in tests. 

Although that doesn't mean average consumers will begin seeing DVD-quality streaming over standard broadband connections anytime soon, it sets an important performance benchmark when compared with other formats. 

The data savings realized in H.264--also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC)--could speed Internet and wireless video-on-demand services. It could prove valuable for cable operators that want to broadcast more channels over their pipes, and publishers that seek to cram more and higher-quality video files on digital media such as DVDs. Those industries, for now, typically use the older MPEG-2 video standard, which is up to four times bulkier. 

H.264 also promises a 33 percent improvement over video formats currently implemented under MPEG-4. 

While few doubt the power of the new format, its emergence could complicate the landscape for MPEG-4's video format offers, which presently consist of two implementations: Simple Profile (SP) and Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). 

Despite advantages over its predecessors in raw compression power, H.264 may not wind up as a simple replacement for SP and ASP. That's because H.264 is built on a new architecture that requires considerably more processing power than the generation of video-compression formats now in use, making it less efficient in energy-sensitive applications that run on battery power, such as handheld devices and camcorders. 

In addition, H.264 is not "backwards compatible," meaning software written for older MPEG-4 formats, including SP and ASP, will not automatically support it. Upgrading the older software to support the new format would be relatively painless, but could cause problems for consumers and companies forced to keep track of multiple formats. 

H.264's pending approval could motivate some customers to wait until the new format is ratified and implemented before making the jump to MPEG-4, further delaying adoption of a standard that has been tied up in licensing troubles for years. 

MPEG-4 setbacks
Although MPEG-4 was set as a standard years ago, still-unresolved licensing negotiations have held the technology back, leading to criticisms that its core technology, including its video formats, are out of date. Microsoft, for one, has consistently used that argument in refusing to endorse a standards-based approach in the development of its Windows Media multimedia technology. 

"The video quality of MPEG-4 is far from state-of-the-art, to put it mildly," said Jonathan Usher, group product manager of Microsoft's Digital Media Division, claiming that Microsoft's recently released Windows Media Series 9 product is twice as efficient. 

Though Microsoft continues to back proprietary technology, it is not ignoring the new H.264 format, or codec, having won an appointment for one of its own as chairman of the codec's development oversight committee. 

Usher tipped his hat to the compression power of H.264 as an "improvement" over ASP, but said the increased processing demands could make it less competitive in certain applications. 

"It's about more than just the compression," he said. "It's about balancing compression with demands placed on the chip to crunch code." 

Kevin Oerton, vice president of marketing at Waterloo, Ontario-based MPEG-4 software developer VideoLocus, countered that the H.264 format is still in development but appears to have struck a workable balance between compression and computational demands on the chip. 

"H.264 requires about three to four times the computing horsepower of MPEG-2," he said. "But MPEG-2 is now trivial for most chips. All of the video standards have been defined in terms of Moore's Law. H.264 lives up from a semiconductor cost-analysis perspective." 

Moore's Law, set by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, predicted that computing power would effectively double every 18 months. 

Like its predecessors MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 includes a broad range of audio and video technologies that allow a wide variety of different applications, online and offline. The best-known feature of those previous generations was the MP3 (or MPEG-1, Layer 3) music technology, which accidentally became a household name because of the spectacular success of the Napster music-swapping service. 

MPEG-2 provided the technical standard for most digital cable set-top boxes and for DVDs. The numbers then skip--there is no MPEG-3 standard. 

MPEG-4, ratified as a standard by the Moving Picture Experts Group in 1999, has enough different pieces to keep video-technology junkies happy for years. It is able, for example, to crunch massive video files into pieces small enough to send over mobile networks. Backers tout it as one potential "killer app" for the fast mobile phone networks that will be built over the next few years and will desperately need new applications that can generate revenue. 

It also includes file formats and other elements aimed at making video function almost like a Web page, allowing people to interact with the picture on the screen or to manipulate individual elements in real time. Features envisioned include the addition of e-commerce capabilities, allowing viewers to click on an item in a movie to call up product and ordering information. 

Compression technology, which is just one element in this mix, is nevertheless key to putting the standard to use in marketable products. Video compression essentially squeezes the size of a file by pulling out data that is not likely to be noticed by the viewer when the clip is played. 

The ability to give video itself the kind of interactivity that only Web sites and video games now enjoy has ignited the imaginations of advertisers and some Hollywood studios, and helped drive broad support from digital video developers. 

Relative newcomers such as Envivio and iVast have released products based on MPEG-4, while Apple Computer has made it the cornerstone of its latest generation QuickTime 6 multimedia software. 

RealNetworks has also agreed to support the format, offering an MPEG-4 plug-in from Envivio while it works to create native support in a pending version of its technology. 

Licensing protests
The growing endorsement of the standard was almost derailed earlier this year when MPEG LA proposed preliminary licensing terms for the technology after years of negotiations with rights holders. The agreement sparked widespread protest for its terms, which included a hotly contested per minute coding fee. 

The licensing terms were ultimately revised, but the experience has done little to inspire confidence that the group will be able to avoid future licensing impasses as the standard evolves and adopts new technology such as H.264. 

Lawrence Horn, MPEG LA's vice president of licensing and business development, said the group has learned from the past and hopes to make the next licensing rounds as painless as possible. 

"Although some people may criticize the process for not moving fast enough, we plan to be more proactive," he said, noting that the group has already begun the process of vetting potential patents for H.264 in advance of its expected ratification this year. 

Horn said the group does not disclose companies or patents that have been submitted for consideration in the licensing pool. 

Jonathan Fram, CEO of MPEG-4 software developer Envivio, said his company has seen no sign that big potential MPEG-4 customers are staying on the sidelines because of the pending H.264 upgrade. He said the company has already signed up some 50 customers, including the National Film Board of Canada, although he said the market is more receptive in Asia and Europe than in North America, where cable companies heavily invested in MPEG-2 technology are dominant. 

He said telecom companies hoping to compete with cable and satellite companies in video-on-demand delivery are showing strong interest in MPEG-4 now. 

"No one is waiting," he said. "We can enable (telecom companies) to compete today." 

Microsoft for now appears to be a bigger threat to MPEG-4 in the marketplace than cannibalization from within through H.264. 

On Wednesday, the software giant's Korean subsidiary announced a deal to provide Windows Media 9 to Korea Telecom, South Korea's biggest telephone company, to support video-on-demand and wireless movie delivery to some 4.4 million customers. 

If that's a sign of things to come, MPEG-4 buyers may not have the luxury of waiting until the new codec arrives. 

"It's like buying a computer," said MPEG's Koenen. "You can always wait until something better comes along...but MPEG-4 is already a great proposition today."

[SatStorm]

I'll tell you a little story

Back in 1998, there was a need to find new markets in US, for economical reasons. Internet was one big bet in this direction. A year later, anyone invest on internet, enough to make Hollywood take a look. Then, some analyst of the market, said the big Hollywood ones that "they might be a market in distribution through internet". So, mpeg 4 used and some "experements" from some big ones start to develop.
The year is 2000 and anything collapsed. Internet wasn't the right bet for US economy. So, the big ones stop interest for it. Meanwhile, mpeg 4 had some progress. There was ideas there, good ones. Good ones for the costumers, for the users, not the big ones. So, some underground moves started.

The year is 2002 and mpeg 4 is a nothing than a internet community thing. Includes basic needs of programming, a PC/Mac offcourse and a housewife capable to understand our digital times.

End of story

[xed]

What a shame our moderator Vitualis can't manage to be civil. But let us leave his bad manners aside, for this debate has become interesting.
(Pardon me whilst I wipe the drool off my chin -- all that "ignorant ranting" I'm so prone to, alas)...
Vitualis tells me (quote) "Take your head out of the clouds."
But which one of us has our head sin the clouds?
Our esteemed moderator, who appears to believe that the only deicions which count in this captialist free-market economy of ours are the deicsions made by giant mega-media corporations...? Or Your Humbel E-Mailed Correspondent, who espies a pattern in history showing that even the largest corporations cannot force "standards" down peoples' throats if they don't want 'em...?
Let's take some examples of "standards" that the giant megacorps tried to force on us and which failed badly -- standards like the ill-fated analog audio copy-protection scheme proposed by the RIAA. Remember that one? A notch filter that cut out a high Bb from your music? Idiotic, and it died a-borning. Liekwise, the original ill-fated DiVX -- another scheme designed by giant megacorps whose only purpose was to benefit giant megacorps. The original DiVX (I'm not talking abotu MPEG-4 here, but that ridiculous pay-to-play system dreamed up by a bunch of lawyers for the entertainment industry) offered no user benefits and many drawbacks.
Now let's compare with DVD.
DVD features built-in copy protection and gobbles lots of disc space. Compared to DiVX (now I am talking MPEG-4 encoding here), DVD offers no user benefits and many drawbacks.
Which one of us has our heads in the clouds, ladies and gentlemen? Our esteemed moderator, who appears to have deluded himself into fantasizing that our free market economy is run by a group of cigar-smoking guys in an X-files-style secret room...? Or Your Humble E-Mail Correspondent, who recognizes the reality that a free market economy consists of both producers AND consumers?
Now permit me once again to demur with our esteemed moderator when he claims:
"To Hollywood's perspective, all a digital medium needs to do is to store ONE full movie onto ONE disc. For DVD using MPEG-2, this is more than enough as is evidenced by the excellent quality video you can get from MPEG-2."

First, quite wrong. From Hollywood's perspective, they need to do 2 different things -- they need to sell their products on some recordable medium, and they also need to maintain or gain market share in those sales as opposed to other delivery media. Hollywood needs must do both. Else it goes out of business.
If Vitualis' claim were true, then why do we get all those releases featuring 2 DVD discs -- one containing hte movie, and another containing added content?
Vitualis cannot tell you why, for his reasoning is quite faulty.
But I can tell you why Hollywood has moved to multi-DVD sets with bonus features. Because Hollywood now finds itself hard-pressed by lots of laternative delivery systems for their media contents -- systems like VHS, digital broadcast satellite, TiVO, VCD, and so on. Hollywood may be greedy and corrupt, but it ain't stupid. The Hollywood execs understand quite well that in order to containue to sell their media content, and to maintain or gain market share, they must add something above and beyond the original movie. Because nowadays anybody can just tape the original movie off home broadcast satellite, or off TV (if you can stand the comemrcials).
So Hollywood has taken to adding mroe and more extra material on the DVD sets. At first, remember how it was? The DVD version only added some deleteed scenes. Then the multi-DVD sets started adding comemntary b yteh director. Then they started adding games, photo galleries, and more and more.
This explains why DiVX is inevitable for Hollywood's future. In order to continue to sell their media content, Holywood will have to add even more and more extra mateiral above and beyond the movie. It's much chepaer for Hollywood to use DiVX to boil all that material down to a single DVD disc using DiVX than to use 4, 5 or 6 or more DVDs using MPEG-2 format.
So we can see even by a cursory insepection that vitualis is altogether mistaken and quite obviously wrong when he claims that "To Hollywood's perspective, all a digital medium needs to do is to store ONE full movie onto ONE disc."
In fact, as vitualis does not appear to have noticed (apparently because his head in the clouds, dreaming that only Hlywood stuios control our economy, instead of the producers PLUS the consumers), Holywood studios no longer release a movie on a single DVD. ALL new releases (within the last year or so) are now multi-DVD sets.
Moreover, the number of DVDs has been increasing.
So the real world has been moving rapidly in the exact opposite of the direction claimed by vitualis.
Permit me to demur with vitaulis' second claim -- namely, "For DVD using MPEG-2, this is more than enough as is evidenced by the excellent quality video you can get from MPEG-2."
In fact, I have nothing but scorn for hte low video quality of most Hollywood DVDs -- as do many of my friends. You can see rampant pixelation, comrpessed gamma levels...in short, it looks as though a buncho fo baboons encoded all too many Hollywood DVDs. I get tons better-looking results on my lonesome, encoding TV shows using TMPGEnc.
So I think the evidence shows pretty clearly that lots of people also have serious problems wit hte alleged video quality of DVD. Plenty of folks strongly believe that laserdiscs looks *much* better than most DVDs.
OUr esteemed moderator goes on to demonstrate his residency in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land when he remarks on blu-ray discs and HDTV. Now, seriously, folks, let's be honest here -- why did Senator Hollings (I belive it was) just introduce a bill to force the TV industry to move to HDTV conversion by 2006 unless the public rebelled en masse?
It's entirely clear that he public doesn't care one fig, not one whit, nary a jot or tittle or even a signle scintilla, about getting their Leave It To Beaver reruns or soap operas in HDTV. I've seen HDTV and it leaves me utterly unimpressed. Ditto most other folks I know.
Let's look at the evidence -- there's a massive groundswell of DiVX encoding, as evidenced by whole subsections of bulletin boards like this one...yet at the same time, a Seantor has to introduce a craven lickspittle bill designed to force consumers to use a format (HDTV) that the consumers themselves have shown zero interest in.
Does the evidence suggest that vitualis is correct, and HDTV is something the general public wants or need?
Or does the evidence suggest that I am correct, and the huge groundswell of DiVX encoding portends much wider acceptance in the future?
Vitualis then lets loose with "TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE CLOUDS AND LOOK AT IT FROM A COMMERCIAL PERSPECTIVE NOT YOUR HOME ARCHIVING ONE. Allowing DivX or MPEG-4 recordings on a stand-alone player only benefits YOU, not Hollywood or any other content provider. As far as Hollywood is concerned, it couldn't give two hoots on what YOU do if you are not involved with a business transaction with them."
That is altogether false, for reasons I've already explained -- both int he previous post, and in this one.
My argument for DiVX is in fact entirely based on a commercial perspective -- as vitualis did not appear to have noticed. However, my model of an economy includes consumers -- a species strangely absent from Vitualis' conception of an economy. In real economies int he real world, products succeed or fail ebcause of a give-and-take twixt consumer and producer.
As I previously demonstrated, the consumer has already demonstated a completely refusal to accept the macrovision copy protection on DVDs -- this resulted in an explosion of DVD players which allow macrovision to be turned off. I won't even discuss the half-witted Region Coding, which is now even accepted by the industry as all but dead. Most DVD players now allow you disable both original and RCE Region Coding.
Hollywood does not want this. It does not like this. But Hollywood has been forced to accept these developments. Why?
Vitualis has no explanation. According to thim, these things (macrovision disabled, RCE disabled) should not happen.
But Vitualis lives in a realm where whatever Hollywood says, goes. That aint' the real world. In the real world, consumers determine what they will buy in conjunction with the producers. Consumers demanded the ability to tape DVDs onto VHS tapes, so eventually DVD mfr's added that capability, and Holywood found itself forced to accept the situation.
Likewise, consumers (albeit the early adopters -- the hi-tech mavens who inhabit this forum) are now demanding DiVX capabilities. And one camcorder mfr (JVC, with the JVC GY-DV300U) has added DiVX output capability, while one DVD player mfr has now added the ability to play DiVX encoded video files.
These develompents occurred because of a groundswell of consuemr demand, as evidenced by the thriving DiVX activity on this forum. As time passes, the demand will grow.
This mean taht my argument is correct, while Vitualis' is obviously flawed and faulty.
Now permit me to take issue with another of vitualis' claims: to wit, "Allowing DivX or MPEG-4 recordings on a stand-alone player only benefits YOU, not Hollywood or any other content provider. As far as Hollywood is concerned, it couldn't give two hoots on what YOU do if you are not involved with a business transaction with them. "
Once again, quite wrong. Allow DiVX or MPEG-4 recording to be played back on a standalone DVD player benefits BOTH Hollywood AND the consumer. Here's how:
[1] It benefits Hollywodo because instead of going to 4- and 5- and 6-DVD sets to contain all the extra bonus material they'll soon need to sell that movie on DVD, they can contain all that material on only 1 DVD.
[2] It benefits consumers for the same reason -- it's too easy to lose or lose track of one of those bonus DVDs. Much easier to have all that added content (Esther Dyson's hobby horse, and quite right) on a single DVD disc encoded in DiVX.
[3] DiVX benefits Hollywood because it will allow them to get more rental and sales revenues, or keep the revenues they already have, as more and more types of media delivery compete with DVD. We're already seeing TiVO and direct broadcast satellite, and the start of broadband subscription delivery. More media delivery systems will be adeed as time goes on, for technology never stand still.
To compete successfully with all these new media delivery systems, Holywood will need to add eve rmore added value into the DVD release - and that means they'll have to pack ever more bits onto DVDs. DiVX offers a superb way to do that.
[4] DiVX beneifts consumers because it allows them to record home video with nearly equivalent video quality in much smaller files -- and since this means that DiVX wills oon become the standard for home digital video recorders, consuemrs will inevitably demand DVD players able to play back their home video files, and so DiVX-enamed DVD players benefit consumers.
The claim that "As far as Hollywood is concerned, it couldn't give two hoots on what YOU do if you are not involved with a business transaction with them" is compeltely wrong - moreover, Vitualis' claim is obviously wrong, as even a cursory look at recent history shows us with lambent clarity.
Recent history assures us that Hollywood cared very much about hoem videotaping in the early 80s -- Hollywood cared so much it spent tons of bucks in court in a vain attempt to stop it. Yet according to vitualis' garbled reasoning and scarmbled logic, this could not have happened, since home videotapers weren't "involved with a business transaction" with Hollywood when they taped programs off TV.
Vitualis goes on to remark "You are assuming a circular argument that there would be commonly DivX capable DVD players at all. You can't make DivX discs to play on a stand-alone player if they are rare."
In fact, sir, you have just demonstrated your lack of knowledge of Ricardo's Law of Economics. As everyone but a slubberdegullion k,nows full wel, Ricardo's Law states that production creates its own demand. This is indeeed cirular reasoning -- yet it works in the real world. Ricardo's Law of Economics explains why economies work at all.
Accoridng to vitualis' reasoning, no economy could possibly function -- for all procucts were new once upon a time, and since they were new there shold have been no demand for them. Vitualis cannot explain this paradox. But David Rciardo explained it in the 18th century, by pointing out that humans are flexible imaginative creatures who seize upon a new product and eagerly buy it as soon as it's introduced (if it's a good product), thus supply creates its own demand.
DiVX is already, in fact, a sterling example of Ricardo's Law of Economics. First we had the ancient geeks (our modern world is competely indebted to the ancient geeks, they of the pocket protectors and slide rules who invented digital technology during a bygone era lost int he mists of paleozoic time before the dawn of the microprocessor) who dreamed up MPEG-4's mathematics. Then we had some guys who turned MPEG-4 into a reality from that math -- still without a viable product. Then we had Microsoft, who crippled MPEG-4 and thought they could stick the public with it. Then we had the hacker who opened up Big Bill's MPEG-4, and finally we got the home video enthusiasts who ran with DiVX (nee MPEG-4) and in turn created enough demand to produce a product.
There you have it. Ricardo's Law of Economics, couldn't find a better example short of cars and gas stations.
Vitualis' remaining 2 arguments are so weak and spavined and knock-kneed we can hardly believe anyone as savvy and ingenious as vitualis could embarrass himself by uttering them.
Vitualis goes on to claim that "2) MPEG-4 playback comes at a price premium. MPEG-2 decoder chips are cheap. MPEG-4 decoders chips are not. (3) The average person on the street won't have a clue at what DivX is. "
It hardly requires any effort (let alone intellect) to demolish these 2 remaining arguemnts by vitualis -- for the claim that MPEG-4 playback comes at a price premium is only true *today*. As technology advances, the price differnetial twixt decoding MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 will drop so far and so fast that soon, MPEG-2 will be cindluded as a sub-option in all decoding chips, which will boast so much processing power they'll be able to do MPEG-4 dirt cheap as the standard mode of operation. (In the unvierse I live in, Moore's Law applies -- but apparently not in the unviesre vitaulis lives in. Vitualis must live in a state of denial so severe it has its own zip code, eh?)
As for the claim that "The average person on the street won't have a clue at what DivX is"that's an arguemnt so feeble it is unworthy of someone of vitualis' intelligence. The obvious answer is: so what? At first, ALL new technologies are baffling to the man on the street. But of cousre the man on the street soon learns to deal with 'em. 'Twas so with PGP, 'twas so with VHS, 'twas so with home computers, and 'twill be so with DiVX.
Surely, now, vitualis, you cannot expect us to take seriously the claim that merely because a technology is unfmiliar to Joe Six-Pack, it won't find wide adoption...? I that were true, home computers could never have become an idnustry, nor could DVD players (come to that).
Vitaulis goes on to assert "The suggestion that there will be sufficient consumer interest to drive the production of ubiquitous DivX enabled DVD players is simply ridiculous. This should be clearly seen even in the really quite poor support DVD players have for GOOD VCD and SVCD playback and even for CD-R/W reading for a while. "
Now I am not sure what vitualis is trying to claim here. Is he trying to claim that current DVD players don't support VCD and SVCD playback?
Surely not, for that's obviously wrong.
But if (as I suspect) vitualis is trying ot claim that for a brief period DVD players had trouble supporting VCD and DVD playback and and CD-R/W playback, once again, the answer is -- so what? Of course DVD players had trouble _for a while_ supporting those new formats. All new feature3s added to existing tech have a little troubel at first. But what does that prove?
In fact, vitualis' claim directly depends on the fact that DVD players have _increased_ their support for new playback formats over time -- and that is exatly my point. DiVX is just anotehr new playback format, and more and more DVD players will support it over time, just as they eventually added SVCD and VCD and CD-R/W support.
Moreover, vitualis once again appears to have his head in the clouds here. For my point is that DVD players don't support hese new playback fromats out of the kindness of their hearts -- they do so in order to gain market share and sell more DVD players. I base my argument on economics -- what does vitualis base his argument on?
On nothing.
Only the empty and wholly usnupported assertion that my statement that DiVX support will soon become universal in DVD players is "ridiculous."
ALas, an empty assertion is not a rebuttal, vitualis. You must give us evidence and lgoci if you wish to convince us. Mere ad hominem personal abuse will not help you persuade anyone that you are correct and technology will stand still in its tracks and the clocks will move ijn reverse and dogs will start walking backwards -- which woudl seemto be required, if we are prestidigitate Moore's Law out of existence and ignore the basic fact of economic life that all technological products tend to add features over time.
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Now we come to the self-style compuer addict, who makes excellent points. In fact, you're quite right that media succeed despite quality. In fact, we might even go farther, and suggest that consumers prefer low quality cheap recording media over high qualty more expensive recording media.
As evidence in support of our esteemed computer addict's arguemnt, let's consider the analog cassette -- dreadful audio quality, but far more successful than LPs. Also VHS. 6-hour VHS tape recorders drove Beta out of the market becuase they saved consumers money by taping for 6 hours -- not because they had better video quality! And let's not forget MP3 -- lower fidelity than raw PCM .WAV or AIFF files, but MP3 players are a big industry now. Why? Once again, 'cause they save consuemrs money by cutting down on filesize at a slight cost in quality.
Now, this is exaclty my argument. So whenyou claim "ihave forgotten something," sir, yo appear to be supporting my reasoning rather than rebutting it. My claim (like yours) is that consumers will always make a beeline fo rhte chepaer if lower-quality alternative. That was why the analog cassette became huge, it's why 6-hour VHS VCRs became huge ()as compared to the Beta-I 1-hour VCR) and it's why MP3 is now taking so much ground from the audio CD.
In the same progression, DiVX will obviously overtake and submerge and largely obliterate MPEG-2 - for exactly the same reasons.
As to our esteemed comptuer addict's other arguments, they are quite weak -- much more so than we would edpect from someon of his insetimable perspicacity. Permit we to quote: "DivX has a very high processing cost that still has not been integrated into a chip. Most software encoders, also close, do not follow the spec mpeg-4 to the letter. Any company attempting to allow these kinds of files to be played back will face a huge problem with compatibility."
Now this boils down to 2 different arguments -- [1] initial companies that produce MPEG-4 encoders and hardware players will encounter difficulties, and [2] the cost of DiVX is currently high.
But surely someone of his astute insight recognizes that the problems early hardware pioneers encounter are more than paid for by the huge economic advantages of being first to offer a hi-tech product, no?
In fact, your argument shows us why there will be a flat-out race to produce the first DiVX DVD player that works on anything the public can throaw at it. The first hardware or software company to market gains a huge market advantage, as we all know. This provides vast ceocnomic incentive for many hardware companies to compete to produce the first DiVX DVD player bale to play a maximum variety of MPEG-4 files.
As for the second argument, namely, that the cost of DiVX is curretly high, once again this ignore's the stark reality of Moore's Law. We live in a technology world constantly speeding up. Hi-tech today is the lo-tech of tomorrow.
No matter how expensive MPEG-4 is to encode today, 'twill be cheaper tmorrow, and eventaully (not too long ,either) it will cost virtually nothing as computer power exponentiates.
So we can easilyand cearly see taht both of those arguments fall apart on examination.
Snowmoon's final point, that DVD will be the VHS replacement, seems exactly right. And this proves my claim to be correct, does it not? For if DVD becomes the VHS replacement, then the hi-fidelity video format will inevitably become MPEG-4, just as today we have VHS (lo-fi) and DVD (hi-fi).
of course there's a dark horse out there -- D-VHS. Anyone seen the new D-VHS decks? Uncompressed video? 128 gigabytes on an ordinary VHS tape...?
Yowee!
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Now the final rebuttal against my arguments comes from SatStorm, who gives an admirably learned expositoin of the licesnsing agreement which purportedly govern MPEG-4. Well, and good, sir...but when the street takes tech, not al lthe courts and lwayers on the planet can take it back. I but caution you to recall the Sony anti-home-videotaping lawsuit which ended ignominiously in defeat for one of the biggest giant corporations on the planet.
SatStorm makes what on the surface appears an incisive arguemnt -- but on closer examination, we see that SatStorms argument depends on the faulty notion that the law is fixed in granite, rather than moving and fluid like liquid mercury.
In fact the law merely crystallizes the transilient desires of citizens in an ever-changin society, and as such, the law changes once society and its citizens' desires change. I have lived through times when African Americans could not drink publicly from water fountains in certain areas of hte United States (an era now as dead and gone, thankfully, as Mohenjo-Daro) and I have lived through an era when performing an abortion was a felony (another era dead and gone).
No matter what the law says today, if enough people adopt and use DiVX and if enough mfrs support DiVX playback, then all the laws inth e world become moot. In fact, the legal profession has a phrase to cover this situation -- they cal lit a "dead letter law." Judges recognize taht if a law is so widely flouted that it cannot be enforced, it must perfoce be stricken down.
And this has, in fact, happened constantly throughout history, which blows SatStorm's legal argument to rags and atoms like an H-bomb last.
Let me close by giving 3 viivd examples of dead-letter laws:
[1] it is presently a felony to copy more than a very short passage from a book using a xerox machine. Yet do you see cops arresting students at college xerox machines? Of course not. Xerox machines made that section of the copyright law a dead-letter law.
[2] It was massively illegal to consume alochol during Prohibition but so many peoel did so that it became a dead-letter law. Eventaully, Prhobition fell apart and vanished...not the human propensity to guzzle potations.
[3] Trading home videotapes or homemade VCDs or SVCDs or DVDs is tehcnically illegal -- in fact, a serious felony, cirminalized by the insanely coercive and abominable DMCA (Despicably Monstrous Copyright Act). Yet people do it right and left, and there aren't enough FBI agents in the Local Cluster of Galaxies to arrest everyone who engages in this activity, so this section of the DMCA has effectively become a dead-letter law.
In keeping with this historical examples, we may expect that any and all licensing agreements involving MPEG-4 will soon become so much dead-letter law, as irrelevant and as uneforceable as that Missouri statute which forbids young women from wearing berries on their hats.
Thanks to everyone for your learned and insightful comments!