Divx 7 released

[guns1inger]

divx is dead H.264 is the future

That's as maybe, and is only true until the next one comes along.

Regardless, while H264 may well be the (foreseeable) future, Divx Lab's implementation of it for the consumer market is not the future while X264 and Xvid4PSP, or any of the other front-ends can give you better quality and the ability to tailor the codec settings to suit your needs. Divx Version 7 has screwed the pooch on H264. It is mkv for dummies, and it is sad.

[jagabo]

I believe you can still get Divx's (Mainconcept's) CLI h.264 encoder.

[DarrellS]

I downloaded and installed both the DivX_AVC_H.264_CODEC and the MainConcept_H264_Encoder. They both show up in my Add/Remove Programs but I can't find the encoders anywhere on my machine. I have no idea how I'm supposed to get them to work.




I'm not sure if Project Rémoulade is still active since DivX 7 was released so I don't know if you can get the DivX H264 CLI.




I tried to use the DivX 7 Converter on my friends 64bit XP machine yesterday and it couldn't find the DivX codec on his machine to convert a DivX AVI to H264 MKV. It says on the DivX website that DivX 7 only supports 32bit XP and Vista.

[DereX888]

what we need is h264 HARDWARE playback at least (retail players), not another 'reinvented wheel' from Divx crooks.
For years there are plenty of h.264/aac capable software, who the f**k cares that the divx is now capable of it now? LOL

[jagabo]

what we need is h264 HARDWARE playback at least (retail players), not another 'reinvented wheel' from Divx crooks.
For years there are plenty of h.264/aac capable software, who the f**k cares that the divx is now capable of it now? LOL

I care because Divx is the only company that has provided any standards for Divx, and now h.264, playback on set top devices.

[FulciLives]

Well from everything I've read the fairly inexpensive Western Digital Media Player will play any H.264 video (MP4 or M2TS etc.) that is DXVA compliant.

No DivX 7 support needed there ... hmmm?

As for me I use my Sony PS3 which again will play any H.264 video that is DXVA compliant. No DivX 7 required.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

Just because there are a few players that happen to support your needs doesn't mean it isn't a good thing to have somebody defining some baseline standards for the industry.

[DereX888]

Just because there are a few players that happen to support your needs doesn't mean it isn't a good thing to have somebody defining some baseline standards for the industry.

I think I have said before when DivX 6 was released (or maybe it was when Divx 5 came out):

DO we really want crappy companies to define standards for us? (because certainly we DON'T need it, as MPEG-4 existed fine for so many years without Divx Labs support, and MP4-related developments like Matroska container have been around longer than Divx Labs even thought of ever piggy-backing on MKV, sheesh!)

What we need are players (and preferably recorders) that are capable of properly recognizing and reading audio and video streams (that the hardware is capable of playing) within any containers.

Isn't it stupid when same MP4 video stream with same AC3 stream in one container (for example .avi) can be played with no sweat, while very same audio and video stream on a very same player cannot be played just because their goddamn extension is not .avi? (I'm not even talking about different containers here, I'm just saying about different three letters in extension of a very same file!)
Memory is so cheap nowadays. How hard it is to embed slightly "smarter" OS (aka firmware) in those players? Geez, it wouldn't even cost any penny more than it already cost to manufacture, all it takes is writing slightly better code for start.
I can already see how will it go if Divx Labs will 'conquer' the market with their stupid "Divx Certifications" (as they partially did at the begining of "divx era"): players capable of decoding highbitrate/highres mpeg-4 files will be *limited* to playback of files with i.e. only .divx or .mkv extensions and that's it, they won't play anything else even if their hardware will be capable of. Ridiculous.
Yes, such "standardization" would be good - but ONLY for Divx Labs (lots of new income from selling "certification" for something that actually is free - i.e. MKV or MPEG-4).
Their income for current Divx 5/6 certifications have dried up year or 2 ago, because virtually none asian manufacturer of standalone players capable of "divx playback" is ever paying them for such sh*t.
Hence (IMHO) their "new" idea to extended their licencing scheme onto yet another stolen ideas: MKV containers and high res MPEG-4s.
Yes, I hate Divx Labs. They did, do and will SUCK.

OTOH I just can't believe that I am repeating basically same rant few years later

[guns1inger]

Such players do exist - the PS3, the WD TV. But they are few and far between. Mass-production products such as DVD players won't support a tech unless it has some form of standard behind it. The risk is too great when consumers start complaining because files don't play consistently. The one thing that the few devices that play a wide range of formats have in common is frequent firmware updates. This is something the general public don't want to have to worry about. My brother has a standard, mpeg-4 capable DVD player (note : not Divx certified). I have been able to teach my sister-in-law (brother is a bit of a luddite) how to encode for it using simple tools such as AutoGK. No need to update the player - it just works. However if she also had to deal with firmware updates she would give up. As would most users. The average user doesn't want to have to network their DVD player so it can play the latest file format. They just want it to work. I have players that are Divx certified that will happily play files with .avi or .divx. My brother's player only sees .avi files. If the manufacturer had licensed Divx support, it would not be an issue.

For the niche users and the technically literate, the player you describe exists, and for the most part is good. I would not expect a player that will play any and all combination of formats. It is simply not possible. DVD players are cheap, commodity items. They are treated as such, and are expected to work out of the box and continue to work until they stop and are thrown away. No updates, no tweaking.

You don't like it ? Go buy a WD TV, or move to another planet that suits your reality better. Obviously the real world on this planet doesn't.

[DereX888]

Such players do exist - the PS3, the WD TV. But they are few and far between. Mass-production products such as DVD players won't support a tech unless it has some form of standard behind it. The risk is too great when consumers start complaining because files don't play consistently. The one thing that the few devices that play a wide range of formats have in common is frequent firmware updates. This is something the general public don't want to have to worry about. My brother has a standard, mpeg-4 capable DVD player (note : not Divx certified). I have been able to teach my sister-in-law (brother is a bit of a luddite) how to encode for it using simple tools such as AutoGK. No need to update the player - it just works. However if she also had to deal with firmware updates she would give up. As would most users. The average user doesn't want to have to network their DVD player so it can play the latest file format. They just want it to work. I have players that are Divx certified that will happily play files with .avi or .divx. My brother's player only sees .avi files. If the manufacturer had licensed Divx support, it would not be an issue.

For the niche users and the technically literate, the player you describe exists, and for the most part is good. I would not expect a player that will play any and all combination of formats. It is simply not possible. DVD players are cheap, commodity items. They are treated as such, and are expected to work out of the box and continue to work until they stop and are thrown away. No updates, no tweaking.

You don't like it ? Go buy a WD TV, or move to another planet that suits your reality better. Obviously the real world on this planet doesn't.

gunslinger, you know as well as I do, that vast majority of "divx" users were, are, and will be the users of "downloaded" materials. Except for few die-hard fans no one sane would ever "back up" their crispy DVDs into shit like divx4, divx5 or divx6 (or say more currently HD-DVDs or BD discs into this divx7).
I dare to say 99.99% of cases when "divx" is used (and by that I mean all mp4 formats from divx3 through xvid, MKVs up to latest divx7) is only with the mostly-illegal downloads from "the internets" ( ).
Nobody ever have nor ever will complain to i.e. Sony that his/her player have problem playing downloaded pirated version of Sony-owned movie

It took about 2 generations of "divx-capable" MPEG-4 standalone players until the manufacturers got it more-less right. And they did it without any Divx Labs "standardization" whatsoever (if you haven't noticed big majority of them are players NOT certified by Divx Labs). They simply adjusted their products to the common "standards" of the pirated movies scene. THATS REALITY. (don't believe it? here's proof: all of them play xvid codec in avi containers, while not many play .divx files).
And as a counter-example to your examples, I tell you that none of my standalones is "divx certified", yet only 1 of them actually can't see/play .divx files (much like your bro's player). Yet I tested it: simple change of extension from .divx to .avi and problem is solved

What makes you think that we need now Divx Labs' "standards" when it comes to high-res MPEG-4? Please explain, because I don't get it, I can't understand your train of thoughts on this subject?
Seems to me either you own Divx Labs stocks, or its you who should move to another planet :P


/edit:
forgot to reply to this (just an off-topic note):

I would not expect a player that will play any and all combination of formats.

I do.
And I have them =)
They are called PCs. Properly set, hooked up, with remote etc = best players.
The only problem with them is that the beautiful "stereo-alike" cases sometimes cost more than all their "guts" all together!
(I've paid $380 for the damn case, how crazy is that... )

what we need is h264 HARDWARE playback at least (retail players), not another 'reinvented wheel' from Divx crooks.
For years there are plenty of h.264/aac capable software, who the f**k cares that the divx is now capable of it now? LOL

I care because Divx is the only company that has provided any standards for Divx, and now h.264, playback on set top devices.

Wrong. It wasn't Divx Labs who set any "standards". A frenchman stole "divx3" from Microsoft (simply renamed Msoft's unlocked-bitrate first beta MP4 codec and that's how it started). Some crooks formed company around it, but couldnt use Msoft's stolen code (obviously) so they went for the lowest common denominator, which gave so crappy quality that no wonder it was such huge fiasco (divx4) and thats why it never took off. Next their divx5 was a rip-off of free xvid algorithms, and thanks to popularity of xvid (which divx5/6 piggy-backed on - because unlike with Msoft there was no one to sue them for stealing xvid code) they were ever able to survive. I bet "divx7" is a stolen code too (or based on). /edit again - doh! No need to bet, of course it has something to do with MKV, another free software that's been around waiting to be stolen...
Crooks, crooks, crooks.
At which moment have they set any standard? If anything, they simply followed the freewares...
All their "encoding software" is bunch of crappy scripts too, no even "half-professional" would ever use (equivalents of Windows Movie Maker but for divx instead of WMV).

[poisondeathray]

I bet "divx7" is a stolen code too (or based on).

If you are referring to the AVC component of DivX7 it was bought (ie. Mainconcept)

What's with the whining? More choices for the consumer is better than fewer choices. Their presense in the market will generate more competition and lower prices. You don't have to buy their products if you don't want to

Their free h.264 decoder is great, beating CoreAVC Pro in terms of speed and ability to decode broken streams

[snafubaby]

So what is the best way to uninstall DivX version 6 and install DivX version 7? Do i just go into XP's uninstall programs function and do it there? Also, will XviD come out with h264 anytime soon?

[jagabo]

So what is the best way to uninstall DivX version 6 and install DivX version 7? Do i just go into XP's uninstall programs function and do it there?

Yes.

Also, will XviD come out with h264 anytime soon?

No. Use the x264 encoder and x264gui. For VirtualDub use x264vfw.

[Delta2]

poisondeathray said :

...

Here were a couple of tests done on Doom9.

...

E:\HD\freedom EP1 sample.mkv, 1920x1080, High@L4.1

[ffdshow, rev2509, 4 threads]
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 22s, fps: 142.8, dfps: 27.2
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 22s, fps: 142.8, dfps: 27.2 <-- 100%
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 25s, fps: 140.8, dfps: 24.2

[ffdshow, rev2527, Pre-Beta 6, 4 threads]
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 22s, fps: 149.3, dfps: 27.5
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 3s, real: 22s, fps: 155.2, dfps: 27.4 <-- 101%
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 24s, fps: 147.1, dfps: 24.9

[ffdshow-MT, rev2515, 4 threads]
User: 2s, kernel: 0s, total: 2s, real: 8s, fps: 219.0, dfps: 68.7
User: 2s, kernel: 0s, total: 2s, real: 8s, fps: 252.7, dfps: 68.7  <-- 254%
User: 2s, kernel: 0s, total: 2s, real: 9s, fps: 220.2, dfps: 67.2

[CoreAVC, Version 1.8.5]
User: 0s, kernel: 0s, total: 0s, real: 7s, fps: 679.7, dfps: 82.3
User: 0s, kernel: 0s, total: 1s, real: 7s, fps: 616.0, dfps: 82.1  <-- 304%
User: 0s, kernel: 0s, total: 0s, real: 7s, fps: 691.6, dfps: 82.0

[DivX H.264 Decoder, Beta-3]
User: 1s, kernel: 0s, total: 1s, real: 6s, fps: 458.4, dfps: 88.4
User: 1s, kernel: 0s, total: 1s, real: 6s, fps: 512.0, dfps: 88.4  <-- 327%
User: 1s, kernel: 0s, total: 1s, real: 7s, fps: 499.0, dfps: 87.6

That's very interesting, did they take into account systems with nVidia video cards ? and NVIDIA API CUDA for developers, i.e., the parallel computing architecture that can be used by all developers using CUDA API ?

CoreAVC already had implemented that technology in version 1.9.5, and there is already one soft around that uses CUDA API to decode/encode video formats :

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/Badaboom

[poisondeathray]

That's very interesting, did they take into account systems with nVidia video cards ? and NVIDIA API CUDA for developers, i.e., the parallel computing architecture that can be used by all developers using CUDA API ?

CoreAVC already had implemented that technology in version 1.9.5, and there is already one soft around that uses CUDA API to decode/encode video formats :

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/Badaboom

There are tests in the CoreAVC thread, cuda decoding mode is slower than software decoding in most scenarios (on a quad core), and still buggy (at least CoreAVC's version). It's buggy in that it's still quite beta and cannot decode certain types of streams, and you get artifacts on certain streams. The benefit is offloading to the GPU, so the CPU is not as taxed. e.g. if you were encoding, less CPU is "wasted" on the decoding so overall your encode would be faster. Of course, it depends on how much cpu usage was used to decode that particular stream to determine how much faster. In some cases, you might only get 0.1%, in some 20-30%. You might make the argument that it would be good for single core and dual core computers, but you can already use free DXVA video card acceleration with MPC-HC, so IMO, there is no place for the Cuda mode in CoreAVC.

There are several threads on Badaboom, AVIVO, and x264 (software encoder) comparisons on Doom9 forums. Regarding encoding, the quality doesn't come close to x264, you can see the examples and screenshots. When you lower the x264 quality to match badaboom output (both subjectively and objectively measured by PSNR, SSIM), badaboom is actually slower than core i7. It's basically meant for ipod , simple devices and scenarios where low resolution and quality don't matter. Hopefully that will change in the future, but the first few versions were not very promising

Cheers