difference between DivX3, xViD and DivX5

[umair]

can someone please tell me whats the difference between DivX3, xViD and DivX5?

[vitualis]

They are all MPEG-4 based AVI codecs.

From the doom9 glossary: http://www.doom9.org/glossary.htm (link is on the front page).

On DivX 3

There are 2 flavors of DivX today: DivX ;) is the name of the hacked Microsoft Mpeg4 codecs (Windows Media Video V3). Those codecs were developed by Microsoft for use in its proprietary Windows Media architecture and initially supported encoding AVIs and ASFs but all non-beta versions included an AVI lock, making it impossible to use them to encode to the AVI format - and only a few tools support ASF today. What the makers of DivX did is remove that AVI lock making it possible to encode to AVI again, and changed the name to DivX video in order to prevent confusion of codecs, since it's possible to have both the unhacked and hacked codecs on the same computer if you use the Windows Media Encoder. The latest releases of DivX also include a hacked Windows Media Audio Codec called DivX audio - the hack of that codec is not perfect yet and its use is limited for higher bitrates. This codec is also known as DivX3.

On DivX 4 and 5

The other DivX is a brand-new MPEG-4 video codec developed by DivXNetworks. It offers much advanced encoding controls and 2 pass encoding. Furthermore the codec can play the old DivX ;) (DivX3) movies. The codec is commonly called DivX4. (they've also released DivX 5 which is an even never version since the glossary was written)

On XviD

XviD is a word play, read it the reverse way and you might find a familiar term. XviD is an open source MPEG-4 codec which depending on whom you're asking yields even better quality than the best DivX codec. The XviD homepage can be found here.

Doom9's site has a number of comparisons of the different codecs (including directly comparing DivX ;-) (or DivX 3), DivX5 and XviD). If you look around the site you will find it.

Regards.

[umair]

thank you!
i installed Gordian Knot and i'm trying to use the DivX5 guide. i'm on step 1. it says to startup Gordian Knot but i dont see an exe for Gordian Knot. what do i open up? the only thing i have in the program folder is AC3Filter and VobSub

[umair]

anyone know?