DivX

DivX

(1) A video codec from DivXNetworks, Inc., San Diego, CA (www.divx.com) that is popular for downloading movies from the Internet. Based on MPEG-4, DivX can compress a DVD movie to fit on a CD, and DivX HD can reduce an HD movie to fit on a DVD. The DivX software provides tools for encoding in DivX and MPEG-4, as well as a player for DivX, MPEG-4 and other video formats.

DivX Files Use the AVI Format
DivX uses the AVI format as its file container, and files have either an .AVI or .DIVX extension. If a DivX movie is played in a media player that supports AVI, only the audio will be played, not the video.

A Size Comparison
Showing DivX compared to other video compression methods, the following table of file sizes comes from an actual video that was distributed in multiple formats. Note that the iPod and PSP formats support only tiny screens. See XviD.

   Format                       File Size (MB)

   PlayStation Portable (PSP)    42.41
   iPod                          54.89

   DivX                          60.77
   MPEG-4                       130.03
   QuickTime (MOV)              135.05
   Windows Media (WMV)          190.92

(2) (Divx) (DIgital Video EXpress) A DVD rental system rolled out in 1998 and taken off the market one year later due to poor sales. A joint venture of Circuit City and a Los Angeles entertainment law firm, Divx was a special type of DVD disc playable only in a Divx-enabled DVD player. Consumers paid a rental charge for the non-returnable disc, which was good for two days after its first viewing. Additional time as well as unlimited use could be purchased via modem from the Divx player. A major problem was that Divx discs registered to a specific machine could not be played on other Divx players.

(3) A copy of the DVD copy protection decryption algorithm that was lifted from a media player and passed around hacker sites. The Divx name was used in honor of the defunct Digital Video Express system.