Friday, July 16, 2004
New DivX Codec Provides Quality, Feature Enhancements
Posted by James Fee in "THOUGHT" @ 12:00 PM
"DivXNetworks Inc. released version 5.2 of their popular codec on Thursday, with substantial improvements in video quality and a bitrate calculator to help manage file sizes. As usual, the software codec was released in two versions: a "professional version" and a free download for Windows 98 through Windows XP. DivX has evolved a cult following among the enthusiast community, which has used the codec to rip and record various video files. Many DVD makers are beginning to build in support for the DivX codec because of previous agreements with chip makers; DivX maintains a list of certified DVD players on its web site. The new 5.2 codec contains several improvements, according to chief architect Eric Grab. At a high level, the software performs about 20 to 30 percent better than the previous codec, which Grab said had the same video quality as Microsoft's own video codec, Windows Media Video 9. Objective video-quality metrics are open to debate, but the best performance of the new codec's performance enhancements will be felt at bitrates of between 800 Kbits to 1 Mbit, Grab said, as defined by the peak signal-to-noise ratio. The ability to encode video has also improved, allowing encoders to encode data as much as three times faster than WMV9, he said."
Improvements to codecs are always welcome. I'm still waiting for DivX to take off. I've been using it more and more since many of my friends on Macs don't/can't view WMV and QuickTime is horrible. Now if there could just be some more hardware DVD support, maybe this will go somewhere.
Improvements to codecs are always welcome. I'm still waiting for DivX to take off. I've been using it more and more since many of my friends on Macs don't/can't view WMV and QuickTime is horrible. Now if there could just be some more hardware DVD support, maybe this will go somewhere.
