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DivX codecs

DivX is basically a brand and has been created by DivX. Inc and this previously called DivXNetworks. Inc. One of the most popular products of this company is the DivX codec which has gained seminal popularity in the technological world because this codec can compress videos of very large size and have a very high quality of visuals at the same time. This DivX codec utilizes lossy MPEG-4 Part-2 compression. Here both file size as well as the quality of the file is both maintained. You can play all the DivX movies on your computer. But to do that, the DivX codec needs to be installed first. There are different codecs available for different operating systems and these are as follows:

  1. DivX codec v6.8.5 for Windows XP/2000/Vista (32-bit)
  2. DivX codec v5.2.1 for Windows ME/98
  3. DivX codec v6.7 for Mac OS X
  4. DivX codec v5.1.1 for Mac OS

DivX 6 considerably enlarged the scope of the DivX product by bringing in some really prominent changes. Previously there was only a codec and a player. And now the best thing was they added a media container format as well.  This was a new optional file format and it was introduced with the DivX 6 and was called the DivX Media format. This was called DMF and had a .divx extension. This has support for the following things:
Interactive video menus

  • Multiple subtitles (XSUB)
  • Multiple audio tracks
  • Multiple video streams
  • Chapter points
  • Other metadata (XTAG)
  • Multiple format
  • Partial backwards compatibility with AVI

This was the new DivX Media Format and it came with a DivX Ultra Certified tag. Any video which is encoded along with the DivX codec is a MPEG-$ video. However, the newly released DivX Media Format is along with media container formats like Quick Time belonging to Apple. The DivX Media Format has MPEG-4 and that is part of the specification as well. The thing is, the file still has a .divx extension. But the file format is still the Audio Video Interleave or the AVI format. There is a facility for storage of multiple audio and subtitles and for these the data needs to be stored in the RIFF or Resource Interchange File Format header files. And then there are the other AVI hacks as well. The DivX codec still supports the way standard AVI files are made as well.
Then there is also the DivX pro codec. This is called pro because this codec has a lot of complicated encoding settings and these settings let you make really high quality DivX videos along with some third party software.
With this codec you can not only make some high quality movies using the DivX converter, but also make sure that the videos will not only play on the computer but also on mobile phones, DivX certified DVD  players, gaming consoles and others. There is a wide range of performance. Then there are many advanced encoding settings using which you can polish up the videos that you have made.