[M4IF Technotes] About DivX ( Was Re: reference code advise)

[Ben Waggoner]

Rob,
    Specifically, most DivX files use MPEG-4 (simple or advanced simple)
video and MP3 audio in the AVI file format.  These are obviously not MPEG-4
compliant.  They sometimes use VBR MP3 audio, which isn't really AVI
compliant either, which is why tools like QuickTime often have sync issues
playing back .divx files.
    DivX 4 was Simple only, and DivX 5 is Simple or Advanced Simple.  DivX 3
was a hacked version of the early MS MPEG-4 codecs that weren't compliant
with the final MPEG-4 spec.  Lots of these are still around, alas.
    .AVI doesn't have any technical advantages over MPEG-4, and many many
disadvantages, so it'd be great if DivXNetworks would adopt .mp4 with AAC
audio as their standard file format.  Their tools can do .mp4 export right
now, but without audio.  They weren't included in the NerdTV shootout for
that reason.  Their video codec is quite good, though.  2-pass support and
some novel quality optimization techniques.
Ben Waggoner <http://www.benwaggoner.com>
Compressed Video Consulting, Training, and Encoding
My Book:            http://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Compression Books:  http://www.benwaggoner.com/bookshelf.htm
on 12/5/02 19:57, Rob Koenen at rob.koenen   m4if.org wrote:
> DivX video coding is supposed to be compliant, the file format is different
> as I understand it. As you can see from the M4IF home page, DivXNetworks
> recently joined the M4IF interop program.