What is DivX?

DivX is a digital video compression format based on the MPEG-4 technology. 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.

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. Advantages: * Good Quality with reasonably small file size Disadvantages: * Video quality is not as crisp as MPEG-2. * Some DVD players do not support VCD playback Note: Best choice for making Video CDs