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DivxX Video Codec, Version 5
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Format Description Properties
• ID: fdd000069
• Short name: DivX_5
• Content categories: moving image
• Format category: bitstream encoding
• Last significant update: 2004-05-03
Identification and description 
| Full name | DivxX Video Codec, Version 5 |
| Description | Bitstream encoding for video initially developed by the French video engineer Jérôme Rota, aka Gej. The DivXNetworks web site describes the encoding as based on the MPEG-4 standard; DivX version 5.0 was released in March 2002; version 5.1 during 2003.
|
| Production phase | Generally used as an end-user delivery format. |
| Relationship to other formats | |
| Used by | AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) |
Local use
| LC experience or existing holdings | |
| LC preference | |
Sustainability factors
| Disclosure | Proprietary standard with some public documentation |
| Documentation | The Official DivX 5.1 Guide (http://www.divx.com/support/guides/DivXGuide51.pdf) |
| Adoption | An FAQ from the Ligos Corporation, distributors of the competing Indeo codec, includes this statement: "Many video files being distributed over the Internet use the DivX AVI format . . . ." |
| Licensing and patent claims | DivX software is distributed under license from DivXNetworks, free for personal use and fee-based for commercial uses. |
| Transparency | Depends upon algorithms and tools to read; will require sophistication to build tools.
|
| Self-documentation | Not applicable; provided by wrapper formats. |
| External dependencies | None. |
| Technical protection considerations | Unknown |
Quality and functionality factors (video)
| Normal rendering | Not applicable |
| Clarity (support for high image resolution) | Moderate, varies according to levels of compression and picture size; the maximum of which is about four megapixels, with no dimension exceeding 8,188 pixels. Does not support interlaced playback.
|
| Fidelity (support for high audio resolution) | Not applicable. |
| Support for multiple sound channels | Not applicable. |
| Functionality beyond normal video rendering | Not applicable. |
File type signifiers
| Tag type | Value | Note |
| Filename Extension | n/a | |
| Internet Media Type | n/a | |
| Magic numbers | n/a | |
| Microsoft FOURCC | DIVX, DIV3, DIV4, DX50 | Used when this codec is wrapped in Microsoft file formats, e.g., AVI and ASF. Only the first of these FOURCC codes (DIVX) is listed at the Microsoft registry. The others are listed elsewhere, including a forum at DivX.com; presumably the numbered FOURCCs identify DivX versions 3, 4, and 5. |
Notes
| General | |
| History | The Official DivX 5.1 Guide indicates that Jérôme Rota began work on DivX in 1999, with an eye toward fitting a feature film on a compact disk and/or making it easy to disseminate films on the web. DivXNetworks was founded in 2000. In 2001, DixXNetworks launched a "covert" website that led to the creation of OpenDivX, an open source project eventually called XVID. DivX 4 was released in 2001, DivX5 in March 2002, and version 5.1 in the latter half of 2003.
The Digital Digest DivX FAQ reports "The original DivX 3.xx codec is based on Microsoft's MPEG-4 V3 codec (ASF was based on MPEG-4 V2). The reason why the codec was "hacked" and re-distributed is because Microsoft's codec did not allow one to encode to AVI (they only wanted people to encode to ASF/WMV), which is far from being convenient. The DivX 3.xx codec also includes hacked versions of a MP3 codec and a WMA codec. . . . The new DivX 4.x codec has nothing to do with Microsoft - it has been developed entirely from scratch." The same is no doubt true of the DivX 5 codec. |
Format specifications
URLs
• The Official DivX 5.1 Guide is a "how to" guide for software users and not a set of specifications in a strict sense. Still, it provides much useful information.
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Useful references
URLs
• DivXNetworks web site
• DivX FAQ from the Digital Digest.
• John McGowan's AVI Overview: Audio and Video Codecs (http://www.jmcgowan.com/avicodecs.html).
• DivXNetworks licensing information
• Product information from the software company Ligos Corporation (http://www.ligos.com).
• Microsoft registry of FOURCC codes and WAVE format indicators (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/registeredfourcccodesandwaveformats.asp). The archived 2001 version of this registry is at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fourcc.mspx.
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Last Updated: 03/ 7/2007
