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DivX technology was first introduced to the
public about 3 years ago, and at that time the technology was designed
for the video especially for video enthusiasts. Aside from the
"average" video quality, users were generally not very impressed with DivX technology, because it consumed a lot of computer processing
power and the format was not supported by the majority of home
entertainment devices. Yet more recently this situation has started to
change.
First, lets recap the main principle behind DivX
and its current status. Basically, it uses MPEG-4 compression
technology, so that it can compress video files at the highest
compression rate and make them small enough so they can be more easily
transferred via the Internet. The video playback quality is somewhere
between MPEG-2 (DVD format) and MPEG-1 (VCD). As for the Audio
quality, it is based on MP3 standard compression.
Lets look at what's new and exciting for DivX in 2003
- Support for home entertainment devices:
For example video game consoles, living room video playback devices
and many other entertainment devices will offer DivX playback
features. As well many DVD playback software, like CyberLink's
PowerDVD 5 , now also supports video playback in DivX file format.
For more information on DivX optional plug-in for PowerDVD, please
click here.
- Better encoding and decoding tools
According to the official DivX website, the 5.X
version will offer up to 3 times the encoding/ decoding speed of the
4.X version, which will help to save precious time. As well, DivX
now support the latest CPUs, so the computer can more quickly
process playback, editing and output functions.
- Rich Website contents
On
the official DivX website, anyone can now download movies and/or
trailers in DivX format, and it only takes about half the time of
downloading them in MPEG format.
- Better Video Quality
Apart from the superb
encoding technology, VGA card makers (such as ATI with their Radeon
9700) now fully support video optimization for DivX.
In addition to these facts, more and more software will
provide video editing feature support for DivX, such as
CyberLink PowerDirector Pro which allows you to import and export DivX
video files*. This way, already produced DivX video clips can be
edited again simply by importing the clips via PowerDirector Pro's
media import feature.
So, what we can see here is that DivX has gradually
moved away from the "enthusiast" only crowd and is moving into the
average home, providing users another option for video entertainment,
apart from the DVD(MPEG-2) and VCD (MPEG-1) video formats. With the
advancements in PC hardware and software, video production using DivX
is now much easier and faster than ever before. Soon, almost everyone
will be able to edit and produce DivX videos at home, and then publish
them on the web for family and friends, or produce a movie disc to
play on any video playback device. The DivX era has truly arrived!
*Note: PowerDirector Pro version 2.5 requires the
download of a free DivX codec to import and output DivX video files.
Source: Shop at CyberLink,The Complete Digital Home Entertainment Center! |
