Apart from being a trademark of Project Mayo, DivX is the name given to a
video codec (a piece of software encoding and decoding video) and is based
on the MPEG-4 compression format. MPEG-4 is a new standard of video
compression that is both high quality and low bitrate. They are usually only a
fraction (around 15%) of the size of a standard DVD, even at 640x480
resolutions, making them the best home video format thus far. They only take
half the time to encode, and yet at the same time is smaller in size than
MPEG-1 - due to their incredible compression technology - some have even
called MPEG-4 the "MP3 of the video world". Quality ranges from net-
streaming quality to DVD and better !!
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.
