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how to burn avi to dvd

DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc. ), including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.

The DivX codec uses lossy MPEG-4 Part 2 compression, where quality is balanced against file size for utility. It is one of several codecs commonly associated with "ripping", whereby audio and video multimedia are transferred to a hard disk and transcoded.

History

The "DivX" brand is distinct from "DIVX" (Digital Video Express), an unrelated attempt by the now defunct U.S. retailer Circuit City to develop a video rental system requiring special discs and players. The winking emoticon in the early "DivX ;-)" codec name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the failed DIVX system. The DivX company then adopted the name of the popular DivX ;-) codec (which was not created by them), dropped the smiley and released DivX 4.0, which was actually the first DivX version (that is, DivX ;-) and DivX are two different things created by different people, the former is not an older version of the latter). The DivX name is its trademark. It is pronounced DIV-ex.

Early works

DivX ;-) (not DivX ) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions refers to a hacked version of the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 video codec (MPEG-4v3, Microsoft internal numbering scheme, unrelated to MPEG-4 parts) from Windows Media Tools 4 codecs. The video codec, which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant, was extracted around 1998 by French hacker Jerome Rota (also known as Gej) at Montpellier. The Microsoft codec originally required that the compressed output be put in an ASF file. It was altered to allow other containers such as Audio Video Interleave (AVI). Rota hacked the Microsoft codec because newer versions of the Windows Media Player wouldn't play his video portfolio and résumé that were encoded with it. Instead of re-encoding his portfolio, Rota and German hacker Max Morice decided to reverse engineer the codec, which "took about a week".

From 1998 through 2002, independent enthusiasts within the DVD-ripping community created software tools which dramatically enhanced the quality of video files that the DivX ;-) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions could produce. One notable tool is Nandub, a modification of the open-source VirtualDub, which features two-pass encoding (termed "Smart Bitrate Control" or SBC) as well as access to internal codec features.

Later works

In early 2000, Jordan Greenhall recruited Rota to form a company (originally called DivXNetworks, Inc., renamed to DivX, Inc. in 2005) to create clean-room DivX and steward its development. This effort resulted first in the release of the "OpenDivX" codec and source code on January 15, 2001. OpenDivX was hosted as an open-source project on the Project Mayo web site hosted at projectmayo.com (the name comes from "mayonnaise", because, according to Rota, DivX and mayonnaise are both "French and very hard to make." ). The company's internal developers and some external developers worked jointly on OpenDivX for the next several months, but the project eventually stagnated.

In early 2001, DivX employee "Sparky" wrote a new and improved version of the codec's encoding algorithm known as "encore2". This code was included in the OpenDivX public source repository for a brief time, but then was abruptly removed. The explanation from DivX at the time was that "the community really wants a Winamp, not a Linux." It was at this point that the project forked. That summer, Rota left the French Riviera and moved to San Diego "with nothing but a pack of cigarettes" where he and Greenhall founded what would eventually become DivX, Inc.

DivX took the encore2 code and developed it into DivX 4.0, initially released in July 2001. Other developers who had participated in OpenDivX took encore2 and started a new project—Xvid—that started with the same encoding core. DivX, Inc. has since continued to develop the DivX codec, releasing DivX 5.0 in March 2002. By the release of version 5.2.1 on September 8 , 2004 , the DivX codec was substantially feature-complete. Changes since then have tended to focus on speed, and encouraging wider hardware player support, while the company has also focused its time on the formats and next generation codecs.

DivX formats

DivX Media Format (DMF)

DivX 6 expanded the scope of DivX from including just a codec and a player by adding a media container format. This optional new file format introduced with DivX 6 is called "DivX Media Format" ("DMF") (with a .divx extension) that includes support for the following DVD-Video and VOB container like features.

• DivX Media Format (DMF) features:
  • Interactive video menus
  • Multiple subtitles (XSUB)
  • Multiple audio tracks
  • Multiple video streams (for special features like bonus/extra content, just like on DVD-Video movies)
  • Chapter points
  • Other metadata (XTAG)
  • Multiple format
  • Partial backwards compatibility with AVI

This new "DivX Media Format" also came with a " DivX Ultra Certified " profile, and all " Ultra " certified players must support all "DivX Media Format" features. While video encoded with the DivX codec is an MPEG-4 video stream, the DivX Media Format is analogous to media container formats such as Apple's QuickTime. In much the same way that media formats such as DVD specify MPEG-2 video as a part of their specification, the DivX Media Format specifies MPEG-4-compatible video as a part of its specification. However, despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is an extension to the AVI file format. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them. DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial backwards compatibility with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB subtitles) can at least play that primary video stream (usually the main movie if the DMF file contains multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials). Of course, the DivX codec and tools like Dr. DivX still support the traditional method of creating standard AVI files.

DivX Subtitles (XSUB)

DivX, Inc. has, since DivX 6, added its own proprietary subtitle tracks that it calls " XSUB " (which has also been trademarked as XSUB ). These subtitles are not text-based like many other subtitles, instead they are bitmap (digital image) based like vobsub subtitles for DVD-Video are. And like vobsubs for DVD-Video are supposed to be, XSUB does not come in standalone files but are only embedded in .divx containers, which can be created with Dr. DivX , ( Dr. DivX can actually convert/encode XSUB from vobsubs inside DVD-Video). A .divx container can contain multiple XSUB subtitles in several languages.

Features

The DivX codec and DivX Player are available for free at the DivX website. Paying customers can access additional features of the DivX codec in the registered version, known as DivX Pro, and can also use DivX Converter, a one-click encoding application as a revamp of Dr. DivX and associated encoding tools (such as the Electrokompressiongraph, or EKG, which helped increase the viewability of highly compressed high-motion scenes).

On the 6th of January 2009, DivX 7 was released, which added H.264 video, AAC audio and Matroska container support, surpassing the restrictions of their previous formats. The DivX Converter 7 still supports DivX 6 profiles, but DivX Plus HD needs to be selected to make a file in the new format. When using DivX 7 in the converter the only option available is to limit filesize, but a more configurable CLI client is available from DivX Labs. Since it can only create raw H.264 streams a Matroska muxer must be used.

DivX Player

DivX Player is a standalone media player for DivX encoded video. The player was created by DivX, Inc. and can be downloaded from the company's website. The Mac OS X version was introduced with DivX 6.5 on 2006-05-25 . The precursor of this player is The Playa, one media player made by the Proyect Mayo team, that later became DivXNetworks.

Features

• Video playback
• Burn video discs
• Mouse gestures to control video (Mac OS X only)
• Media manager (Windows only)
• Play any QuickTime supported file (Mac OS X only)
• Play video as desktop background (Mac OS X only)
• Manage certified DivX devices (Windows only)

Web player

DivX has also released the DivX Web Player (formerly known as the DivX Browser Plug-In) demonstrating HD playback live inside major browsers for Windows and Mac OS.

Gaming system compatibility

On December 4 , 2007

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