DivX Plasma Codec: Alpha

[LordRPI]

This is the moment that a lot of us have been waiting for at DivX. In the past few weeks, we've been doing encodes with an alpha version of a new DivX codec - and we thought that you all should have the chance too.

DivX Plasma (tritium) offers improved compression over DivX 5.2.1 by 8-34% depending on the source and bitrate. It also boasts a few more under the hood improvements while still being fully compliant with current DivX Certified devices.

New features include:


Rate-distortion optimized H.263 quantization
New aspect-based resize
Faster block search
Support for 4MV
New Extreme Quality mode
New Insane Quality mode
Improved deblocking
Did I meantion that this is still DivX Certified compatible?


Read more at DivX Labs (http://labs.divx.com/archives/000035.html)

[jokiin]

Did I meantion that this is still DivX Certified compatible?



You did, only problem at the moment is the distinct lack of DivX certified products available. The licensing fee is holding a lot of the manufacturers back from getting involved. This might not affect the big names but the rapid uptake is driven by pricing, that typically comes from the Chinese manufacturers. Look at the inclusion of Mp3 playback as an example of what I mean, all the generic players had it way before the brand names, and the feedback from the brand names was always that the consumer didn't want it, once the realised what was happening to market share they started adding it, how many brand name players don't have Mp3 playback now. Do the right deal with the chipset manufacturers so that they can do the deal with the factories to push out certified players and it will quickly turn into a saturated market where every player has to have DivX to survive. Once every player has it the content will make you the income. I'll get off my soapbox now but if you want DivX to succeed you need to think outside the square, the opportunity to dominate the VOD market is there, play your cards wrong and Microsoft will wipe the floor with you. I'm not interested in Microsoft doing this by the way, I would much rather see DivX become the big player in this market, but until the chipset manufacturers are given a break it won't happen.

[andw]

hear hear,
at the moment, it's just a worry that there might be another codec that won't play on non divx certified players.
VOD needs to take off, it took a ridiculous amount of time for music to be able to be purchased, the quicker the divx players can saturate the market, the quicker studios will want to get in on the act.

[LordRPI]

hear hear,
at the moment, it's just a worry that there might be another codec that won't play on non divx certified players.
VOD needs to take off, it took a ridiculous amount of time for music to be able to be purchased, the quicker the divx players can saturate the market, the quicker studios will want to get in on the act.

DivX VOD (http://vod.divx.com)

[jokiin]

DivX VOD (http://vod.divx.com)


Yes there is content available for purchase there, what's your point?

[davidf]

Its more than certification pricing that can hurt the long term bottom line of DIVX but even the general consumer products as well.

The chinese are well within their own capabilities to create their own standard and thrust that upon the world, there goes divx certification requirements. The consumer will go with what 'appears' popular and that can be what everybody else tells them is popular(word of mouth the most critical promotion/propoganda) .

If every second domestic encode, and all those not so ligitimate internet downloads, were done with dr. divx then naturally you would have a domestic market inclined towards divx complient equipment. If the manufacturers saw that then they would standardise on this feature. How many consumers actually request 'certified' players, how many are aware that there is such a thing.

So what is the market strategy to chase, one option is to saturate the domestic market with extremely cheap and fast encoding tools. $US50 is not cheap by many peoples standards considering Dr. Divx does nothing more than freeware products available( 1,000,000 sales at $10 over 1 year is better than 1,000,000 at $50 over 5 years). The 21st century is no longer the place for long term projections and profit lines, fast and cheap is the priority and the long term has to be based on the short term results.

Divx currently offers nothing special but wants joe average to pay for it at both the hardware and software level. I think joe average needs a better deal becuase if he doesnt get it then the next thing will be Divx VOD ? who needs that ? and another product joins the IT 'past and forgotten' wasteland.


[edit] Heres a thought why not go to the chipset level and provide a certification service that prepares and supplies the required firmware component that ensures that the 'chipset' will always decode DIVX data correctly.

[jokiin]

[edit] Heres a thought why not go to the chipset level and provide a certification service that prepares and supplies the required firmware component that ensures that the 'chipset' will always decode DIVX data correctly.

Agreed, if they were willing to provide this to the chipset manufacturers it would become a standard almost overnight. The current process is too time consuming, too costly to initiate and has too many ongoing royalties for most to want to get involved. Many are happy to have Mpeg4 support and cover the masses, the small portion of the market that they can't satisfy doesn't justify the costs associated both upfront and ongoing. I deal with manufacturers and many want to avoid providing a DivX certified player because of the hassles involved.

[LordRPI]

Hey guys,

Sorry about the delay, The auto email notification seems not to be working.


Yes there is content available for purchase there, what's your point?


We launched our VOD service for DivX Certified DVD Players a few hours before the post. It was mentioned that: "VOD needs to take off, it took a ridiculous amount of time for music to be able to be purchased, the quicker the divx players can saturate the market, the quicker studios will want to get in on the act."


With regards to the certification, I do understand the concern. Although, the situation here is quite different here in the States. Major retailers carry DivX Certified products and it is pretty much commonplace here. What is the situation like in Australia?

Regardless, DivX Certified or not, the hurdle still remains that the HW vendor still has to pay MPEG-4 royalty costs as well as MP3 decoder royalties, which I understand is at $2.50 US. Even many *large* software companies have held out on MPEG-4 development regarding royalties to the MPEG-LA. DivX Certification DOES however give support to manufacturers in the form of hardware SDK's and help with implementation. There are DivX Certified IC's and packages for rapid development of products.

I don't want this to sound like this is a business lecture, because it is not. I didn't know that there is a lack of devices available where you are, and I'll bring this to the attention of the right people.

[jokiin]

The problem for most is that the margins are very tight and they cannot justify the expense of certification, the ongoing royalty payments drive the costs up and the time taken for certification takes too long to bring products to market in a timely fashion.

[davidf]

Paying extra for a certified player gaurantees me, the consumer, absolutely nothing as divx people have no control on how divx files are encoded, muxed, subtitled ad infinitum.

[ggr8]

With regards to the certification, I do understand the concern. Although, the situation here is quite different here in the States. Major retailers carry DivX Certified products and it is pretty much commonplace here. What is the situation like in Australia?In Australia there is (that I know of) the Samsung DVD-V540 DivX DVD/VCR and the Pioneer DV-676A DVD Player that are DivX certified.

To me it appears that the Pioneer 676A (as distributed by Pioneer Australia) should not have DivX certification because it cannot play subtitles with DivX files with any official firmware release. Shouldn't DivX put pressure on Pioneer or Pioneer Australia to ensure there player is upgraded to support subtitles with Divx files, and not devalue the prestige of the DivX logo?

Basically this player makes a joke of the claims here (point four is a joke, point 3 shouldn't be):

http://www.divx.com/certified/

Each DivX Certified product is put through four levels of testing:


Level 1: Visual Quality. We test over 60 representative video clips in every hardware product to make sure that the visual quality of the playback is of the highest quality. If any playback problems exist, the product does not pass the test.
Level 2: Basic Functionality. Next we test for a set of basic features you naturally expect to be a part of your DivX video viewing experience. A/V sync and multiple-speed fast forward and rewind for example. Any problems and the product fails.
Level 3: Advanced Functionality. If the product passes the first two tests, we move on to advanced functionality like subtitles, multiple audio tracks and DivX VOD playback. To say that you "play DivX video," you need to provide a high-quality viewing experience.
Level 4: Crashworthiness. Finally, once the product passes all others, it is subjected to the most strenuous test of all: crashworthiness. Our engineers take the product to the top of the 67-story DivX Tower and verify its structural integrity by carefully heaving it over the edge - because when your DVD player accidentally falls out of your 50th floor apartment window, we don't want to see anyone get hurt.. . .

The bottom line: Whether you're watching your favorite Hollywood film or your own digital home movies, even the slightest glitch can seriously interfere with your viewing pleasure. An umbrella with only one hole in it still leaks, and a hardware device that fails to meet just one of the requirements for DivX certification is not a DivX Certified product. To guarantee a great DivX video experience, just look for the DivX Certified logo.

Summary: should the Pioneer DV-676A really be on this list: http://www.divx.com/hardware/certified/products.php ?

PS: you should get the broken graphics for the DivX logos here fixed:
http://www.divx.com/certified/technical.php

[Picard]

Summary: should the Pioneer DV-676A really be on this list: http://www.divx.com/hardware/certified/products.php ?

You should also check each and every one of these players regarding whether they support subtitles, rather than just specifying the Pioneer.

I think you will find that the majority of certified players on the list do not support subtitles also, and most will claim a firmware upgrade in the future to enable it.

Of the ones that do support subtitles, the firmware fixes took ages to come out, and the Pioneer is a very new model compared to some of these models. As you know, Pioneer recently released firmware upgrades for the European version of the Pioneer 676A (575 model) so hopefully, this will come across to the 676A soon. We should all hassle and email Pioneer Australia in regards to this, much like the Europeans did.

You have a good point in that DIVX certification should have been more stringent, but I think that this is across the board, rather than just with the Pioneer.

[LordRPI]

I admit, even on our own forums there are many posts regarding lack of subtitle support. Our certification does not specify which formats a player must have clearly enough and that usually leaves additional popular formats to be supported up to the vendor.

[davidf]

Our certification does not specify which formats a player must have clearly enough and that usually leaves additional popular formats to be supported up to the vendor.

Ah so Divx certification is similar to a Degree from a Cornflakes Packet. I'm glad this was clarified.

[jokiin]

Ah so Divx certification is similar to a Degree from a Cornflakes Packet. I'm glad this was clarified.


So the big guys like Pioneer and Samsung have certification even though they don't meet the criteria for certification such as subtitles yet the little guys are still jumping through hoops trying to get certified, for what? Turns out the certification process is a farce anyway. Just looks like a money making exercise and not much else. Maybe if I produce a player I don't need to worry about meeting criteria, I can just purchase certification, could be costly though by the sounds of things, seems the little guys can't afford it.

[StormyKnight]

It seems this thread went very quite all of a sudden. It was starting to go somewhere i thought!

[jokiin]

Yeah it seems that the DivX representative has gone quiet all of a sudden, he has been on here since this thread stalled and has not cared to comment, actions speak louder than words sometimes.

[davidf]

It seems this thread went very quite all of a sudden. It was starting to go somewhere i thought!

I don't think it was going in the right direction for Divx :)

I'm about to replace my xms888 and the test disks i use will not have a single divx encode on them, I am more interested in xvid support and hopefully end up with something that is slightly more forgiving with things like aspect ratio's also qpel(xvid's version) support would be a nice little bonus.

[jokiin]

I don't think it was going in the right direction for Divx :)

I'm about to replace my xms888 and the test disks i use will not have a single divx encode on them, I am more interested in xvid support and hopefully end up with something that is slightly more forgiving with things like aspect ratio's also qpel(xvid's version) support would be a nice little bonus.


Don't be too surprised if you can't find a player that handles all your Xvid encodes, this never used to be a problem until the latest version, and if you read between the lines of the FAQ on the Xvid website it almost seems like they have introduced this problem out of spite. Have a look and see what I mean http://www.xvid.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=FAQ&file=index&myfaq=yes&id_cat=1#q31

If you can supply a sample of a file type that you would be interested in playing I can test in some other players which are currently unavailable but are very close to being released, these are based on new chipsets and may be ok with these, won't really know without trying though.

[LordRPI]

Sorry for the delay guys, last I checked here was on my Thanksgiving holiday.

But


Ah so Divx certification is similar to a Degree from a Cornflakes Packet. I'm glad this was clarified.


isn't the greatest way to keep interest on this side.

I know the topic keeps on circling back to subtitles. Again I will say that DivX Certification requires subtitle support, but unfortunately this support isn't from the type you generally download online. I know this isn't great, and it's not the greatest situation for me either.

Edit: Saw this thread down below: http://forums.eyo.com.au/showthread.php?t=77159

I had some instructions come in the box for playing subtitles. I know this player supports more kinds of subtitles than we require.