DivX 5.0 Software Suite Offers MPEG-4 Streaming Capabilities
By Mark Long -- e-inSITE, 3/5/2002
DivXNetworks has released a new version of its software suite of video technologies for the creation, production and streaming of DVD-quality digital video content over the Internet. Designed to enable interoperability with the international MPEG-4 multimedia standard, DivX 5.0 features the ability to encode and decode MPEG-4 Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile video.
"With the release of DivX 5.0, we've not only significantly improved every performance and visual quality metric across the board but also integrated into the technology state-of-art encoding and decoding tools and features previously available only in advanced research labs," said CEO Jordan Greenhall in a prepared statement. "The end result is a suite of video compression technologies that provides far better compression ratios than any other technology, while enabling higher quality digital video at over twice the encoding speed of any other compression technology available."
According to the company, the new standard version of DivX 5.0 features dramatic enhancements to the speed, performance and visual quality of streaming digital video in a compressed format. The standard version of DivX 5.0 is free for personal use and available for download from the company's Web site at www.divx.com/divx.
DivXNetworks has also released DivX Pro 5.0, a professional version of the suite that includes a set of advanced encoding techniques as well as built-in video processing tools. DivX Pro 5.0 is also available for download from the company's Web site under a one-time licensing fee for personal use or through a free ad-supported version of the product.
DivX 5.0 features a double real-time encoding capability that has been optimized for use with the AMD Athlon XP processor. Formulated to accelerate the encoding of high-quality digital video, DivX 5.0 reportedly can achieve up to triple real-time encoding under ideal conditions both at full-screen resolutions as well as at speeds that are up to 100 percent faster than previous versions of the technology, claims the company.
A high-speed decoding capability is also on tap for achieving a 20 percent boost in performance over previous DivX versions, or even scaling up to achieve real-time decoding of high-definition resolution video content without calling for any special hardware requirements. In addition, DivX offers significantly higher compression ratios, reducing file size by up to 41 percent over previous versions while improving visual quality through the use of a host of new features and encoding tools.
The DivX MPEG-4 Creator tool automatically converts AVI format video to a new DivX MPEG-4 compliant format, for a "create once, play anywhere" effect. Mac OS Support is also provided. In addition, the suite includes a new DivX Player Application that the company reports offers improved performance, greater reliability, new file format, and increased functionality as well as a new look and feel over previous iterations of the company's software-based technology.
Another unique feature of DivX 5.0 is its precise and intelligent allocation of data through a process called Psycho-visual Modeling that is based on knowledge of the Human Visual System (HVS). DivX 5.0 assigns a Psycho-visual Complexity Rating (PCR) to each video frame, removing data that can't be seen by human eyes in full-speed video sequences in order to improve the efficiency of the video data allocation process.
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