Xybernaut Corp. (fka XYBR)

[cksla]

Digital Internet Video (DivX)
'Borrowing' from Mp3 to Mpeg-4 ... by Aaron Stanton

We live in an era of change and controversy. Each new day brings with it a new technology, and each new technology brings with it a new set of legal and social worries. The largest of these are ethical, raising questions with multiple answers, questions about what is right and wrong. The Mp3 format, for example, is a popular technology that forces average citizens to reevaluate our definition of theft. Answers to these questions will continue to rewrite the very fabric of legal copyright and intellectual property laws. But as Napster moves towards an apparent peace with the music industry, many are beginning to wonder what the next great challenge will be.

You Heard It, Now You See It
The answer lies, as it so often does, in the Internet underground, where a new file format is posed to breathe new life onto the embers of the copyright debate. Mpeg-4 files, a relative of the Mp3 format, stand capable of doing to movies what Mp3 did to music. And they are already well entrenched with the tech savvy and pirating communities, the same people who gave shelter to the Mp3 at its birth before Napster appeared. Only now it's an entirely different ballgame, and the impact may be completely different.

Digital Internet Video (DivX) or other equivalent formats based on Mpeg-4 technology allow a file small enough to be burned to a CD, or downloaded off the Internet, to display full-screen, high quality video on an average computer monitor. When combined with Mp3-style audio (which many past formats were unable to do), DivX is capable of producing a full length, near DVD quality movie with full fidelity stereo sound in a file less than 600 megabytes. At that size, an average user with a DSL Internet connection can download two movies a night and burn them the next morning at less than 50 cents a CD.

Not the Dead DIVX DVD
Let's clear up one major point of confusion: DivX technology is in no way related to the hugely unpopular, failed DIVX DVD rental program released by Circuit City in 1998 and discontinued in June of 1999. With all these acronyms, pay attention to the capitalization: it does make a difference. While DIVX (the Circuit City one - all caps) was indeed a video format that competed on the open market with DVD, it held little of the potential of the Mpeg-4. The Circuit City DIVX was a way of delivering information as a type of video rental, but the latest DivX actually changes the quality of the product being delivered.

Quality King
At the excellent quality-to-size ratio that Mpeg-4 based technologies such as DivX allow, these are arguably the best current video formats available.

To see for yourself a format comparable in size and quality to DivX, look at the samples Microsoft totes of their own Mpeg-4 based format on their Windows Media 8 homepage. Since many believe that the DivX format originally came from a hacked version of Microsoft's Mpeg-4 codec, it seems fitting that they are one of the first companies to release a commercial product based upon the Mpeg-4 format. Samples are available in varying qualities at: http://www.m icrosoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/WM8/video.asp. The quality of the sample compressed at 750 kbps is comparable to that of the DivX full-length movies currently available on the Internet underground. Mpeg-4 based technology is capable of displaying an average length movie at that quality from a file between 550 and 650 megabytes each in length.

Swimming Up Mainstream
The origin of the DivX format, arguably the most popular Mpeg-4 codec currently available, is an issue subject to its own controversy. As stated earlier, many believe that DivX is merely a hacked version of Microsoft's Mpeg-4 codec. Whether this is true or not, alternatives to DivX claiming to have been developed from scratch (and thus legally) have already begun to appear. Corporations such as DivXNetworks, one of the forefathers of the DivX-style formats, have already stepped forward to help legitimize and mainstream this technology.

DivX still has many obstacles to overcome before it can take up the legacy left by the format that changed the music world. With a much heftier basic file size than its smaller cousin, and without a Napster equivalent, can DivX truly cause as much trouble, and reach the same popularity, as the Mp3? The answer to that lies partially in the differences between the way the music and the motion picture industries operate, and partially in the properties of the DivX format itself.

The most obvious roadblock to the Mpeg-4 becoming as mainstream as the Mp3 is the lack of a Napster movie equivalent. Napster allowes the average user to easily locate and download Mp3 files without a great deal of technical knowledge or sophistication. This made Mp3 open to anyone with an Internet connection, and that, combined with the popular culture of music, pushed it into the limelight.

Online Trading
However, programs such as Gnutella already allow files besides Mp3s to be traded online, and this includes DivX. While these programs are not yet as popular as Napster, their development, and consequently the development of a DivX Napster equivalent, is virtually guaranteed to continue. As it stands now, DivX is well known in many IRC and other communities. However, many of these do not rely on the central server technology that allows Napster's content to be controlled by the parent company. This makes them very difficult to control. With such a firm hold within the online community, DivX now stands with the same foothold to leap into stardom as the Mp3 had before Napster.

The sheer size of a DivX movie, 600 megabytes on average, is another deterrent to the possibility of DivX pirating achieving high popularity. Even with the growing numbers of high speed Internet connections available to households, a DivX movie can take several hours to download, as opposed to an Mp3, which takes minutes. However, as such communities as Gnutella and IRC have shown, many users are not daunted by the time involved. In fact, recent reports suggest that the rate of adaptation of users to DivX is becoming even greater than that of its Mp3 cousin.

You've Seen It Once. . .
The question then becomes not only how many people will take the time necessary to download a DivX file, but also how many people will then be around to watch it. Not only does the movie industry operate differently from the music industry, but we watch movies differently than we listen to music.

The size of the impact of free and easy access of pirated movies being available to the population at large may hinge on those differences. Where music is listened to over and over, movies are watched a limited number of times. This can be seen in people's willingness to pay ten dollars to see a movie when it is first released in the theater, yet only four dollars in the video store, and only a dollar for old releases. Every movie watcher knows the experience of passing up a movie on the shelves of a rental store because they've already seen it. A movie loses value to an individual each time it is viewed.

For this reason, DivX stands to do more damage to the movie industry than Napster did to the music industry. Because of the time-release schedules on which movies are circulated, motion pictures that are not yet available on the big screen often appear online, primed, proper, and ready for download weeks before their scheduled release. The Academy Award winning film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," for example, was available online nearly a month before its appearance in theaters in the United States.

Furthermore, whereas listening to recorded music is often a solitary activity, movie watching is a social event in the U.S. Friends gather to watch a single rented, borrowed, or downloaded video. If the Mpeg-4 inherits even a little of the popularity of its audio cousin, a single DivX downloaded from the Internet and burned to a CD may reach more eyes, and do more damage, per download than the Mp3 ever did.

Whether or not the average person will ever reach the point of seeking movies online for free instead of going to the theater or renting them from the video store is questionable. With access to movies that are not yet available elsewhere, though, and the improvement of Napster-like sharing programs, DivX may yet offer a tempting service to a wide audience.

Dreaming Of Better Streaming
The real issue behind DivX, however, may be its high visual quality.The Mpeg-4 may also represent a gigantic step forward towards developing the ever-elusive high quality streaming technology that has been sought after by companies like Microsoft, Apple, and RealNetworks.

The concept of watching TV on your computer over the Internet has been around nearly from the beginning, and the hunt for formats capable of streaming video with a high enough quality to compete with the television has been on for some time. With the arrival of the Mpeg-4, perhaps a new light is shining on an industry which up until now has been unable to capture a mainstream audience. Already Microsoft has samples of near VHS quality streams on their Windows Media 8 website, and DivXNetworks recently released a streaming technology of their own. Full-length movies based on streams of varying quality are already legitimately available.

Whether looked upon as a pirate's tool for stealing from legitimate businesses, or as an exciting technology emerging in the forefronts of the motion picture industry, there is little doubt that the Mpeg-4 format has the features necessary to prove controversial. The next few months will show whether or not DivX is capable of reaching a large scale audience. We'll also soon see how the affected industries will react to what they surely will see as gross copyright violations. With no obvious target such as Napster for denouncers to attack, future legislation and copyright violation tactics could take many forms.

If you're not already watching videos on your computer, you might want to pop some popcorn and get ready to watch the debate. What do you think constitutes theft and ownership? And what role does technology play in citizenship as well as in the marketplace? Stay tuned: the action has just begun!

----------

Aaron Stanton currently lives in Moscow, Idaho, wasting his hours writing for GamesFirst.com, a PC/Console game review site based at the University of Idaho. His experiences range from computer programing and web design to writing and teaching. He has worked on DNA research projects with INEEL and special design projects overseas while simultaneously making the best of his writing addiction. Catch him while you can at [e-mail]