HEXUS.net interview with DivX - any suggested questions?

[DR]

We've got an interview lined up early next week with Eric Grab of DivX, the company behind what's said to be the world’s most popular video technology.

DivX has been dubbed the MP3 of video - though in our experience, the quality, relatively speaking, is better. Videos created in DivX format can be surprisingly good even though the files are considerably smaller (sometimes far smaller) than the originals.

We'd like to have your input on the questions we put to DivX about the many exciting developments that the company's technology makes possible
- and, of course, about digital rights management or anything else relevant you think we should discuss.

What are these "exciting developments"?

Well, at one end, they include playing high definition videos on PCs that aren't fast enough to handle Windows Media versions of such files - and you might be shocked just how powerful a PC is needed to play 1440x1080 Windows Media video files.

For DivX HD, though, you'll still probably need a 2.4GHz PC with 384MByte RAM and a graphics card with 64MByte of video RAM.

At the other end, you might want to shrink and convert a high-res movie trailer you've downloaded to a video format suitable for playing on a handheld device or for emailing via a modem.

If this seems interesting but you've just returned to planet Earth and don't know about DivX, then go here as a starting point:
http://www.divx.com/divx/create/

You'll be able to download the latest free player and grab some clips to try out.

If you want to take things further, you'll also be able to download the 15-day trial versions of the company's inexpensive (US$20) DivX-creating software - and then make DivX versions of your own footage.

If your PC does have the required spec (and you've got ADSL or are very patient), then do check out the DivX HD stuff, perhaps starting with the 1280x720 trailer of the Madagascar cartoon, which shows off the technology very well. Go here for a list of HD downloads:
http://www.divx.com/hd/

Please post your questions and comments to the thread you're now reading .

Oh, and yes, like you, we were thinking what a wonderfully appropriate surname Eric has!

[Mike Fishcake]

"Did they notice a decrease in users when the free version had mandatory adware, and an increase in users when the adware was removed?"

[TiG]

I'd be interested to know his views on Video On demand vs Recorded Content and whether he feels DivX is an enabler of VOD, compared to say Purchased/Pre-Recorded Content. Whether DivX can/should be supported directly in hardware to reduce some of the requirements to play content?.

TiG

[Lee H]

"Did they notice a decrease in users when the free version had mandatory adware, and an increase in users when the adware was removed?"

Ooh good one

I would also like to hear his opinions on the open source varients such as the widely popular Xvid, and if this too has had an impact on DivX downloads at all ?

Also, When they released DivX did they imagine that they would have the impact that they have had on the media formats as divX is now one of the most popular to date?

[5lab]

are they planning on including any drm?

[headbrace]

Do they see a future for their products in Portable Movie Players; do they think that the market will see an expansion similar to that of the MP3 players?

[smtkr]

I haven't seen anything encoded with divx in years. Every file I see is xvid encoded (and with good reason). I do all of my vid encoding with xvid.

[Twigman]

Do they feel that their codec is too closely associated with illegal movie downloads/p2p etc?
If so, what are they doing to combat this or if they care about it or anything.

With faster and faster connections and bigger and bigger harddrives do they still think a compression codec such as this is necessary, when you could almost download the raw video footage and store it now?

[Matt1eD]

"Did they notice a decrease in users when the free version had mandatory adware, and an increase in users when the adware was removed?"

That pisses me off, my firewall goes crazy with application hijacking stuff, then adware sweeps across. I'd use DivX if they didn't do that.

[Aaron]

Do they feels that an iTunes-style download system for movies could work? How close is it to becoming a reality and what's stopping it from happening at present?

[Dav0s]

do they feel they are in competition with the xvid codec, and what pros does divx have over it.

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

What was their take on the European Software patents debate? Presumably Europe was a big enough player for them to take notice.

Do they have a strategy to get more Divx enabled players into living rooms?