DVD Quality Videos Over The Internet?

Think of the possibilities: a DVD can be compressed to a file size that fits on a CD-ROM. DVD quality videos can be downloaded via the Internet. This is what DivX is trying to achieve. We can see DivX as parallel to MP3. The latest version is DivX5.0.

Like MP3, DivX could revolutionize the market for digital video. Notebook owners can take more than 10 times the video material with them, with the same data capacity. DivX videos allow us to make less demand on Internet data networks, making more efficient use of valuable bandwidth. This format is also superbly suited as a transfer medium. Even the download times for videos on demand can be effectively reduced.

DivX has developed a codec that compresses the data volume of DVDs to an eleventh of their original size, with almost the same quality. This makes DivX ideal for transmitting audio and video data over the Internet. It also makes it possible for a Hollywood classic to be burned onto a CD-ROM.

There're also DivX-compatible consumer electronics on the market, including DVD players and handheld devices. The code is compatible with MPEG-4, an emerging standard for multimedia delivery on applications ranging from downloadable Internet video to satellite radio.

Not only does DivX make one of the most popular codecs for video compression on the Web, but its technology is catching on with chip manufacturers and device makers. The company's newest software is aimed at consumers who want to port video off the PC without having to encode it multiple times.

Video compression technology is taking a page from the MP3 revolution, in which support for the music file standard gathered in peer-to-peer communities and electronics manufacturers later built compatible devices. Already about 3 million U.S. households swap files of movies and TV shows in file-sharing communities online such as Kazaa, according to research from The Yankee Group, which notes that a large amount of those files are encoded in DivX technology. About a third of those people downloading video files burn them onto a CD or DVD.

Far and away DivX is the No. 1 format for file-swapping of video on the Internet. That's why DivX is striving to make their format as consumer electronics-friendly as possible, because there's this trend toward moving MPEG-4 off the PC and into the home theater and onto portable devices.

The DivX video technology touts DVD-quality compression that is 10 times more compact than MPEG-2 files. MPEG-2 is the standard for DVDs.

DivX - DVD Quality Videos Over The Internet?

DVD Quality Videos Over The Internet?