why divx?

[Victor Ingrassia]

I'm researching divx pro for MAC as an encoding & playback codec. Can anyone who has used it talk about the experience. How well does it work? How would you compare it to using QuickTime (ease, efficiency of the codec, etc). Is it more universal (browser-wise) than QT? How well does it play on slower computers compared to QuickTime codecs on slower computers? How do you embed it in, for instance, this "ning" forum (as opposed to letting ning do it's conversion to Flash)? Have you used it on personal websites? Any other thoughts? Thanks! ~victor

[Victor Ingrassia]

thanks Ben. Yes it helps... any and all reactions are valuable. I mostly wanted to just throw the questions out there and see if anyone has particularly strong reactions either way.

So in your experience is Divx fairly equivalent to H264 in terms of file size, image quality, and data rate for similar final output quality?

[Donna Kuhn]

hi victor,

below is the code generator for embedding a divx player into a website. i didn't have to pay for anything. i use qt pro to convert the video to divx, upload it to stage 6 (you have to join first), put the url of the video into the code generator. it takes a little getting used to, upload seems slower than some other sites but i find the quality to be a bit better than other quicktime codecs.

donna


http://labs.divx.com/WebPlayerCodeGenerator

[Victor Ingrassia]

2 questions.

Can I host the divx file wherever I want (for instance on my web host server)? Or does it have to be on Stage6?

Also I'm a bit confused because I notice you can buy DivX or DivX pro from the DivX site... but your link maker page reference a way to get it for free? are these the same folks or is this some sort of user group "hack".

[Donna Kuhn]

http://www.divx.com/divx/whybuydivx.php

this link lets you download the free version, with the pro version you get a better codec and a converter. u do get a trial version of the pro codec for 6 months. if i have it, i dont know where it is and havent tried it yet. u can embed the player anywhere. (http://digitalaardvarks.blogspot.com) i do have to upload it to stage 6 in order to get the embed code. it was confusing. there is a dr. divx free converter i thought i would have to use to convert to divx but then i noticed quicktime pro already had a divx export codec.

[Victor Ingrassia]

BTW Donna, I was able to place my DivX encoded movie on my webhost's server. I used the embed code generator you mentioned and just made sure to enter the correct url for the location of the video on my server. Then I used ning's "Add a Video" "...from YouTube or Google" option and pasted in the code from the DivX embed generator. Of cource, as you've probably noticed, you don't get a thumbnail on the video list page... you get the generaic image:

So that's a drawback.
It has been an interesting experience ... and the DivX palyer has some interesting features too.

Thanks for your help.

~victor

[Donna Kuhn]

hi victor,

if you put your videos on stage 6 there is a way to take the thumbnail url and use it in the generator. i don't like having no thumbnail.

donna

[Frank N]

Hi Donna,

how did you do that? I've put videos on stage 6 still haven't got a thumbnail.

Frank

[Jean Detheux]

Victor,

Don't know if the following tutorial would apply to your needs, but I find it interesting given i will soon have to upload files to YouTube and this tells me how to do so with (hopefully) decent quality:

http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_you_tube.html

For what it is worth, I did some side-by-side tests using h.264, DivX (Pro version) and the Flash encoder, I stayed with h.264 after all.

I can't show those samples yet as they are part of a commercial project not ready for release, but I will eventually post links here.


Jean

[Victor Ingrassia]

Thanks Jean. The more help the better when it comes to YouTube. I have had to select what I put on YouTube based on how the video takes such a hit in the conversion to Flash. I tend to go for simple shapes and less subtle looks. Here's what I've been able to manage. victrolux on You Tube. I also find that keywords/tags are quite useful. Due to a tag similarity to a well hit YouTube video one of my videos has received 20,000 hits while my others have 200-300 hits.

Look forward to seeing your samples!

~Victor

[Victor Ingrassia]

thanks for the great example!

You know one of the reasons I've been considering Divx is that I have been unhappy with the quality I get when ning encodes the nice quality QuickTime movies I upload into the Flash format used here. I think I noticed that some folks have embedded (I think that's what's up) their own divx movies into the ning video page. i assume the user hosts their divx video elsewhere and uses the ning posting interface to paste the embed code. so this method gives the user more control over quality. i wish we could do that with our QuickTime movies.