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Divx Now Adware Supported Only 590

Posted by timothy from the and-so-it-goes dept.
bogomip_bandit writes "The divx codec is no longer free, no strings attached. Until recently, when downloading the codec from divx.com, one could select Dr Divx for a price, Divx Pro for a price, the divx codec for free, or the divx codec with bundled adware to help support divx development etc. Recently the site has changed. Now when one visits the download page, the only free codec you can download is adware supported. This means even to just watch divx movies and not do any actual enncoding, one has to install adware on their machine. I for one will be finding a different video codec." Sounds like a good reason (if you needed one) to look curiously at Ogg Theora. Update: 08/20 20:04 GMT by T : Correction: As several readers have pointed out, the bare codec is still available, it's just listed below the payware / adware versions.
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Divx Now Adware Supported Only More

Divx Now Adware Supported Only

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  • Look further down (Score:5, Informative)

    by jagger ( 23047 ) * <jagger&oznog,org> on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:44PM (#6747607) Homepage
    There is a link to download the divx codec (no cost) without the adware below the three main choices. the url is:

    http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX505Bundle.exe

    • Re:Look further down (Score:5, Funny)

      by Satan Dumpling ( 656239 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:46PM (#6747638) Homepage
      Hehe, he didn't even read the whole page before complaining...

    • How does an article like this get posted? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Interested to know whether the Slashdot editors validate incoming information to see if what the poster is stating has any truth to it.

      <sigh>

    • typical slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:51PM (#6747718)
      it's amazing that not even the submitter reads the article. At least he mentioned an open source project to get posted.

      Way to go slashdot!
    • That's a new one. A submitter not getting (reading?) the whole story before submitting it. Usually it's the other way around, with the one posting the comment not reading the article. Classic!

    • Re:Look further down (Score:5, Funny)

      by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:01PM (#6747864) Homepage
      This advert for Ogg Theora brought to you by...Ogg Theora!
    • "Oh! Never mind...."

    • So now, with the correction on the front page, the story can be summarized as: "The divx site changed and for a moment it seemed like you could only use an adware-enabled version, but if you look closer you can see that you can still get the free one". This can be further summarized as: "The divx site changed".

      Way to go guys!

    • XviD (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:28PM (#6748159) Homepage
      Yeah, of course old non-adware versions of the divX codec will still be available for a while, but the point is that there won't be any new non-adware versions except the ones you have to buy.

      XviD is a great alternative, which looks just as good as DivX (About 5mb per minute gets you very good quality if encoded properly. 10mb per minute is near DVD quality.)

      It's completely free and GPL'd, and it's also already very popular, by my estimates its the second most popular codec, behind DivX, for the (ilegal) online distribution of movies and TV shows, unlike Ogg Theora which is completely unheard of fringe experimental codec that no serious group has ever used for a release.

      XviD source code [xvid.org]

      Nic's XviD binary (best) [dnsalias.com]

      A divX digest page with links to several other, older XviD binaries [divx-digest.com]

      • Re:XviD (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Alan Partridge ( 516639 )
        "that no serious group has ever used for a release"

        What are you insinuating? That Divx is something other than a DVD pirate's codec of choice? You're not seriously suggesting that it's a commercial video encoding proposition are you? I do video compression professionally and NOT ONE of my clients has EVER expressed an interest in Divx.

        NOT ONE.

        • Re:XviD (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Jugalator ( 259273 )
          Blizzard Entertainment, one of the world's largest computer game developers, are using DivX as cinematic compression codec of choice since a couple of years back when they stopped using the popular RAD Game Tools. An excellent choice IMHO since both DivX and XviD supplies us with and excellent trade off between video quality and size.

      • Re:XviD (Score:5, Informative)

        by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @05:14PM (#6749111) Homepage Journal
        It's completely free and GPL'd

        Not quite, you have to remember to send your payment to the MPEG LA group for a "Patent Portfolio License" [mpegla.com]. There are a ton [mpegla.com] of patents in MPEG4. Here's an interesting link about a "per stream" fee [eurolinux.org] MPEG LA is even considering

        Ogg Theora also has patents on the VP3 video codec but the license [theora.org] agreement makes it clear there are no royalties due for using or repackaging VP3. One of the key reasons why it's "fringe" is because it's hasn't been released as anything other than developer builds on Linux as of yet so there are no tools other than proofs of concept for creating and playing Ogg Theora streams yet.
    • This is yet another twist to the many different kinds of software that tries to get users to actually PAY for the product (and who can blame them?).
      It used to be we have shareware - the pay-by-the-honor-system system. Then came the time-trial shareware, which expires after the trail period, then came the nag-ware, which pops up with windows reminding you to register your software, crippleware, which had features that were disabled or functionality limited, then came the adware, which allows you to use the

    • Am I the only one disturbed? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Merk ( 25521 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @05:57PM (#6749455) Homepage

      I'm pretty disturbed by the fact that:

      • This story made the front page without even the slightest attempt at fact checking
      • The story is still on the front page with the headline "Divx Now Adware Supported Only"

      I mean, I know Slashdot isn't the New York Times. I know it's fun to laugh at the lousy jobs the editors do, and the lousy job the people submitting stories do, and how awful people's spelling and grammar are, but c'mon! This is getting ridiculous.

      If OSDN can't afford to hire editors, fact checkers, or anything else, try to recruit volunteers! Do it like the moderation system. Allow random users to see stories that are about to be posted and fact check them. You could have "verified true" and "verified false", then "metaverification" to keep the fact checkers honest.

      I'd be happy to check the facts and the grammar of a few stories a month for free, in exchange for others doing it the rest of the time. Isn't that the whole idea of Open Source? Many eyes, few bugs? One person's effort helping thousands more?

      • What I don't get is how CmdrTaco can get annoyed that people complain. He says it's a free site they do for fun, etc. etc. Yeah, let's ignore the fact that the site has a massive readership and a large sphere of influence, and then act surprised when people complain that outright false things get posted to the front page. Sorta like flashing big false headlines on a blimp floating over a city and acting surprised! Playing ignorant and using excuses doesn't make it any less astonishing and annoying.

        • Playing ignorant and using excuses doesn't make it any less astonishing and annoying.

          It also won't stand up in court when some for-profit company sues for libel. Seriously, this is incorrect information about a for-profit company that could damage their public image. Don't worry about the "real impact" - we all know that's irrelevant in the US legal system.

          All I saw when I read the title "Divx (sic) Now Adware Supported Only" was "DivX alters business model to something I won't like". The headline is

  • DIVX and porn (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:44PM (#6747608) Homepage
    Go together like toast and butter. Looks like some of us are going to have to go out and find girlfriends now...

  • Time for DivX-lite? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Anyone volunteering to do for DivX what Kazaalite did for Kazaa?

  • Guess what (Score:3, Informative)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:45PM (#6747616) Journal
    You think you don't need to pay for things? Good luck with that [penny-arcade.com].

    • Re:Guess what (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )
      My problem with this is that the Pro versions (which I'd gladly pay for) have similar copy protection schemes as Windows XP. I refuse to support software that requires internet registration and where, if I add a new hard drive to my computer, decides to stop working. I hesitate to say that it /might/ be ok from a company like Microsoft, whom we assume will be around for some time, but who knows if DivX is going to up and fold, leaving us high and dry with software we've paid for but can't use?

      Nope, if th

  • ffdshow (Score:5, Informative)

    by elohim ( 512193 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:45PM (#6747617)
    There's always ffdshow, a sourceforge project that includes both divx and xvid.
    • First thing that popped into my head too, haven't used Divx in ages but that hasn't stopped me from watching any divx clips ;'> Including a link to get [sourceforge.net] it from is always a Good Thing(tm) BTW

  • Using new codecs... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I for one will be finding a different video codec.

    Well, that's all well and good, but alas, the pr0n websites continue to use DiVX. What are we to do?

    • i, for one, will start using more and more of my apps under a vmware installation of windows. and yes, i do run windows as my primary operating system. kazaa is already in there, as well as a dozen other apps i want to try without infecting my system. i can disable the network on the vmware os at any time, halt until i need it, and easily wipe it out and restore from a backup image.
      i realize this doesn't apply to this story since the submitter is a moron, but the fact is that it would not be surprising w
  • On the linked download page, under the Dr. Divx/Divx Pro, in a normal text link it says "Download the DivX codec (no cost)" which is NOT the Adware version.

  • Uhhh... (Score:5, Informative)

    by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:46PM (#6747634)
    I think you might be missing something: Check here [divx.com].

    The codec itself is not adware supported. It appears the only thing they've changed is the layout of their downloads page - they've de-emphasized the free codec download, but it's still there.
    • I don't even think they changed the layout that recently. It looked like this with the codec link at the bottom a few months ago when I went and got the codec.

  • A shame (Score:2)

    by Tack ( 4642 )
    That's really too bad. The divx player at divx.com was the only decent player I've seen that manages to properly play video created by mencoder.

    Does anyone know of other options?

    Jason.

  • Heaven Forbid! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tebriel ( 192168 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:46PM (#6747643)
    Heaven forbid that the developers might want some compensation out of their efforts.

    • Re:Heaven Forbid! (Score:5, Informative)

      by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @05:22PM (#6749174)
      Compensation, yeah right. Remember OpenDivX? I'll tell you the story.
      At first, Project Mayo created the OpenDivX project. They claimed that it was "an open source version of DivX". (That claim couldn't be any more wrong; OpenDivX was licensed under the OpenDivX license, which wasn't approved by the Open Source Initiative.) Dispite that, people contributed code anyway.
      And on one day (about 1 year later), BAM. Project Mayo suddenly closed the CVS and turned all that code into their own, commercial, proprietary DivX 4 codec. OpenDivX is dead. The end.
      Not only did they stole the work that people contributed, they also took advantage of the confusion. A lot of people (including Slashdotters!) thought DivX 4 == OpenDivX, and thus thought that DivX is open source. That's plain wrong.

      They stole the work of contributors without giving anything back. Sorry but I have no mercy for those guys if they don't receive compensation. DivX.com can go bankrupt as far as I'm concerned.
  • Oh well i use xvid anyways.
  • This will only help xvid and ogg theora, which is a good thing. DivX might be more fine tuned and official, but the majority of people won't want to install something with spyware regardless that programs like Ad-Aware and Spy Bot Search and Destroy can easily remove. Most people don't go around purposely installing Bonzai Buddy just so they have some other program working.

    Oh well, XviD is gaining popularity as well as developmental features. Soon more people will be using XviD and Ogg for encoding.

  • Microsoft Tax (Score:3)

    by h0tblack ( 575548 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:46PM (#6747650)
    Well, not exactly ;) But the point is it's only the Win32 version that follows this 'pricing' format. Freed download of the 5.0.5 codec for Mac [divx.com] and Linux [divx.com] are still available.

    • Re:Microsoft Tax (Score:3, Interesting)

      by axxackall ( 579006 )
      Freed download of the 5.0.5 codec for Mac and Linux are still available.

      Not so fast:

      $ tar -zxvf divx4linux-std-20030428.tar.gz
      divx4linux-2003042 8/
      divx4linux-20030428/libdivxencore.so
      divx4lin ux-20030428/libdivxdecore.so
      divx4linux-20030428/ DivX MPEG-4 Codec and Its Interface.htm
      divx4linux-20030428/encore2.h
      divx 4linux-20030428/install.sh
      divx4linux-20030428/po rtab.h
      divx4linux-20030428/decore.h
      $ file divx4linux-20030428/libdivxencore.so
      divx4linux-2 0030428/libdivxencore.so: ELF 32-bit LSB sha

  • ...except Ogg Theora's quality blows chunks compared to Divx. Just use a well-documented (and legal!) registry tweak to disable the adware software.

  • It was to be expected (Score:5, Informative)

    by ickoonite ( 639305 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:47PM (#6747652) Homepage
    DivXNetworks, IIRC, closed the source on an originally open project. This is just the (albeit rather belated) final stage in their evil plans.

    Anyway, DivX sucks! I can't quite see why anyone would bother with it when XviD and FFMPEG are available, both offering vastly superior picture quality. Still, I suppose DivX has the most bullshit and adware, ergo greater end-user appeal...*sigh*

    iqu :)
  • Download and install the full-featured, adware-equipped divx codec. Then, run Adaware [lavasoftusa.com] to find and remove all the Gator and other adware that is part of the divx package. All the divx with none of the crap!

    • Re:Um, just remove the adware... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:54PM (#6747772)
      A lot of the divx stuff stops working if you do this, though. What you really need to do is to download the free version that has the adware removed properly
    • Personally, I do not see stripping out the ad-ware as an option.

      If there is software I like, and no non-adwre alternative is available. I make the choice
      1) Pay For the software
      2) Allow the ad-ware to be installed, and fully functional
      3) Find an alternative.

      If you don't like the distribution model, don't use the software, the argument for stealing it out of distaste for the distribution method instead simply doesn't hold water.

      I think the guilt-free popularity of things like Ad-Ware and cydoor.dll replace
      • "If you don't like the distribution model, don't use the software, the argument for stealing it out of distaste for the distribution method instead simply doesn't hold water."

        I'm not sure what definition of stealing you are using, but it is certainly not one I am aware of. The copyright holder sent to the user an authorized copy of DIVX. So, there's no copyright violation. The user decicides to change the copywrited work that was sent to them, via the removal of adware, which is well within their fair
    • I tried that and it decided to stop working because I didn't have Gator or whatever installed.

      Ben
  • We all got hooked on Divx. The Divx people know it. It will take at least a year for the effects of this to reverse itself and for the Divx encoders/users to switch to another format. Let's hope the Ogg folks come up with a viable alternative, or hey... why not just stick with what we have now until we can reverse engineer it into a OSS clone?
    • Ok, bit of history lesson, from the way I heard it. Back in the day, DivX 4's dev team (Project Mayo) split up, half becomming what is now DivX, and the other half becomming what would later be called the XviD team.

      Basically, the DivX guys seem more concerned with becomming a closed source but open standard group right now, and making DivX into the next VHS/DVD type standard. XviD seems to be the flip side, free software, version of the coin.

      (I should point out that this is just what I heard, and I've

  • VLC (Score:4, Informative)

    by justMichael ( 606509 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:48PM (#6747673) Homepage
    Why not just use the VideoLAN Client [videolan.org]?

    It does a lot [videolan.org] more than I will ever need it to.
    • Why not just use the VideoLAN Client? [videolan.org]

      I second that ... mod the parent up. I use the VLC client on my Mac because Apple wants $29.95 for full-screen Quicktime ... forget about it. VLC is cross-platform and it's all I need.

    • Re:VLC (Score:3, Funny)

      by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) *
      But...can it check your email? ;)

  • No, The Print Just Shrunk (Score:3, Informative)

    by andyf ( 15400 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:48PM (#6747683) Homepage
    You can still download the player codec for free, no adware. The *encoder* has been ad-supported for a while I think. They just shuffled the links around.

    The codec download just moved right below. "Download the DivX codec (no cost)" still just gets you the codec with *no* adware at all. The three options on the top are Dr Divx(pay), Divx Pro(pay) and Divx Pro(adware). They moved the codec and player to the text link to make space for Dr Divx. That's all.

  • Ogg Theora...not quite ready for prime time (Score:3, Informative)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:50PM (#6747699)
    From their faq [theora.org]:

    Q: This is great. When will it all be finished so I can use it right now, like this minute? Please?

    A: Ogg Theora was scheduled to go Beta (that means the bitstream is locked down, and all features are represented) in March of 2003. Obviously, that's slipped. Alpha 2 is going to be released shortly; but please remember that until Beta, there is no promise that files you encode will be supported in the final release.

    Q: Can I use Theora to encode stuff right now?

    A: Yes, but we strongly, strongly recommend against it, for anything but test-cases. This is not a full release in any sense of the word, it is simply a milestone, and if you start encoding things right away, there's a really good chance that it will break when you try to play it with tools we release when the final version is released.

    • Yeah, this irks the heck out of me. The FAQ also solicits outside developers to "hack away" and help get it ready...but with Xiph's continuing silence on the project and a lack of documentation, nobody but Xiph can really contribute anything...

      All is not lost, though - Dan Miller has actually been actively working on specifications for the Theora codec and such, and there has been a LITTLE work that's shown up in CVS since the Alpha 2 release. Just nothing real recent.

      It sounds as though all that's REAL

  • What exactly will this mean for open-source video player vlc [videolan.org]? Looking for Mac or PC support, or a web/database developer, in the NYC area? [marreck.com]

  • XVID (Score:2, Interesting)

    by OppressiveGiant ( 558743 )

    I've not seen Ogg Theora in action, but I have seen xvid [xvid.org] do wonders. I'm sure there are many other options.

    The problem is just getting people encoding the video to realize what a pain in the ass it will be for the end user to view the video they are encoding. If they've been using divX, they're going to continue to do so especially if they've actually purchased the software.

  • They hooked people, and then decided to start making a profit. People: Convert all your Divx movies to another format and never look back. This kind of thing should not be tolerated!

    I look forward to some hacks removing the adware requirements from the codecs, or 3rd party codecs. I hope someone has the guts to do it.
  • ..is what I read that title as. Apparently, that actually IS the case now.

    after installing divx.. [lavasoftusa.com]

  • What's with the screwy names? (Score:4, Funny)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:53PM (#6747749)
    Why do the Ogg people keep coming up with such stupid names? Ogg Theora? It sounds like a female character from a bad Star Trek movie. Ogg Vorbis would be her husband.

    I mean seriously, what sounds more professional when you're proposing something to your manager: "We should use Ogg Vorbis!", or "We should use MPEG Layer 3". I know which one I'd rather be saying to my boss.

    • Re:What's with the screwy names? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jaeger ( 2722 ) * on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:58PM (#6747819) Homepage

      Read the FAQ [theora.org]. If you're too lazy to click:

      Q: Why the name 'Theora?'

      A: Like other Xiph.org Foundation codec projects such as Vorbis or Tarkin, Theora is named after a fictional character. Theora Jones was the name of Edison Carter's 'controller' on the television series Max Headroom. She was played by Amanda Pays.

    • What's with this thing call "professionalism", that you think MPEG sounds professional? The software is free, the naming is quaint? So?
    • Why do the Ogg people keep coming up with such stupid names? Ogg Theora? It sounds like a female character from a bad Star Trek movie.

      Substitute 'recent' for superflous adjective in bold...

      I mean seriously, what sounds more professional when you're proposing something to your manager: "We should use Ogg Vorbis!"

      'Ogg Vorbis!' sounds like the exclamation of a Medieval SysAdmin from the Canterbury Tales....
    • Self limiting. Its like you have the wonderfull product and you really want people to use it, but you give it an unfortunate name (Le Mans) and it flops. I doesn't matter that the name has nothing to do with the quality of the technology, it just wont get used. Seems like if the name is trivial then renaming it should the next issue (suggestions and voting on Slashdot!).

  • Seriously Guys (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 222 ( 551054 )
    I mean, it would take 3 seconds to check the validity of this! I can't believe crap like this gets through, and stories [com.com] that are actually worth reading are rejected over and over again. I know its horribly off topic, but I only wish everyone would make their PHB's read the link.

  • Anyone know? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by whoda ( 569082 ) * on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:54PM (#6747765) Homepage
    How can I use my mod points to rate this entire article 'WRONG'? :)

  • Uhm, it's MPEG4.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by flocto ( 266948 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:55PM (#6747777) Homepage
    DivX 4/5 ist MPEG4 compliant, so you don't need the DivX 5 decoder to watch an MPEG4 stream whose creator happened to use the DivX 5 encoder..

  • Not a bad business model, actually... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaveJay ( 133437 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:55PM (#6747786)
    It's an interesting idea.

    First, you get the early adopter types to use it and spread it around by offering it for free. These same people start using it to encode movies, because they're techy types.

    Once it hits the mainstream, offer multiple versions -- free, so that techies can still get it and propogate it, and ad-supported, so that nontechs who want the "extra" (ie useless) features will watch the ads.

    Eventually it becomes so common within the mainstream community that you feel you can lose the free version -- the techies will move on to something else, or keep using their old free version, but the established mainstream use will keep growing -- and so will the ad revenue.

    I don't LIKE it, but it certainly seems to have worked. Imagine how difficult it will be to wean our nontechnical family members to a new codec... "But you said DivX was better than all the others, and I don't care about the ads!"

  • So fickle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by essdodson ( 466448 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @02:58PM (#6747824) Homepage
    So something is good until someone starts trying to recoup the costs of their investments? Come on folks, get real. Codec development is costly, in addition, so is having it downloaded by millions. Perhaps if more people were willing to give back to projects they wouldn't be forced to do such.

  • Real player anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zutronics ( 564054 )
    This reminds me of the real player. http://www.real.com/ - It's fun to watch someone find the real player. It's even more fun to watch that person get absolutely infuriated as the real player sets itself to load during startup and just be a general pain in the ass. Fun times.

  • How to get around the Adware (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Izago909 ( 637084 ) <tauisgod@g m a i l . com> on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:04PM (#6747889)
    You need to have a compiler that can make DLL's. Just create a program that exits as soon at it starts. Run adaware and compile it to a DLL. Copy and rename it to the ones adaware just removed. I can only get it to work with the decoder only. It won't work if you want to encode video.

  • windows media player? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by golgotha007 ( 62687 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:06PM (#6747922)
    ok, here's a rant; mod be into oblivion if you like, but i think some users will agree with me here.

    windows media player seemed to be the best player for all kinds of video content while any linux player was, well lacking, mainly with codec support. i remember when windows media player would auto-download a codec and everything worked great.

    lately, i'm having a hard time playing many video files in windows media player and the auto-download codec thingie is a freakin joke. i don't know how many different codec installers i've been thru trying to make sure all codecs are covered (god knows how much adaware software has been deployed on my xp machine in the process).

    frustrated, i've turned to linux for video viewing. i installed mplayer with the gmplayer front end and the w32 codec file.

    now, i can play any codec thrown at me. quicktime? windows formats? no problem.

    also, there's no better satisfaction then when my friends say to me, 'hey, i can't seem to play this video file you gave me.. how did you see it?'

    'with linux.' (did their job just drop? yep, it sure did!)
    • Just go with Windows Media Player and Windows Media Video for most tasks, it is just so much easier.

      A few months ago I got an AIW9700Pro and started using it to record TV shows while I was out. For whatever reason, I downloaded the Windows Media Encoder to encode the MPG output... Turns out the quality is pretty damn good, better than DivX I think maybe slightly better than Xvid. Windows Media Encoder also compresses video to PocketPC size perfectly... People laugh, but I think its damn cool watching TV

  • Gotta hand it to the editors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:07PM (#6747930) Homepage
    This isn't a troll.....but I'm just sayin......ya gotta hand it to the editors to not even check the facts on something as major as this. The story is not ONLY completely wrong, because the free/ad free version is still available, but it also just is a lame attempt to grab eyeballs. I know I immediately checked this out when I read it, because it would have been devastating to my pr0n/anime/borrowed-from -MPAA-movie viewing habit. Seriously, the editors are getting more and more careless here....I hate to say it, but Slashdot is fast approaching the trustworthiness of the NY Times, and thats NOT a compliment.

  • Right on the money (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wrexen ( 151642 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:07PM (#6747936) Homepage
    Posted by timothy on Wed August 20, 02:42 PM
    from the neither-factual-nor-new dept.

  • At least (Score:4, Informative)

    by WTFmonkey ( 652603 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:11PM (#6747980)
    timothy takes it well. "As several readers have pointed out" is in the update. What he wanted to say was, "as several barking assholes have bitched, moaned, and puled about (rather than noticing that someone else already said it and leaving well enough alone)..."

    Yeah, mod me down for my superglue-to-buttcheeks maneuver if you will, but I'm right. Christ, people fuck up sometimes, no reason to reason to fill the thread with, "Dur, the link's right there, dur the link's right there!"

  • alternatives (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:16PM (#6748033) Journal
    "This means even to just watch divx movies and not do any actual enncoding, one has to install adware on their machine."

    This is not correct. Just get the 3ivx codec [3ivx.com] which is currently $free (but not free as in speech) that plays DivX, XvID and 3ivx flavours of MPEG-4 encoded video and has no spyware. It's available on windows, mac, linux, beos and amiga. Get it - it includes both encoder and decoder, and on windows it installs an AAC (advanded audio coding) directshow filter so you can watch those MPEG-4 compliant videos with MPEG-4 compliant AAC audio streams in WMP. I never installed DivX on my machine but watch DivX video all the time thanks to this.

    And I have seen comparisons showing that the post-filtering if 3ivx actually shows divx and xvid videos better than their own native codecs. YMMV.

    (Note: Please don't quote the doom9.org comparison that said 3ivx encoding was terrible. This is only because the tester used terrible settings for the encoder since the 3ivx team did not respond to their request for good settings.)

  • Why is this still posted then?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smkndrkn ( 3654 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:17PM (#6748045)
    Doesn't the correction make this a non-story?

  • just delete the gain_trickler.exe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rai ( 524476 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:24PM (#6748116) Homepage
    There's a file in one of the folders (Divx Codec i think) that contains a file "gain_trickler.exe" which is set to startup in the windows registry. Just delete the entry in regedit and delete or rename the file. (I'd give exact instructions, but I'm at work now with no access to the program...it's not hard to figure out though.)

  • I'm usually easy on /. editors but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maul ( 83993 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:26PM (#6748132) Journal
    It is absolutely shameful that this was posted. It is hard to believe that /. editors couldn't even be bothered to scroll through the entire download page to see that there is still a link for the fee codec.

    That being said, this does show how vulnerable we are to "bait and switch" methods. Divx has been widely adopted because it was free. If all of a sudden we DID need to pay money or have adware on our PCs to use the newer version, it would cause problems.

  • Who cares about DivX? (Score:4, Informative)

    by rzei ( 622725 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:33PM (#6748203)
    Who actually cares shit about DivX [divx.com]? We've had ffmpeg [sf.net] for some time! If you are honestly watching videos using windows system.. You need ffdshow [cutka.szm.sk] directshow filter (yes, it's based on ffmpeg).

    WHY are there headlines like this on the front page? For those who are looking for encoder, mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] comes with the famous mencoder. If my memory serves me right, latest stable (pre-)release supports latest xvid and DivX encoding options.

    -rzei

  • Wrong - So remove the damn story! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brnrd ( 67576 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:56PM (#6748424)
    The whole thing was proved incorrect anyway, so why keep it on the front page?

  • Please support XViD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Awptimus Prime ( 695459 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2003 @03:56PM (#6748427)

    XViD is on the path to surpass DiVX, being rapidly developed open source.

    Nothing is different for the end-user's experience. Encoding is a teenie bit more flakey than DiVX, but I'd expect it to have surpassed DiVX within a year in the quality/compression department.

    Now only if we can drum up enough support to put Real and QT out of business. >:-)

    http://www.xvid.org/

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