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Graphics Software GNU is Not Unix

XVID 1.0 Released 321

Posted by michael from the graphic-violence dept.
Freedom66 writes "The 1.0 version of XVID codec is available. XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec like DIVX codec. It's an open source project which is developed and maintained by lots of people from all over the world. On the 31st December, Doom9 has made a codec comparison and XVID was at this time, one of the best codecs."
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XVID 1.0 Released More

XVID 1.0 Released

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  • codec (Score:5, Informative)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:02PM (#9169724)
    if you just want to download a codec so you can play movies (eg, with wmp) , go here [goe.net].

    (i use mplayer for win32 now, so i don't use this anymore)

    • Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:17PM (#9170059) Journal
      This codec is much better than the xvid.org one. I experienced constant crashing with the 'official' codec whenever I opened an xvid-encoded file or even browsed a folder containing said file in File Explorer; however, with the koepi codec it has been plain sailing all the way, and great image quality to boot. Should a video codec have the ability to crash whatever program is using it?

      Am I the only one who finds the lack of reliable and up-to-date codec info on the net very frustrating? It's always easy to find dozens of people with the same problem as you, virtually impossible to find anyone with an accurate answer.

    • Re:codec (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why use the unfinished mplayer port when you can use Videolan Client? ;)

      http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

      • Re:codec (Score:5, Informative)

        by Comsn ( 686413 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:27PM (#9170100)
        vlc halts playing any files for me (tested the last couple 7.x.x versions)

        mplayer unfinished? mind naming some examples? http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32-bet a/ [mplayerhq.hu]

        also... vlc uses 20mb ram sitting there... mplayer 2-6mb for me

        • Re:codec (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, unfinished. The win32 mplayer version that any windows user would be interested in is this one, http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32-be t a/mplayer-windows-gui-0.001pre4.zip
          which so happens to located where you pointed and is still Alpha and not finished yet. Unless of course you consider buttons that don't work and other assorted problems normal. In fact the readme from the devs say specifically,
          "very experimental windows gui: alpha, probably won't work for your system".

          I also use the VLC

    • ffdshow (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheBurningDog ( 747915 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:45PM (#9170181)
      for playback, i use ffdshow [sourceforge.net] . It has post processing filters built into the codec. The Deblock filter is priceless for low bitrate movies.

  • Yea but.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:03PM (#9169728) Journal
    does it matter if the codec isn't used commercially? Odds are that commercial publishers are not going to want any new format that doesn't have some kind of DRM, like it or not.
    • DRM is normally done at the packet level, not the codec level. One could easily apply, say, Windows Media or Intertrust DRM with a file encoded with XVID. XVID doesn't have any meaningful effect on DRM pro or con.

      Since XVID is a MPEG-4 Part 2 codec, any DRM system that can encrypt MPEG-4 can do XVID-encode files.

      • Re:DRM doesn't happen at the codec level (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:19PM (#9169822) Journal
        Ok, good point. I still wonder about how popular a codec can be if its not used commercially. This may not be the goal of the authors, but it does influence whether the format is cross platform or not. I can see movie distributors, microsoft, et al not wanting to use open source anything, considering open source (and the GPL in particular) are seen as the platform of choice for hackers, crackers, pirates and other lower forms of life.

        Rediculous, yes, but "free" still scares a lot of companies, and many other companies make a tidy living by capitolizing on, and feeding, this fear.

        So I still wonder how accepted an open sourced codec will be in the short run, since 95% of desktop users run Windows, without requiring someone to manually install a codec.
        • 95% of desktop users may run windows, but who cares?
          The target is people who use desktops primarily for media, and of those, I would guess the majority are capable of installing a codec.
          The main factor on acceptance will be if it's actually used by 10 million eMule and torrent users to share movies; if it's comparable to DivX, and less of a pain in the ass (I don't consider DivX to be much of one myself, but apparently it is to some people), then it will become a standard.

        • Re:DRM doesn't happen at the codec level (Score:5, Interesting)

          by secolactico ( 519805 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:41PM (#9169905) Journal
          So I still wonder how accepted an open sourced codec will be in the short run, since 95% of desktop users run Windows, without requiring someone to manually install a codec

          Depends on what you mean by "manually install".

          Windows Media Player tries to download the codec if the media is in a format it doesn't recognize, but divx (last time I tried) is not recognized nor downloaded automatically.

          So people simply go to the divx site, download the installer and execute it. All that is required for xvid to be used by windows users is for someone to make an installer for it (and there already is one).

          That said, I haven't seen many xvid videos around in the newsgroups or on p2p networks.

        • xvid's now one of the encoding formats of choice for anime fansub downloads. Given that these have exploded in popularity with the development of bittorrent and the rise in popularity of anime in the US, I'd say that's pretty damn popular.

        • If you're into anime fansubs of things that aren't in the US yet, you'd quickly see how. Anime-Kraze is subbing Chrno Crusade and Inu Yasha now, for example. They use XVid. When a new ep is released of those two, it's usually downloaded a couple thousand times on Bit Torrent alone, then spread over P2P thereafter.

          The codec proliferates quite nicely like that.
        • So I still wonder how accepted an open sourced codec will be in the short run, since 95% of desktop users run Windows, without requiring someone to manually install a codec.

          It'll be the same as it always has been: WinZip, ICQ, WinAmp, and DivX ;-) never came pre-installed on people's computers; it was the early-adopters (computer geeks who aren't programmers) that adopted them.

          We needn't worry about 95% of desktop user, since they tend to follow whatever the friendly neighbourgood computer whiz shows t

        • Re:DRM doesn't happen at the codec level (Score:4, Insightful)

          by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Monday May 17, 2004 @04:56AM (#9171560) Homepage
          amazingly enough, XVID's popularity is pretty high up there. anyone doing high-quality video with the intention of releasing it online is virtually guaranteed to do it in either XVID or DIVX. with the miserable DIVX 5 release, I've become an XVID convert.

          I do music videos and various odd things and I have a good number of friends that also work with video on a frequent basis, with varying levels of seriousness; from a recreational video maker to a professional lighting tech. there's not a single one that doesn't use DIVX, XVID or WMV9, and those that use WMV9 and DIVX are rapidly dropping off in favor of XVID.

          In my personal expierience, it encodes a little faster than DIVX and significantly faster than WMV9, as well as providing better quality (less blockiness than either) when set side-by-side.

          There are only a few good mpeg4 codecs out there and DIVX and XVID are at the top. factor in that the DIVX site is misleading and seemingly does not give the option to install without spyware, many people are turning to XVID. that it's open-source is a plus for me, but the big reason I use it is because it's simply the best out there for my needs. and judging from the amount of times I see XVID in video release groups online, other people think so, too.

    • Re:Yea but.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ForestGrump ( 644805 )
      But who cares? Those corporations don't give the consumer the "good stuff" anyway. I know what it is like being in college and without a car. It makes life difficult to actually rent a movie. So we download them.
      And to watch a tv show? (yea, the lounge...its always taken by someone else)
      Suprnova is a student's best friend.

      I want a reliable source to get my shows from, something more reliable than a random bum who is kind enough to encode the shows (vcd? crappy analog tv?) I'd gladly pay a small fee to

    • Re:Yea but.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:59PM (#9169981) Homepage Journal
      Well, since it is MPEG-4 conformant, it is supported commercially. QuickTime can play xvid encoded movie files with the included MPEG-4 plugin. I haven't tried many other players, but as long as their MPEG-4 implementation isn't completely borked, then they should play it as well.

      DRM is wholly different from the codec. Anyone can take and make a DRM wrapper around MPEG (and hence xvid) without too many problems. An analagous example would be Apple's DRM around AAC (which is part of MPEG-4, I believe).

    • Re:Yea but.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:29PM (#9170108)
      does it matter if the codec isn't used commercially?

      It doesn't matter.

      In fact at one point, Sigma Designs [sigmadesigns.com] was caught stealing Xvid code [xvid.org] for their hardware players

      Sunny Dubey

  • Grab the 1.0 Compiled XviD 1.0 for Windows Here (Score:5, Informative)

    by da_anarchist ( 548175 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:04PM (#9169735)
    For Windows users, grab a compiled binary of XviD 1.0 Final with a nice installer at Koepi's Media Development Homepage [goe.net]. A lot easier than going through xvid.org as due to copyright issues they only host the xvid source, which must be compiled manually.

  • Just like DivX, except.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:09PM (#9169762)
    Just like DivX, except lacking in the GATOR software installation.

  • Doom9??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:10PM (#9169764)
    I'm still waiting for Doom3!
  • no freaking win32 release on their webpage. you have to have a win32 compiler to compile and use it, or do like in the first comment and use that link, or get kazaalite codec pack or one of the many other codec packs that include xvid. if xvid wants to compete with divx, they will need to offer a win32 binary download.

  • still waiting ..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drfrog ( 145882 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:35PM (#9169884) Homepage
    for mpeg-4 systems part of the spec to be implemented
    overview [garuda.imag.fr]

  • Ripping now... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @08:36PM (#9169885) Homepage
    Cool... I'm at this moment ripping "BladeRunner TDC". Transcoding with the xvid library is almost done. Quality is really very good versus some of the commercial applications out there for Windows. For example, the deep blue scenes in "Finding Nemo" tend to look blocky and sort of like a mosaic with a commercial Win2K program. Using DVDRip with xvid (on a Fedora Core 1 machine) the same scene is a lot smoother and the color gradients are not nearly as noticeable.

    On a related note, I'll soon be trying out some of the pre/post filters for DVDRip. They do take a LONG time however. I've noticed that the Linux versions, when ripping at high quality, takes at least 20% longer than the Windows program at a similar bitrate. But the quality is better so I'm happy.
  • I just happen to be a software developer looking for new video codecs/encoding schemes and for me the sky is the limit. This will be a major commercial application in what ever form it finally takes place.

    Maybe this should be an "Ask Slashdot" thing, but since many video folks are looking on this site, I might as well ask in this story.

    (Without going into specifics of the project) I am starting with a totally clean sheet of paper here. What I need to do is be able to record several hours of video in a form that should be as lossless as possible (lossy formats are O.K., but it needs to have very good fidelity when the image size is restored). The video capture is going to happen in an embedded system, but playback will happen on a standard P.C. Playback is going to be a custom written application anyway, so it doesn't matter if it is currently supported by any common player.

    Since I'm doing this as a clean sheet project, I'm also trying to use as many Open Source/Free Software tools as I can, although libraries in this case can only be LGPL (the main app will be totally propritary software, unless something else happens. This is still a possibility, so I am going to try and give back).

    At the moment, due to some cheap hardware, we are implemented an MPEG-1 encoder for the system. This does a fair job, but I'd like to try and improve it.

    I've thought about using PNG/MNG data files (MJPEG was also discussed), but the MNG spec isn't quite up to speed on A/V syncronization issues and the direction of the MNG group isn't quite where I like it to go. Still, I like the fairly good compression, lossless algorithms in the format and it is still an option.

    MPEG-2 is an option I've looked at, mainly because I would be able to put it onto DVD players. Some plusses and minuses, but it really is more convience if this is the option we will use.

    The Ogg formats are also something to look into, and they are more for full A/V quality compression. Certainly a candidate for me.

    I'm not really all that familiar with MPEG-4, but it seems a huge jumble to me and means a lot of things to a lot of people, together with a bunch of misunderstanding fostered by equipment salesmen. (This is the coolest thing around, why don't you upgrade from that lousy MPEG-2 system to our new and improved MPEG-4 system!)

    This system (XviD) does look interesting, and I like the open specifications of it particularly. Closed-specifications (where you have to pay $10,000 just to get a poorly written technical manual with NDA) are totally out of the question.

    I guess I've looked around and would like to get some feedback as to what video encoding would you use on a totally clean sheet application if you had to encode video? Any takers?

    • Re:Clean Sheet Commercial Application (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What I need to do is be able to record several hours of video in a form that should be as lossless as possible (lossy formats are O.K., but it needs to have very good fidelity when the image size is restored).

      As you seem to have figured out, MJPEG is a pretty common choice for applications that want very high video fidelity. If your embedded hardware is lightweight but does DCT, this makes good sense. But if your "embedded" hardware is really a semi-decent general purpose CPU, it probably makes sense to g

    • Re:Clean Sheet Commercial Application (Score:5, Informative)

      by manitoulinnerd ( 750941 ) <joelNO@SPAMbrunetti.xyz> on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#9170078)
      You briefly metioned OGG in the above and OGG itself isn't a codec, its a wrapper. OGG Vorbis is an audio codec that is quite good but a totally free video codec is still only in early development. That being said the OGG or OGM has some great features. A very interesting one is the ability to encode the differences in audio streams and therefore save sometimes considerable space. It is currently used most ofter with XVID but can be used with pretty much any video (or even audio) codec. http://www.doom9.org might be able to help you for with some of this stuff. As far as the What would i do with a clean slate, i would probably use OGG with vorbis as the audio and xvid as the video... there may actually be problems with xvid and the law but i don't really know about that. Good luck.

      • Ogg Video (Score:5, Informative)

        by ArcRiley ( 737114 ) <arcriley@gmail.com> on Monday May 17, 2004 @12:13AM (#9170674)
        Ogg Theora [theora.org], the first patent-free video codec for Ogg [ogg.org], has been available for some time now and is not in "only in early development". It's based on On2 [on2.com]'s VP3, with several enhancements for better compression, and will be released as Beta-1 early next month. Basically, their last task is to finish documenting the stream format before the Beta release.

        "OGM" is a spin-off of Ogg from some time ago which hacks together Ogg (a great stream container format) and FourCC [fourcc.org] (the codec identity field from AVI) to easily add proprietary codecs (ie, DivX, XviD, other MPEG derivatives) to Ogg. Obviously, this is not endorsed by Xiph [xiph.org], the creators of Ogg and Vorbis, as they don't support patent-encumbered codecs.

        Also, Ogg is not an acronym, so capitalizing every letter is incorrect. This is a common mistake. :-)

    • Re:Clean Sheet Commercial Application (Score:4, Informative)

      by Noose For A Neck ( 610324 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:28PM (#9170107)
      Towards the storage-heavy end of the cpu/storage spectrum, you could check out HuffYUV [neuron2.net], a lossless video codec. It is especially handy if you have little CPU power and absolutely need a lossless codec, since it seems to compress to a higher ratio and at a faster rate than any other lossless codec available. Also, it's free, so have fun with it.

    • XviD + Matroska + Vorbis Damn hard to beat... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lord Prox ( 521892 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:40PM (#9170162) Homepage
      Matroska [matroska.org] is a A/V container (think AVI MOV ASF) that is aiming to be THE format to which all others will be compaired. HTTP and RTP streaming OK. Network glitch resistant. Totally Open. DVD style menuing and almost at version 1.0. I have been following the A/V open source projects for some time and these two (Martoska and XviD) are the biggest things since sliced bread. We finally have the tools to do online TV like we have had online radio for a few years now.

      Be advised... XviD is brutal on the encode. a 720x480 29.970fps video 1 hour takes my celeron 1000 4-6 hours to compress with all the quality settings turned up. But the decode is not that bad in terms of CPU power and at 2kps-4kbs you are looking at some DAMN fine video. Even at 700kbps it is looking good. Best compressor on the planet (at least that I have messed with).

      I assume you are familar with Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] which is compairable to AAC in terms of quality/bitrate. It makes a great companion to XviD inside a Matroska container

      • Matroska container with XViD video and Vorbis audio is the best free way to go today. You may find licensing problems with XViD, but you are likely find that with any modern video codec, although VP3 (I think) has beem released as Free and that might be worth considering as an alternative with absolutely no legal entanglements.

        Also, for playback, if you are hosted on a Windows box, look at the FFDshow video filter and XViD decoder, its scaling functinality is excellent, much better than the hardware scale

  • Help! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:02PM (#9169998)
    Question: If all these codecs are MPEG-4 (e.g. DIVX, XVID, 3IVX, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) does that mean that they're all playable in something like a DVD player that has MPEG-4 compatibility? Or not? Why are there so many different implementations? It's nuts.

    • Re:Help! (Score:5, Informative)

      by CaptainSuperBoy ( 17170 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:05PM (#9170015) Homepage Journal
      Most DVD players can't play MPEG-4 at all. DVDs and SVCDs are both MPEG-2.

      • Re:Help! (Score:5, Informative)

        by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:18PM (#9170063)
        i think his question was "are they playable in a DVD player that has MPEG-4 compatibility"

        The answer is: that depends which encoding options were used, and which the player supports!. There are a vast number of options, but to make this understandable to the user, we have what are called "profiles". a common target is "advanced simple profile", IIRC, which is a base level of features that most players support. these can be selected as presets within the encoder config, to make things easier. many players, for example, do not support GMC or Qpel. this is not a disaster. for more details on what this means please see a good site such as Doom9. some players also have stuttering problems when certain parameters are exceeded. to avoid this i'd recommended to make encodes yourself (which you should be doing from your own DVDs under fair use anyway!) to ensure quality control and playback on your systems. Doom9 have an excellent forum for asking questions such as this, but your Q will probably mostly be answered in the FAQs first :) be warned there's quite a learning curve. I don't yet have a standalone player but i have some experience encoding for PCs and am considering purchasing one when I next buy a DVD player.

  • Better porn? (Score:5, Funny)

    by McAlt 0178 ( 768553 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:12PM (#9170041)
    Anything that can make porn look cleaner yet dirtier looking at the same time is ok in my book... or er.. pants.

  • OK, how do I use this with Adobe Premiere? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:14PM (#9170050) Homepage
    The basic instructions only cover decoding. You're referred to another site [doom9.org] for encoding. That site assumes you're stealing content from a commercial DVD.

    So how do I encode my old Cinepak-encoded animation work, which I have as an Adobe Premiere project, without encoding it twice with two different codecs, with all the attendant problems.

  • No chance of commercial support (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Newer versions of the codec regularly crash when encoding video via all versions of Vegas Video. Sorry, just ain't gonna happen.

  • Macs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LittleLebowskiUrbanA ( 619114 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:24PM (#9170086) Homepage Journal
    I suppose us Mac owner can just compile this? No .dmg in sight so far....

  • Quicktime integration? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:37PM (#9170151) Homepage
    Divx and 3ivx both have nice integration into Quicktime making it available in all Quicktime based movie editing applications, does Xvid have the same? I would like to use a OSS solution

  • Installation Warning (if you use Koepi's binary) (Score:5, Informative)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @09:59PM (#9170232)
    I installed Koepi's version [goe.net] of the XviD 1.0 a few days ago, and I noticed a disclaimer:
    Since I lost all my data, I switched to another installer system. (Since XviD-1.0-RC1.)


    If you used the old NSIS installer (builds _before_ 1.0-RC1), please uninstall it manually before upgrading with these new installers. If you have done that already, upgrading with these new installers works like you expect it.

    Also, Win9x support is better now with this installer.
    I thought you might like to know.

  • bit of history (Score:5, Informative)

    by nappingcracker ( 700750 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @10:42PM (#9170357)
    i did a report on divx/xvid a few years ago, here is the gist of it:

    DiVX ;-) was first "project mayo" (codename) - mayo because its difficult to make, and pretty much hit or miss - divx was first a hacked mpeg-4 codec (m$ .asp actually - really ment for streaming high quality video over broadband, hacked to work offline and "standalone"), and contained "hot" code. so divx 3.11, the version that really first took off, was illegal. the codec really exploded with the file sharing boom namely morpheus and kazaa. next release , they got rid of the stolen code, and all was good, the codec had even better quality and many of the audio syncing problems had been taken care of. by this point i had ~150 gb of video at ~300 hrs.

    then, with the next release (5.x), and even more popularity, divx went commercial, and at first, i was upset, but they were pretty good about it, they had 3 versions, the one with no ads, but "play only", one with adware + encoding, and then the full $30USD one that let you do everything without ads. i thought, well these guys deserve some money for all the work that went into this great codec.

    with version 5, divx and project mayo split (actually it was somewhere inbetween 4.x-5.x) and divx.com [divx.com] was born to handle distribution and all that other good commercail stuff, projectmayo.com [projectmayo.com] went opensource, and became the sandbox for many projects based on divx (3vix, opendivx, etc) also, the Playa, the favored player of the project and built by the team continued to be developed here. .

    xvid was one of the spinoffs from projectmayo, and has become my favorite codec since i started using it. it seems to have the best "feel" to it, and is really really really good for animated films (to be fair, divx and the rest are really really good at animated films too, most codecs do, easy lines for the encoder to pick up and even out between frames). there are two main developers for xvid (its open so there are different builds) kopei, and nic. they both have their pros and cons, but you would be hard pressed to find them "in real life."

    most of this info can be gathered from the mentioned sites, with a little digging. if im wrong about any of this, meh. its pretty right on, though. some great resources for these codecs are the forementioned www.doom9.org [doom9.org] is really one of the best collections of encoding how-tos and other doodads. should be required reading for any video DIY noobs. another great resource is www.divx-digest.com [divx-digest.com] you can get all kinds of codecs and players there, try em all, its the best way to learn (divx-digest is a sister site to www.digital-digest.com [digital-digest.com]) like i said, i really dig xvid, and divx's commercial ventures are really starting to pan out (featured in a couple of computer games/video games (lord of the rings pc maybe?), hopefully soon will be built in to dvd players- think 2+ movies in hi-res on one dvd!). please please please dont use wmv. i cant play wmv, as many non M$ people cant, and they take more cpu to decode (looks pretty and is easy though).

    before divx was known as divx, there was another company that released a project by the same name, where you would rent this cd/dvd disc thing and buy it to unlock it and watch it whenever you wanted, neat idea, poor execution, i only knew one persone that used it. they came in these little cardboard jewel cases. (before dvd players were all over, you had to get one that could play this divx )

    batteries not included, bad grammar and spelling included. see side label for details

    • Correction (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Phil John ( 576633 ) <phil.webstarsltd@com> on Monday May 17, 2004 @01:01AM (#9170851)
      they had 3 versions, the one with no ads, but "play only", one with adware + encoding, and then the full $30USD one that let you do everything without ads.

      That is incorrect, the free codec with no ads can encode (hence co(mpressor)dec(ompressor)) but doesn't have all of the fine-grained settings that the pro version has. In addition to this, the pro version has an optimised encoder resulting in encode times roughly 20% faster (depending on source material and proc speed).

  • Hackers got xvid.org? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sridev ( 663490 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @10:50PM (#9170379)
    This is what I see on the website...

    XviD owned ?? oohhhh yeahhh BloodBR ownz XviD - sorry admin leak@hackermail.com

    • update 17/05/04 14:00 GMT (Score:4, Insightful)

      by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Monday May 17, 2004 @10:06AM (#9172905)
      Currently the site carries this message:
      2004/05/17 -- XVID site cracked. Unfortunately, right after we released the long-awaited XviD 1.0 final, the XviD web server got cracked and many files were deleted. Whoever did this, we actually don't find this funny at all. We're currently working hard to recover from this attack. However it will take us (at least) a couple of days to be back. Meanwhile, we've mirrored the 1.0 final announcement below and you can still download all the XviD 1.0 final source code packages from the files section at the bottom of this page. We're very sorry for this inconvenience! The XVID team

      I find this very sad and pointless. (I hope it doesn't do the Xvid credibility any harm). What a shame after all that work they've put in to get to v1.0, to have someone **** all over them like that. Not only did they replace the front page, they messed about in there, making it hard to get it back online. Thumbs down to the cracker, shame on you. Pick on some org that's not using its own free time to run a project for everyone else's benefit.

  • ffmpeg is better... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @11:02PM (#9170431) Journal
    I'm astonished at all the Xvid fanboyism around here. Sure it produces better quality than Divx, but at the same time, it's damn slow.

    I must strongly recomend mplayer and libavcodec (lavc). I've done side-by-side comparisons with Xvid and Lavc using mplayer, quite recently. The two are very close, but I found Lavc was just a bit better. That's the opposite of what I expected, since Xvid takes many times longer to encode.

    With Lavc, I can encode in 2 pass mode in better-than half-realtime on my 1.6GHz Amd XP.

    I'm sure the performance isn't quite as good when compiled on OS X/Windows+Cygwin, but I'd have to bet it'll still be faster than using Xvid natively, and give you better-quality results.

    ffdshow is a VfW codec package of libavcodec, but I tried it and found that it just doesn't provide the same quality or performance. I'm not much into Windows anymore, so I really didn't spend much time trying to figure out why.

    • Re:ffmpeg is better... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Monday May 17, 2004 @12:36AM (#9170769) Journal
      I'm astonished at all the Xvid fanboyism around here. Sure it produces better quality than Divx, but at the same time, it's damn slow.

      Why would you bother using an MPEG-4 codec if you don't care about quality?

      Yes, XviD encodes fairly slowly. But you only have to do it once, whereas you enjoy the better quality of the job every time you watch it. They call this "asymmetric" encoding for a reason. Encode takes forever, decode doesn't.

      If you only care about an encoding taking as little time as possible, hey, cool, not a problem. But if you care about quality results - Let it run overnight, and it makes little difference if it takes a half-hour or six hours.


      I've done side-by-side comparisons with Xvid and Lavc using mplayer, quite recently. The two are very close, but I found Lavc was just a bit better.

      I find that hard to believe. Without repeating your results, I have to suspect you've fallen for a "trick" Lavc uses, such as slightly boosting the gamma, or adding a blur-then-sharpen filter to give the illusion of clarity while actually removing quite a lot of detail.

      Basically, with modern PC hardware and MPEG-4 codecs, "you get what you wait for". More CPU time, with some tolerance for various optimizations, generally means better quality.


      Personally, I care only about the quality of the end product. I look forward to a functioning H.264 implementation, even if it means encoding 90 minutes of source material takes two full days.

      • Why would you bother using an MPEG-4 codec if you don't care about quality?

        It's not that I don't care for quality. It's that I'm not willing to accept a nominal quality improvement for a trade of many hours of time. I'd prefer to save time by using a higher bitrate and getting a larger file, rather than wasting a whole day of CPU time for a slightly smaller file.

        You ask, why do I use MPEG4. Well, if you've got some alternative that is far faster, where quality is nearly as good, fill me in.

        I find tha

    • Re:ffmpeg is better... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bogie ( 31020 )
      "I'm astonished at all the Xvid fanboyism around here. Sure it produces better quality than Divx, but at the same time, it's damn slow."

      Why are you astonished? Its a really nice video codec that's open source and happens to perform very well compared to the competition. How is acknowledging this "fanboyism"? Its certainly not "damn slow", especially compared to the dog that is divx. Its also been tested and found to perform well both speed-wise and quality-wise by some of the most knowledgable people aroun

  • XVID.ORG ownz0red or ...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stavr0 ( 35032 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @11:07PM (#9170450) Homepage Journal
    The site admin is trying to fight the slashdot effect by being funny...

    Guess we'll find out soon enough.

  • Red (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ilikejam ( 762039 ) on Sunday May 16, 2004 @11:55PM (#9170614) Homepage
    Why do video devices / encoders always have problems with red (as mentioned in the Futurama page of the article)?

    • Re:Red (Score:4, Informative)

      by CryoPenguin ( 242131 ) on Monday May 17, 2004 @04:24AM (#9171489)
      (IANA Xvid developer. But I have worked with ffmpeg [sourceforge.net])
      It's not just red. Codecs tend to also have problems with bright blue.
      The reason: To improve compression, instead of storing color as RGB, they all use some form of YUV (i.e. "brightness", "redness", and "blueness".) Then, because the human eye is much more sensitive to brightness (Y) than color, they spend more bits on Y and leave the U and V channels at lower quality.
      Usually, this is good. But if the picture has some areas that are very red or very blue, and don't have much brightness variation, you can see the imprecision in coding U and V.

  • Sad!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 17, 2004 @12:24AM (#9170712)
    Here are some observations about the hacking of http://www.xvid.org/
    1) Its GNU/Linux Server
    2) Running Apache
    3) OpenSource Project

    Ok, so we have a Linux Hacker attacking an Open Source Project. Well, all he/she is doing is going for a cheap ego boost. How about supporting the community that gave you all the tools and support when you started using OSS. But alas, you have to tear down a part of the community that contributed to the software that you use.

    I feel bad for that person.

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