Wednesday, April 25, 2007

XviD Players - XviD Movies

Please note that all XviD players require the XviD codec in order to play XviD videos.

Windows Media Player v11.0

Windows Media Player (WMP) is one of the most commonly used XviD players, primarily because it's the default media player in Windows and it's capable of playing pretty much any video format with the right codecs installed. This player should be installed on your computer already, but in case you don't have the latest version you can download it here. Official site Download

Media Player Classic v6.4.9.0 (Windows XP/2000)

Media Player Classic (MPC) is a popular media player substitute for Windows XP/2000 that looks and feels just like Windows Media Player v6.4, but don't be fooled by its looks. It has been updated to support all popular video formats and offers all the features you would expect from a modern media player without any unnecessary extras. We recommend this awesome media player for everyone. Official site Download (2.1MB)

Media Player Classic v6.4.9.0 (Windows ME/98)

Media Player Classic (MPC) is a popular media player substitute for Windows ME/98 that looks and feels just like Windows Media Player v6.4, but don't be fooled by its looks. It has been updated to support all popular video formats and offers all the features you would expect from a modern media player without any unnecessary extras. We recommend this light-weight media player for everyone. Official site Download (1.8MB)

BSPlayer v1.41

BSPlayer is yet another XviD player alternative capable of playing back most media files (AVI, MPG, ASF, WMV, WAV, MP3) and subtitle formats (MicroDVD, Subviewer and SubRip). The player also supports custom subtitle positioning, colors, fonts and transparency. If you want to change the look and feel you can download new skins online. Finally, this player features quite efficient CPU and memory usage, so if you run into problems with skipping during playback you might want to give this player a try. Official site Download (2.9MB)

Download the XviD Codec - XviD Movies

To play XviD videos you first need to install the XviD codec on your computer. To install the XviD codec, simply download the latest version of the codec available for your system and follow the installation instructions:

XviD codec v1.1.2 for Windows (by Koepi)
XviD codec v1.1.2 for Mac OS (Link)

After you've installed the XviD codec on your system, your media player of choice should be able to play all XviD movies and videos. If you run into any problems, please refer to the XviD FAQ for solutions to common XviD codec installation and playback problems. To learn more about downloading movies, check out our Download Movies section.

What is XviD? - XviD Movies

XviD is the name of a popular new video codec being developed as an open source project by volunteer programmers from all over the world. The format was created to offer a free alternative to other commercial video codecs, and despite being open source its quality and efficiency has made it one of the most popular video codecs online. While XviD still isn't as widely used as DivX, playback of XviD movies is usually supported in new DVD players nowadays.

The XviD codec makes it possible to compress a full-length DVD-quality movie enough to fit on a single CD (might require 2 CDs depending on the length of the movie), while still maintaining the original image quality. Despite the fact that XviD movies offer higher quality video at smaller file sizes they take less time to encode than MPEG-2 due to the incredible compression technology. The video is usually combined with MP3 or AC3 audio to enable both high quality video and audio. These factors and the fact that the codec is distributed for free has contributed to the success of the format.

When you install the XviD codec it basically provides your system with specific instructions how to compress and decompress video in the XviD format. Once you've installed the XviD codec on your system you will be able to play XviD videos using Windows Media Player or any other XviD-enabled player.

DivX codec and player

To play and create DivX videos on your computer you first need to install the DivX codec. To install the codec, simply download the latest version available for your system and follow the installation instructions:


DivX codec v6.5.1 for Windows XP/2K (14.0MB)
DivX codec v5.2.1 for Windows ME/98 (7.3MB)
DivX codec v6.4.0 for Mac OS X (12.0MB)
DivX codec v5.1.1 for Mac OS (2.1MB)


Wednesday, March 28, 2007

DivX Media Format (DMF)

The latest generation, DivX 6, was released on June 15, 2005 and expands the scope of DivX from including just a codec and a player by adding a media container format. This optional new file format introduced with DivX 6 is called "DivX Media Format" (or "DMF" for short) (with a .divx extension) that includes support for the following DVD-Video and VOB container like features.

DivX Media Format (DMF) features:

Interactive video menus
Multiple subtitles (XSUB™)
Multiple audio tracks
Multiple video streams (for special features like bonus/extra content, just like on DVD-Video movies)
Chapter points
Other metadata (XTAG™)
Multiple format
Partial backwards compatibility with AVI

This new "DivX Media Format" also came with a "DivX Ultra Certified" profile, and all 'Ultra' certified players must support all "DivX Media Format" features. While video encoded with the DivX codec is an MPEG-4 video stream, the DivX Media Format is analogous to media container formats such as Apple's QuickTime. In much the same way that media formats such as DVD specify MPEG-2 video as a part of their specification, the DivX Media Format specifies MPEG-4-compatible video as a part of its specification. However, despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is basicaly the AVI file format by another name. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them. DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial backwards compatibility with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB™ subtitles) they can at least play that primary video stream (usually the main movie if the .divx contain multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials). Of course, the DivX codec and tools like Dr.DivX still support the traditional method of creating standard AVI files.