Product Reviews

DivX is a video format with a colourful reputation. Technically, it's very impressive. By combining MPEG4 video compression with MP3 audio, it can provide high-quality video and sound in files around a sixth of the size of those on DVD-Video discs. This means DivX can be used to fit a feature-length video on a CD-R while maintaining excellent quality. However, this impressive capability has seen DivX gain popularity among illegal file sharers, who use it to transfer commercial films over broadband connections through peer-to-peer software.

The format also has reputable uses, though. Some network media players support it, making it an excellent format for streaming video from the PC to the living room. It's also used for legitimate video distribution over the net, and movie trailers, music videos and amateur films are available for download at www.divx.com and elsewhere. As 1Mbit/s and faster broadband connections become more widespread, DivX may well become popular for high-quality video streaming, too.

The DivX Create Bundle includes the DivX Player, which you can also download separately for free, plus the latest version of the DivX Pro codec (version 6) and an encoding utility called DivX Converter. However, it's the DivX format itself that has seen the biggest update. DivX 6 adds support for interactive menus, subtitles, multiple audio tracks and chapter points. The result is that DivX movies behave like DVD-Video discs.

Despite the format's impressive capabilities, the Converter utility is disappointing. It's designed for ease of use, and to an extent it succeeds; you just drop a video file where it says Drag and Drop here, choose one of four quality profiles

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and click Convert. However, the only option for interactive video content is the ability to merge various files together with a boring-looking menu. This may be handy but it's hardly impressive compared to even the most basic DVD-authoring packages. We would also have liked a custom profile option to control the bit rate and resolution of the outputted files. Of the four profiles on offer, only the Home Theater setting is of any practical use, providing high-quality PAL-resolution files at 1.4Mbit/s (roughly 10MB per minute). However, there is an option to fit content to a 700MB CD-R, which could prove useful.

Converting DVD-Videos with the DivX Create Bundle isn't easy, and it won't work with CSS-encrypted discs. Converting non-encrypted discs requires the DivX MPEG2/DVD plug-in, which costs an additional $10 (around £6), although a free two-week trial is included in the standard download. Even then, dropping a folder of DVD-Video files generates an onslaught of pop-up errors as the software rejects various ancillary files and any Dolby Digital soundtracks. DivX's Help pages eventually directed us to a download to fix the latter issue. After all this we were able to rip a DVD-Video, but the disc's menus and extra features appeared as if they were part of the main video, and the aspect ratio was wrong. When we tried ripping another DVD the menu problem disappeared, but the aspect ratio was still wrong.

Problems ripping DVDs might put potential buyers off, but in a way it's commendable that the designers make few concessions to those who hope to use their software for unlawful copying. However, we wonder who else the package might appeal to. It's ideal for anyone who wants to keep copies of their home videos on a hard disk for quick access, but Microsoft's own WMV format is just as capable, and 2Mbit/s WMV files look and sound just as good as 1.4Mbit/s DivX files.

Building DVD-style menus, subtitles and chapters into the format is inspired, and should see DivX's popularity for internet video distribution continue to grow. However, it's disappointing that the DivX Create Bundle lacks the authoring tools to use these features, as these would have made it perfect for sharing home videos online. As it stands, we'd rather stick with the WMV format, which is free and installed on many more PCs.