LAST NEWS !

Version 5.0.2 released 2002-05-16

New:

Added several new options to the codec properties dialog that allow users to tweak settings for smoother playback and improved support for some video cards.

Added a "Smooth Playback" option. Turning this off will allow B-frame encoded content to playback with lower CPU usage. However, enabling this option will introduce a 1 frame delay in the decoder (because of buffering), which may cause the last frame of the video to not be displayed.
Added a "YUV Extended" mode option. When selected, the codec will attempt to use YV12 mode to decode the video. This is the fastest way to decode DivX content, but the drawback is that brightness/contrast/saturation controls cannot be used in this mode and are disabled.
Added an "Overlay Extended" mode. Selecting this will cause the filter to try to display video using the hardware overlay instead of the software overlay. The hardware overlay is much faster, but may not be supported on some video cards. When this mode is enabled, DirectShow-based player applications will be unable to open more than one window at a time.
Added a "Double Buffering" option. Enabling this will force the video card to allocate a second buffer for the video playback. This will increase the smoothness of the video playback, but may not be supported on low-end video cards with less than 8 MB of RAM.
Added a "Film Effect" option. This is a warming filter that when enabled will add film noise to the decoded picture. This may increase the perceived visual quality of the picture, especially if you are used to watching film. It's a personal preference, however, so use it if you want.
Added a hidden "Force Color Mode" control. You can manually set the registry key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DivXNetworks\Force Color Mode" in the Windows Registry and assign it a number from 1 to 7. This will force the video card to use a particular color mode, depending upon the value. This is only necessary in rare circumstances to solve video card problems. Supported color modes:
1: YV12
2: YUY2
3: YUYV
4: RGB32
5: RGB24
6: RGB555
7: RGB565
Improved:

The default psychovisual modeling settings are tweaked slightly. This should decrease blockiness in black regions and flat areas in the video content.
Optimized the decoder so that it more consistently plays back video, particularly on lower-end CPUs. (A P-III 466 MHz machine can play real-time, 640x480 video with B-frames and GMC at 80% CPU load.)
Fixed:

Fixed a lot of memory leaks in the encoder. This should prevent the codec from slowing down gradually during a long encode.
Version 5.0.1 encoded 7% slower than 5.0. DOH! Not sure how that happened. This has been fixed and version 5.0.2 is as fast as version 5.0.
Fixed a problem where the trace_b.txt log file would be written out during encodes which would take up significant disk space. The log file is no longer written.
Fixed a problem where the MP4 Creator would not work on files that included B-frames. The MP4 Creator should now work with all DivX 5.x files.
Fixed a bug where the right macroblock would not be displayed with the custom brightness/contrast settings. This would cause a dark or light "band" of video on the right side of the screen.
Fixed a bug that would cause playback problems when the seek bar was moved back and forth quickly. This same bug some cause bad frames to be displayed at the beginning of some content when playing back video in Windows Media Player. This should no longer happen.
Fixed a bug where the "Decoder Configuration" application would crash when run on Windows 98. The application should now run properly. (Yes, we know we said we fixed this in 5.0.1, but we really fixed it this time.)
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Version 5.0.1 released 2002-04-09

Improved:

Psychovisual modeling enhancements now reallocate saved bits in an improved manner, meaning the psychovisual modeling mode will produce better visual quality.
Improved the workaround for a DirectShow bug that causes the requested bitrate to not be respected by the codec during one-pass encoding. This affects applications (such as video capture applications) that use the DivX DirectShow interface to access the codec. This problem is due to a bug in DirectShow, not in DivX itself, but we have a workaround that should solve the problem.
Fixed:

Fixed a bug where the divx.dll library would not decode DivX 3.x content properly. This affected applications like VirtualDub that use the VfW interface to use DivX. The problems this caused, such as blank frames, are now fixed.
Fixed a bug where basic deinterlace functionality would cause the codec to crash on Pentium 4 processors.
Fixed a problem where using data paritioning and psychovisual modeling together would produce severe visual artifacts. These settings can now be used together.
Fixed an issue where encoding content with resolutions not divisible by 16 would cause purple and pink artifacts to appear in the encoded content. These artifacts no longer appear. You can now encode content that has resolutions divisible by 4 or 8, however we still strongly recommend encoding only content with resolutions divisible by 16, as the 4 and 8 dimensions will not encode as efficiently. (There remains a known issue about resolutions divisible by 2.)
Fixed a bug where the DirectShow filter would not use the overlay properly with Matrox Millennium video cards on Windows 2000. It now works properly.
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Version 5.0 released 2002-03-04

Initial public version of DivX 5.0.

Features:

Compatibility with all versions of DivX video content. DivX 5.0 can play every version of DivX video ever created, from prior to 3.11 alpha to the brand new DivX Pro 5.0.
AMD optimizations. Version 5.0 is fully optimized for AMD Athlon and Athlon XP processors, meaning AMD owners can see performance speedups of up to 20%.
Improved encoding and decoding performance. We've also optimized the encoding and decoding algorithms across the board, improving performance for all users. Double Real Time encoding is possible on modern hardware, and Triple Real Time encoding is possible on two processor systems. Version 5.0 can even decode 1080p high-definition video content in real time.
Faster two-pass encoding. We've tweaked the way two-pass encoding works. The second pass now uses more data from the first pass, making the second pass up to 30% faster than DivX 4.12.
Smaller file sizes. All the new encoding features of DivX 5.0 mean you can expect equivalent visual quality at about 15-20% smaller file sizes.
MPEG-4 compatibility. DivX 5.0 can decode MPEG-4 Simple Profile, MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile, and H.263 video (all levels). It is also able to encode fully MPEG-4 Simple Profile compliant video (ISO/IEC 14496-2).
DivX™ MPEG-4 file format. This version of DivX introduces a brand new MPEG-4 based file format that replaces the venerable AVI. No more audio/video synchronization problems, and no more 2 GB file limit.
Advanced support for existing encoding applications. All the new features of DivX 5.0 work in today's existing content creation and encoding applications. You don't even need new versions of the applications! So continue using Adobe Premiere, VirtualDub, or whatever is your application of choice.
Reusable encoding profiles. Version 5.0 allows you to save profiles of encoding settings and reuse them over and over. You can also trade encoding profiles with other users.
Quick configuration CLI. DivX 5.0 includes a command line interface for advanced users that gives an extra level of control over encoding parameters.
Patent-pending rate control algorithm. This new version of DivX introduces a new and improved rate control algorithm. It just makes things look better, okay? If you want to know more, read the help file or what's new sections.
Improved encoding algorithms. We've introduced special encoding algorithms that are specifically tuned to pans, fades, zooms, explosions, etc. With DivX 5.0, you should see visual quality improvements on these types of special scenes.
Psychovisual modeling. The coolest new feature of DivX 5.0 is psychovisual modeling, and advanced technique that takes into account knowledge about how the Human Visual System (HVS) works to compress moving video images into much smaller sizes without a loss of video quality. Expect up to 20% smaller file sizes from using this feature.
Universal architecture. Create once, play anywhere. The universal VfW/ACM/QT architecture of DivX makes it possible to playback exactly the same file on a variety of different operating systems and applications.
Mac OS Support. For the first time, a publicly available codec on Mac OS can decode MPEG-4 Simple Profile and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile video.
Scalable. DivX video has been test on and can work on a wide range of video bitrates, from 28 Kbps to 9 Mbps, depending upon your encoding needs.
New DivX Player 2.0 Alpha. A brand new DivX Player application, complete with MPEG-4 file format support and a spiffy new skin system, is ready for your perusal.

THANKS TO www.divx.com