Thanks for your post. What does 'open platform' actually mean?
You talk about people watching content from the web on their TV, and this is indeed an important development. But theres a lot of competition in this young area, and much variation in what technologies are used. You are up against things like Apple TV, games consoles like Xbox360 and PS3, mutations of older tech such as Tivo to bring it into the net distribution age, on-demand offerings from cable TV providers, various peer2peer video distribution services if they go looking for hardware to plug the gap between TV and computer, mobile devices that can hookup to the TV. Now I assume much of DivX's history with device certification was for DVD players, and hopefuly now includes some mobile devices. As burning to pysical media doesnt sound like the best way to watch episodic video content thats downloaded automatically via RSS of whatever, I would hope/imagine that the future will include some companies creating alternatives to the Apple TV, and some of those companies get their device DivX certified. DRM issues certainly confuse the wider picture. Most of the complaints about Apple stuff isnt that the video or audio formats are non-standard and closed, after all they are using Mpeg4 and H264, its the content that is DRM controlld that creates compatibility woes. Im one of those people that hopes DRM dies over time, and assuming that DivX currently has no DRM system, this will be good for DivX as it removes one thing the competing formats offer that DivX doesnt seem to? Excuse my highly cynical nature but I see a lot of comapnies desperate to prove they are something far more than their core business. In this day and age the word 'community' is connected to the perceived expectations of investors - so of course you dont want to be a codec company with the limited potential for growth that this implies, but rather a huge chunk of the unfolding future web media thang. And at the moment when few have worked out how to make large returns on their web 2.,0 stuff, site viewing figures, how large the 'community' is, become important benchmarks. Unfortunately for Divx your historical community of users were using it for grey purposes which you couldnt shout about, its no secret where DivX brand recognition came from, and you've done an amazing job to create a business from those beginnings. If useage of DivX on the web for legitimate purposes equalled its dominance of the early video sharing scene, this conversation would not need to happen at all, you would undisputedly have a huge amount of territory in the new race. But as things stand, I feel you need to find a way to somehow leapfrog ahead to the next stage, get a jump on your competitiors. Because in a straight battle between DivX, Microsoft, Apple, and everyone thats using mpeg4 or h264 in a standard way, its unclear to me how DivX will fare. I was out of date and only just discovered that microsoft have gotten some standard for their VC-1 video part of .wmv, so other people can use it in their products more easily. It will be interesting to see how many 3rd parties decide to take up this opportunity. So this brings me back to your comment about open platform, and my question about what it actuall means. If I am doing hardware of software or content and want to use mpeg4 or h264 or wmv in some way, I can go get a license from whoever is looking after the patent pool (eg MPEG LA, LLC). How does it work with DivX, also bearing in mind you make most of your revenue through the certification of devices? Cheers Steve Elbows wrote: > > Not to dig up this old thread, but I've been pondering it the past few > days and wanted to add my thoughts > > First, I'm sorry that you couldn't find any pertinent information on > DivX on DivX.com. That's terrible and something we struggle with and > aim to fix. DivX.com has become a hub of many things and often gets > overcrowded with too many things and the signal gets lost in the noise. > > And that kid of also is a good way to explain a lot of the confusion > around DivX in general. People get caught up in some of the smaller > subsets of what we do and spend hours debating features and formats > and miss the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is this; DivX is > not a codec company. We never have been. Since day one our vision > was to build a platform and tools to empower content creators to > distribute their content and deliver a high quality experience to > their audience. To achieve this goal we started with creating a high > quality experience with the video, hence the codec. We then worked to > leverage that high quality experience on the PC and move it into the > living room where users want to watch their content. I think the > question of why to use DivX comes down to experience. What is the > focus of your vlog or content? Is it a quick lean forward short form > content where a small 320x240 pixilated window will suffice? Or do > you want a lean back experience where the user is immersed in the > content and they watch a much larger format if not full screen version > of your content. When DivX was started we saw the shifts in > technology that would allow for a complete shift in media and the way > it was used. First you saw, and continue to see, the cost lower of > tools to create the content. You can now get an HD camera for less > than $1,000, something unheard of 10 years ago. Then the software > side of things started to take off, with Avid, Final Cut etc becoming > available to help create this content. Now you are seeing the > distribution side of things starting to come in. Broadband access > reaching more homes in the US and catching up with other countries. > It's the culmination of these shifts in technology and the changing of > media that is our vision. Shifting the power from the few to the > masses. Creating a common media language that spans computer, > networks, the living room and beyond. Creating a high quality open > platform that carries with it the vision of changing media for the > better is what DivX does. We can discuss the finer details of > compression and the webplayer, but don't miss it for the bigger > picture. Watching this new content in the living room is an amazing > shift in power. Being able with a few clicks of my remote to bring up > the latest episode of Galacticast or JetSetShow on my TV changes > everything about how I consume media and share it with my friends. > > If you are passionate about creating content, about your content, > about changing the media for the better, then you are with us and > should be talking with us. We want to hear your ideas and input to > help realize this vision. We've done well thus far (caution > gratuitous stats to follow) with our 250 Million downloads of our > software and over 70 Million hardware units shipped, but we have even > bigger things coming. > > Sorry for the long post, I hope I didn't lose to many. If you have > any questions please ask them, or feel free to contact me directly. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > And if you are looking for a few Vloggers and content creators using > DivX here is a quick list of names you may or may not recognize: > http://commandn.typepad.com/ > http://stage6.divx.com/GALACTICAST > http://www.jetsetshow.com/ > http://stage6.divx.com/Geek_Entertainment_TV > http://hak5.org/ > http://stage6.divx.com/Tiki_Bar_TV > http://labrats.tv/ > http://stage6.divx.com/AskANinja > http://www.purepwnage.com/ > > > > > > --- In [email protected], Rupert <rupert@> wrote: > > > > I feel a bit of a fool. I was talking to somebody about vlogging > > and they were raving to me about the quality and compression of DivX. > > > > I don't know anything about DivX. I don't feel that much wiser after > > reading up about it on Wikipedia, DivX.com etc > > > > I don't know any vloggers who use it, and can't remember seeing a > > DivX labelled feed, the way many people list QT, WMV and iPod feeds. > > Why do so few people use it, when it would appear to be very popular > > among P2P video sharers? > > > > Every conversation about which formats to use, always discusses QT, > > MP4, Windows Media and Flash? When people talk about using Windows > > Media files, are they also assuming that DivX is under this banner, > > because Windows Media Player comes preinstalled with the DivX codec? > > > > And if so, why do people provide wmv files and feeds instead of divx, > > if DivX is so much better? Or is it not? > > > > Yours confused > > > > Rupert > > >
