From its humble beginings as a hacked version of microsoft's mpeg4 technology, DivX has rapidly grown into a commercially successful product. Originally synonymous with DVD rips (the grey art of copying DVDs), the codec is now widely used in a range of comercial applications. In a recent change of focus for DivXNetworks (the company behind the DivX codec) their recent venture provides the 'complete' package. 'Dr DivX' combines the latest version of their DivX Pro codec with a simple, user friendly encoding application. The price of Dr DivX puts it in diredt competition with entry level video editing packages - editing packages which do everything Dr Divx can do. And With a range of free encoding applications available, we test Dr DivX and its encoding credentials. We also compare Dr DivX to a completely free alternative of VirtualDub plus the Xvid codec.

Dr DivX is clearly aimed at the beginner - a novice with little or no knowledge of encoding (a complex and time consuming process) would undoubtadly be attracted to the makers claims of automating nearly every part of the encoding process.

The makers aims are cleary illustrated by the software's user interface. After opening Dr DivX, we're greated with a choice 4 options illustrated in the diagram below:

You'll immediatly notice the wizard driven nature of Dr DivX. You're guided every step of the way - from your first click, you'll immediately launched into the encoding process. It's probably a fair assumption that the typical user will be attracted to the encoding aspect of Dr DivX - the beginner normally uses the free software bundled with their video editing card to capture video. However, this would rely on the beginner being aware of the DivX codec, something that's unlikely given the inability to play DivX movies on a standalone DVD player.

Despite this, the encoder application is heavily featured in the marketing of Dr DivX, so it's worth starting with this aspect. Clicking on the VIDEO FILE button will prompt the user to select their video file. This will either be your previously edited and encoded home movie or your captured footage. Dr DivX will then analyse your video file:

This could be a frustrating experience on a slow system, but at least the applciation doesn't give the impression it's crashed (some video editing packages often seem to "hang" when analysing video, prompting users to assume the application has crashed and to close it down). After a short (or perhaps long) wait, you'll be presented with the next equally straight-forward screen:

It's a fair assumption you'll want to use the audio associated with the file, so the its time for the second step. After clicking next, you'll be presented with the encoding options. Again, Dr DivX is clearly aimed at the beginner, with the only options available being the choice of pre-set standards (the certification level) and high, medium or low quality. The certification level is an effort to provide a set of "standards" to DivX media rather like those created by DVD and VCD. This is aimed at ensuring a minimum quality guarentee where the logo is shown. The high, medium and low quality setting will alter the size of yoru video file at the cost of reduced sound and audio quality:

Dr DivX will give an estimate of the filesize in the bottom right hand side of the screen. So armed with the knowledge that a CD will hold 700MB of data, you can work out what quality setting to use to fit your movie on one CD.

The third and final step gives you the opportunity to tweak any settings. I'm sure most people will click on the next screen here and start encoding. As Dr DivX automatically adjusts these settings to "optimal", the novice may be advised to head straight for the encode. I was pleasantly surprised at how well these settings were implemented: my "black bars" were automaticly cropped and the video de-interlaced for optimal playback on a PC monitor for example.

The final step is therefore the encode itself. My 1 minute test movie was rapidly encoded using a two-pass encode as follows:

High Quality, High Defefinition
Times: Ist Pass – 1:29 Total – 2:30*
Video and Audio Settings: 176Kbps, MP3 160, 720x400, 68 key frames
File Size: 10.3MB
Medium Quality, High Definition
Times: Ist Pass – 2:24 Total – 4:01
Video and Audio Settings: 148Kbps, MP3 128, 720x400 Results
File Size: 8.69MB
Low Quality, High Def Times
Ist Pass – 2:18 Total – 3:52
Video and Audio Settings
File Size: 7.09MB, 121Kbps, MP3 96 720x400, 56 key frames

*with no cropping, the encode time increased by 20 seconds

The quality of the encoded video was average, and at 7.09MB, 100mins of video could be squeezed onto a CD-ROM. However, it should be stressed that this is NOT DVD quality and the image may appear more blurred in parts. To be honest, the only noticable difference in quality between the high, medium and low settings was in high action or low light shots.

Comparisons

At 50$, it's woth exploring freeware applications. As a comparison, I've used virtualdub and the Xvid codec. Both of these are available as completely free downloads. Although VirtualDub isn't as user friendly as it could be, there are free guides available to guide you through the process of encoding to Xvid. Granted, you'll need to first know that you may have to de-interlace or crop your video and you'll have to figure out how to do this, but it's a small price to pay (well, less than $50 anyway).

To compare the two, I encoded my 1 mins test video using the manual setting in Dr DivX. I manually set the bitrate to a Constant Bitrate of 1760Kbps which should roughly equate to 1.5 hours on a single CD-ROM. I then repeated the procedure using my freeware alternative. The Xvid encoded video encoded significantly faster (1:02 compared to 1:20 for the first pass) but weighed in at a moderatly higher file size. However, quality between the two was indistinguishable.

Conclusion

Dr DivX certainly succeeds in its aim of simplyfying the encoding process. It also offers both analogue and digital capture in one neat package, together with the industry acclaimed DivX Pro codec. It's certainly one for the beginner. However, the beginner will probably never need to look behind what's going on under the surface - this is a shame, as there are so many tweaks to the DivX codec that enable high quality video (although the last screen does prompt the user to make such alterations). Unlike the DVD standard, anything goes with DivX and the few standalones designed to play DivX will accept anything thrown at them.

Although the freeware alternatives may be more complex, the combination of VirtualDub and DivX/Xvid does all that Dr DivX can and more. For the complete beginner this is a wonderful, complete package. But this is certainly one for the novice not willing to delve into the black art of video editing. Now where's the fun in that (and who would ever visit our forums if everything was so easy?)