Differences between DivX and XviD

MPEG4

DivX and XviD video codecs are both based on the MPEG4 format. They can compress video (up from 700 MB to 4 GB in general) while maintaining a satisfactory quality. DivX gives almost the same result as XviD. The main difference is:

• DivX is free but protected, it’s a proprietary codec (it belongs to a company).
• XviD is free, but it is also not protected by any company (the source code can be modified by anyone). It was designed based on the software OpenDivX.

This shows they are very similar since XviD was created from DivX. But when one wants to buy a player, you never know what codec it must bear. To help, we can summarize as:

• A device that reads the MPEG4 compressed video can play with these codecs.
• A device with written “DivX compitible” does not necessarily can play XviD videos and vice versa.
• Most of the time, you will only see “MPEG4 compatible” to avoid paying for the logo of a codec.

Characteristic problem

The most recent devices (adapters, readers of all kinds) read the MPEG4 format and can play videos using these codecs.

Reading problems are often of audio codecs : many are not all taken into account by the low-end players.

If you see it is written on a player saying it plays “AVI”, the meaning is awkward. AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a container. It therefore means that it contains data, audio and video for example. The problem is that it gives no information about the codecs used, they can be compressed with anything. However, sellers feel better talking to people that way because they see their videos as AVI files because of the widely used extension in Windows.

To summarize

• DivX is a proprietary codec unlike XviD, which is free.
• A player compatible MPEG4 compressed video can play with these codecs.
• If your unit plays AVI files, it is not certain but it should be compatible with the MPEG4 format.