What is XviD?
XviD is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It is developed as an open source widely applied by people all over the world. The format was created to offer a free alternative to other commercial video codecs, and despite being open source its quality and efficiency has made it one of the most popular video codecs online.
Xvid is a primary competitor of the DivX Pro Codec and can be used on all platforms and operating systems for which the source code can be compiled.
The XviD codec makes it possible to compress a full-length DVD-quality movie enough to fit on a single CD (might require 2 CDs depending on the length of the movie), while still maintaining the original image quality. Despite the fact that XviD movies offer higher quality video at smaller file sizes they take less time to encode than MPEG-2 due to the incredible compression technology. The video is usually combined with MP3 or AC3 audio to enable both high quality video and audio. These factors and the fact that the codec is distributed for free has contributed to the success of the format.
What is DivX?
DivX is a brand name of products created by "DivX, LLC." (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc. and "DivX, Inc.", purchased by Sonic Solutions in 2010 and by Rovi Corporation formerly known as Macrovision in 2011 and acquired by Parallax Capital Partners and StepStone Group in 2014, including the DivX Codec which became popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.
There are three DivX codecs; the original MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec, the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC DivX Plus HD codec and the High Efficiency Video Coding DivX HEVC Ultra HD codec. It is one of several codecs commonly associated with "ripping", whereby audio and video multimedia are transferred to a hard disk and transcoded.
Limits on XviD & DivX
XviD is not a video format – it is a program (codec) for compressing and decompressing to the MPEG-4 ASP format. Primarily due to concerns over patents, the official Xvid web site does not provide binary versions of the Xvid codec. While XviD still isn’t as widely used as the DivX® codec, playback of XviD movies is usually supported in new DVD players nowadays.
Video encoded with the DivX codec is an MPEG-4 video stream. Despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is an extension to the AVI file format. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them. DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial backwards compatibility with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB subtitles) can at least play that primary video stream (usually the main movie if the DMF file contains multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials). Of course, the DivX codec and tools like Dr. DivX still support the traditional method of creating standard AVI files. Besides, DivX is proprietary and is only available for a limited number of platforms.
Related Software
Pavtube DVDAid: The easiest solution to help users backup and convert DVD to DivX, XviD, AVI as well as MP4, MOV, MKV, M4V, WMV, FLV, etc. in fast speed.
Pavtube BDMagic: The Advanced version of DVDAid, apart from convert DVD to DivX, XviD, AVI at fastest speed and high quality, also capable of backing up and converting Blu-ray movies to virtually any video format in order to meet the needs for iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Galaxy Note, Kindle Fire HD Google Nexus, Windows Phone, etc.
Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate: The all inclusive package which integrates a blu-ray ripper, a dvd ripper and a video converter so that users could not only convert Blu-ray/DVD movies, but also convert Xvid, Divx, AVI videos to put on portable devices, like Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition, HD media players, HDD, NAS, video editing software, and more.