NEWS - Return to news section

1. What's in DivX 7 Playback Preview?
2. What's new in DivX Player 7.0 Beta 1?
3. Known issues in this preview
4. Downloading DivX 7 Playback Preview
5. Uninstalling DivX Playback Preview
6. How you can help us

What is in the DivX 7 Playback Preview?

With the DivX 7 Playback Preview we bring new technologies to DivX Player and other DirectShow-based media players that enable playback of DivX Plus videos. DivX Plus HD is a new DivX video profile that will bring the following formats into the DivX ecosystem when DivX 7 is launched:

• H.264 video
  
  A new standard for video compression that is more technically complex than the standard used by DivX 6. H.264 provides better compression and picture quality at the expense of higher system requirements for content creation and playback. Related releases from Project Rémoulade include the DivX H.264 Decoder (Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3) and the DivX H.264 Encoder (Alpha 1).
  
  
• AAC audio
  
  A high-efficiency audio coding standard natively supporting multichannel audio and studio-quality sample rates for crystal clear theatrical surround sound. AAC audio suffers fewer audible artifacts than MP3 at very low bitrates and also requires less bitrate to achieve transparency. MP3 is the audio standard for previous versions of DivX video.
  
  
• MKV container format
  
  MKV files will be used to contain the H.264 video and AAC audio tracks. The format is feature-extensible by design and supports many audio and subtitle streams within a single file.
  
  

The DivX 7 Playback Preview also includes the DivX H.264 Decoder filter and the DivX MKV Demux filter^*. These DirectShow filters extend playback support for MKV files with H.264 video streams to all DirectShow-based media players.

^{* The DivX MKV Demux filter does not override any other MKV file splitters you have installed.}

What's new in DivX Player 7.0 Beta 1?

DivX Player has been extensively upgraded in preparation for some of the exciting new features that will be released with DivX 7 for Windows! Some of the major changes include:

• High-performance H.264 video decoding with support for Baseline, Main, High, High 10, and High 4:2:2 profiles, full interlace support, multithreaded decoding on up to 8 CPU cores and optimizations for MMX, SSE and SSE2 instruction sets.
  
  
• Multichannel AAC (LC/HE) decoding
  
  
• Support for MKV files including:
  • Multiple audio tracks for multilingual audio, directors commentary or isolated musical scores
  • Multiple subtitle tracks for multilingual subtitles
  • Ordered chapters for chaining MKV files together during playback
  
  
• Initial support for SSA and ASS subtitles which can either be stored within the MKV file or externally
  
  
• Fast frame-accurate seeking
  
  
• Real-time handling of interlaced H.264 video:
  • Bob de-interlace
  • Display top field only
  • Display bottom field only
  • Display weave

We have also made several other general improvements since DivX Player 6.8.2:

• The Direct3D renderer is compatible with a wider range of video cards and has improved performance when video is rendered on a secondary display (except where the video area crosses a display boundary). The Direct3D renderer became the default in DivX Player 6.8.1 for systems supporting DirectX 9 with Pixel Shader 2.
  
  
• The GDI renderer has returned and allows DivX Player to display video in circumstances where no hardware acceleration is available, e.g. when the video hardware is in use or over remote desktop.
  
  
• Better handling of AVI files that have a broken index. It is now possible to seek inside the file where a partial index exists and warnings are no longer displayed as soon as the file is opened.
  
  
• Better support for media created using the DivX Author application.

Known issues in this preview

This non-exhaustive list of known-issues summarizes some important points you should be aware of when using DivX Player 7 Beta 1:

• Formatting information is currently stripped from SSA and ASS subtitles
  
  
• When playing AAC HEv2 streams only one channel may be audible
  
  
• For some H.264 files encoded with MBAFF the field order may be detected incorrectly. This may cause the video to flicker during playback. You can work around this issue by temporarily selecting to display top field only.
  
  
• Audio synchronization may be lost on systems using Realtek HD Audio adapters. This appears to be a problem in the Realtek drivers, a workaround is to open the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel to reduce the hardware acceleration for playback to the "Basic acceleration" level.
  
  
• DivX Player may crash while fast-forwarding H.264 video at high speed.
  
  
• There are various known issues for the OpenGL renderer. This renderer is neither the default or fall-back renderer on any system.
  
  
• It is possible to select the DirectDraw renderer when DivX Player is running under the Vista Aero UI. This combination is unsupported and will currently result in a misleading error message stating the video format is invalid. Do not use the DirectDraw renderer if you are using the Vista Aero UI.

When you play MKV files in third-party media players you may also encounter these known issues relating to the DivX MKV Demux filter:

• Files that do not contain a video track are not yet supported.
  
  
• Loss of audio synchronization may occur when playing MKV files containing DivX 6 content (ASP video, MP3 audio).
  
  
• After seeking or unpausing the video may briefly play faster or slower than normal while resuming.

Downloading DivX 7 Playback Preview

Only members of the Project Rémoulade group or the Project Rémoulade Applications group who are signed in to their DivX Labs accounts can download the installation package. If you're not yet a group member please:

1. Create a DivX Labs account, and then
2. Join the Project Rémoulade Applications group.

This group has limited seating so please join only if you are genuinely interested in testing and providing feedback.

Uninstalling DivX 7 Playback Preview

If for any reason you wish to uninstall this beta please use the shortcut in the DivX programs group of your Start menu to "Remove the DivX Media Pack", and complete the installation process before re-installing any older version of the DivX software. Only this uninstaller will cleanly remove the DivX 7 Playback Preview components.

How you can help us

We want to hear from you! Did you experience any problems using this beta software? Did the player perform well on your system? Did you find a bug? Give us your feedback via the DivX Labs forums!

If your feedback relates to performance issues you can also email us some of the following information to help us diagnose the problem:

• Screenshots from CPU-Z that show your CPU, memory and mainboard configuration.
  
  
• Screenshots from DXDiag, which you can launch by simply typing DXDiag into the Run box on your Start menu, so that we can see information about your graphics card (e.g. vendor/model/memory/driver revision).
  
  
• Screenshots of any crash dialogs, including the details view if available.
  
  
• In the case of crashes, an export from MSInfo32, which you can launch by simply typing MSInfo32 into the Run box on your Start menu, so that we can see information about the operating system, running software and application errors.

If you email us please include your DivX Labs user name and links to any forum threads that further describe the issue.