DivX 7 Arrives: H.264, MKV, AAC Support

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With all of the CES news last week, some media/electronics coverage was overshadowed. Such as the update of popular AV compression and playback software DivX version 7.

DivX 7 introduces support for full HD H.264 videos. The software comes in two forms, a freeware edition with video playback support and a $20 version providing additional creation and conversion tools for DivX videos.  The package also includes the DivX H.264 decoder filter and the DivX MKV Demux filter (both DirectShow filters that extend playback support for MKV files.) MKV has quickly grown in popularity for HD downloads as an open standard enclosure that allows an unlimited number of video, audio, picture and/or subtitle tracks inside one single file. Another new feature is the integration of AAC audio – digital audio format with multichannel audio support.

Also of note for media gadget Fans: DivX has announced the launch of the DivX Plus Certification program enabling additional implementation of DivX technology on game consoles, televisions, mobile devices, and more. In fact, I noticed that Windows 7 will have native DivX capabilities.

Download DivX 7 here with a 15-day trial to sample all the encoding goodies.

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Geek Tonic.

6 thoughts on “DivX 7 Arrives: H.264, MKV, AAC Support”

  1. The most important omission from all the press releases is when will PS3 be updated to fully support DivX Plus ™ HD, i.e. MKVs?

    Also, even after reading the thread on Doom9, I am still unsure how Divx will deal with MKVs with other audio formats (most good ones now have DTS audio). They also haven’t released full specs yet so stuff like subtitles, chapters, menus, and so on is up in the air AFAIK.

    Still, it’s great to see MKV adoption grow :)

    P.S. One thing Doom9’s thread made clear though is that DivX’s command-line interface encoder will be updated and will stay free.

  3. I was going to ask the same question as Ivan. Why has no one asked when the playstation 3 will be able to playback DivX 7 full HD H.264 files with surround AAC audio?? I cant wait for that firmware update…

  4. The Playstation 3 will currently play H.264 video and AAC audio, it just needs to be in an .mp4 container. There are plenty of .mkv to .mp4 converters out there. It only gets tricky if the .mkv file has Dolby Digital, DTS, or something more ridiculously exotic (Ogg Vorbis, etc.). Even still, transcoding software is free and plentiful.

  5. Yeah we know MP4 is supported, but when you’re talking about converting a 1080p or 720p video to another format (H.264 and AAC audio too, mind you) the amount of CPU its going to eat up is enormous. I have a quad PC and converting still takes 90% of all cores combined.

    So at the end of the day storing your movies in its original media is also faster rather than having to wait for your conversion to finish. Just place ’em in the external, plug it in the PS3 and woala… isn’t that just better?

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