DivX 5.0: From T-shirt To Dress Suit

A Player That Sheds Its Skin

Although DivX / MPEG-4 videos can be played back with the Microsoft media player, DivX Networks provides a player that has just slightly fewer additional features than its Microsoft counterpart. The settings option for the aspect ratio, which Microsoft's media player does not possess, impresses us favourably.

Borrowing from the good old MP3 tradition, there are skins for the DivX player. This conceals more interfaces for the program. New skins can be found at DivX.com . You can also find information about the look on this Web site.

Getting From Point A To Point B - And Beyond

The new DivX player is currently still in the alpha testing stage, which means that the software still has bugs in it. We can only hope that, now that the alpha version has been released, the beta and then the final version will follow quickly.

Important for owners of notebooks and older PC systems is the fact that, with slow processors (less than 500 MHz), the slider should be set to "Minimum Quality." Otherwise, audio and video can drift apart from one another or rattling can occur. The lower the quality, the less post processing will be done. Post processing is a type of polishing and can improve the visual image quality.