DivX ;-) was developed by bunch of hackers, most notably a guy calledgej and it is based on Microsoft's version ofMPEG-4 encoding technology, called as Windows Media Video V3.

Basically Microsoft's encoders didn't allow users to save MPEG-4 streams intoAVI structure format, but forced users to useASF instead. It also had some other limitations -- and those limitations were overriden in DivX ;-). It also added a support for other than Windows Media Audio audio encoding technology, allowing users to haveMP3 audio on their movies.

In 2001, original "developers" of this hacked(and therefor illegal)codec released a new legal version of DivX ;-), calledDivX(without smiley). DivX(without smiley) supports old DivX ;-) movies and also adds new features and better compression quality than "original" DivX ;-).

The name, DivX ;-), comes from now defunct CircuitCity pay-per-view DVD format calledDIVX.

With DivX ;-), you can store 50-120 minutes of relatively good quality video to one CD (740MB)(==most of the movies can be stored in one CD, unlike inVCD orSVCD). Only negative aspect DivX ;-) has when it's compared toVCD is the fact that VCDs can be played with regular stand-alone DVD players and DivXs can't.

DivX, like many other MPEG-4 formats, can however be played with certain MPEG-4 compatible, stand-alone DVD/DivX players.

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