HR wrote:
This is getting really educational, thanks for all the good input! The reason why I was using XViD was mainly the open source argument, while observing the commersial direction of the DivX on windofz. I've been assuming that DivX on any platform would be subject to that "closing" of the source, ie that lavc mpeg4 would be somewhat less reliable as open source in the future compared to XViD. This is propably just ignorance on my part? Whats the licence status on lavc (mpeg4)?
Do you really think MPlayer would rely on proprietary software as a core component? FFMPEG is released under the GPL. Unfortunately, there are patents covering MPEG-4, so no use of it can be completely free. We might be violating patents (in the US anyway) every time we use XviD or lavc. Ironically, it might be safer legally to use DivX then either XviD or lavc, since DivXNetworks may have taken care of MPEG licensing. Does anyone here know the actual legal status of using each of these codecs? Jonathan Rogers