Codec 6.2.5 Released - With Sharpening filter !

We here at DivX like to spend our time making things work faster, better, and with some serious style. With that in mind, we've just finished a whole bunch of work on the DivX decoder, including many performance quality enhancements that we think you're going to love.

Highlights include:

• A new "Sharpening" post-processing feature that enhances texture and sharpens any DivX 3, 4, 5 or 6 video
• Optimizations for decoding and post-processing
• Performance enhancements for post-processing on HT, SMP, and dual core processors

And now for the part you've all been waiting for: screenshots and nifty looking charts!

Sharper video

The DivX decoder can now make your videos come to life with fine details and a sharp, well-defined picture, enhancing any existing DivX video. All you need to do is tweak the settings, but we'll get to that in just a moment. First, check out the sample pictures below to see the effect of the new sharpening filter.

First select a thumbnail and then move the mouse over the picture to see the effect.

Note: Pictures are high quality and may take a moment to load the first time.

Pictures are real screenshots and have not been enhanced

Turning on sharpening

Here's how to turn on the new sharpening feature :

1. When you are playing a DivX video look for the DivX tray icon that appears near the clock on the taskbar. Click it; then select "DivX Toolbar Settings" from the menu.

   Alternatively, you can open the Decoder Configuration Utility from the DivX Codec programs group on your Start menu, but changes may not take affect until you restart your media player.

2. Select the Playback tab at the top of the configuration window.
3. Set the Post-processing level drop-down box selection to "Full Deblocking with Sharpening".
4. That's it! If you opened the configuration tool from the tray icon on the taskbar, you can toggle sharpening on and off in real time to see the effect live on your video as it plays.

Note: Sharpening requires more CPU time than Automatic Deblocking, the default post-processing option. If your video starts to skip or the audio goes out of sync try reverting this setting. Either that, or buy a new CPU - sharpening is cool ;)

Faster decoding

Our new decoder is also much faster than before, and that means lower CPU use during playback and/or better quality post-processing. We measured the time taken to decode a high definition (720p / 3.8Mbps) video clip on various systems using both versions 6.2.5 and 6.2.2, our previous release.

We tested each codec with no post-processing, Full Deblocking, and we also compared Full Deblocking with Sharpening (best mode, 6.2.5) and Full Deblocking with Deringing (best mode, 6.2.2) to see which required more horsepower.

The results are impressive. In almost every case DivX 6.2.5 is significantly faster than DivX 6.2.2 for playback - more than 30-50% in many cases, and up to 65% in the best case. The results also show that the new sharpening filter, while greatly improving picture fidelity, also demands less CPU horsepower than the old deringing method.

Getting this update

All of these new features are included in the DivX Community Codec (free), and in the DivX Pro Codec. If you arrived at this page from an update notification window your download should have begun automatically. Otherwise, you can download the new DivX 6.2.5 Codec as part of DivX for Windows 6.2.