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How in the world were they both able to use that name?
by _aavaa_ 3y ago
How in the world were they both able to use that name?
- pavlov 3y agoDIVX the physical disc distribution company was a famous flop. DivX the video codec started out as an unlicensed hacked version of Microsoft’s MPEG-4 v3 codec binary. Since it wasn’t a commercial product and was legally dubious, the author called it DivX ;-) with the smiley in the name. When it became unexpectedly popular during the dot-com boom time, someone of course set up a DivX company that dropped the smiley, eventually rewrote the codec, and presumably acquired the trademark from the defunct DIVX (or just took it over if the registration expired, I don’t know).
- chasd00 3y ago> and presumably acquired the trademark from the defunct DIVX (or just took it over if the registration expired, I don’t know). and then, iirc, this is where xvid come into being. I think it was the same codec just re-written and given back to the opensource world, hence the reason for naming it "divx" spelled backwards.