DivX, Inc.

DivX, Inc. (now DivX, LLC and also formerly known as DivXNetworks, Inc.), based in San Diego, California, is a subsidiary of NeuLion, Inc. as of January, 2015. DivX, LLC is best known as the corporation behind three popular codecs: the original MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC DivX Plus codec and the High Efficiency Video Coding DivX HEVC Ultra HD codec. The company's software has been downloaded over 1 billion times since January 2003. DivX, LLC's offerings have expanded beyond the codec to include software for viewing and authoring DivX-encoded video. DivX, LLC also licenses its technologies to manufacturers of consumer electronics devices and components used in these devices, of which over 1 billion DivX-enabled devices have shipped worldwide. DivX certifies that these licensed products are able to properly play DivX-encoded video.

History

The origin of DivX, Inc. begins with video engineer Jerome Rota (aka Gej), who made the original "DivX ;-)" codec available on his personal website after he had reverse-engineered the Microsoft MPEG-4 V3 codec. Gej was looking for a way to compress his portfolio so he could transmit it using the Audio Video Interleave file format (AVI). The codec became popular because it enabled reasonable quality video transmission over the internet (see DivX). Co-founder Jordan Greenhall, a former Mp3.com executive, learned of the codec from friends, and used it to download a copy of "The Matrix." Greenhall eventually got in touch with Gej through an underground Dutch hacker group after a multi-month search. In early 2000, Greenhall put forward the idea of using the "DivX ;-)" codec to found a company. With co-founders Joe Bezdek, Darrius Thompson and Tay Nguyen, Greenhall and Gej created DivXNetworks, Inc. After coming under scrutiny for the original "DivX ;-)" codec, which was not a clean room design codec, DivXNetworks created a new, clean room codec.