Sustainability of Digital Formats
Planning for Library of Congress Collections
Sustainability of Digital Formats
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| Introduction | Sustainability Factors | Content Categories | Format Descriptions | Contact | |
| Full name | AVI (Audio Video Interleaved), DivX Video Codec |
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| Description | File format that wraps a DivX video bitstream with other data chunks, e.g., audio. |
| Production phase | Generally a middle-state format (often used as the video source when producing lower-resolution streaming versions). Note: DivX version 6 codecs were released beginning in late 2005; at this writing (2011), the compiler of this page has not yet investigated whether AVI may also wrap DivX 6.x. |
| Relationship to other formats | |
| Subtype of | AVI, |
| May contain | DivX_4 video codec, not documented at this time. |
| May contain | DivX_5, |
| May contain | WAVE, |
| May contain | MP3_CBR, |
| LC experience or existing holdings | |
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| LC preference | See AVI |
| Disclosure | See AVI and DivX |
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| Documentation | See AVI and DivX |
| Adoption | AVI is widely adopted for video production and filemaking; the Ligos Corporation FAQ (viewed in March 2012, FAQ dated 2007) for the competing Indeo codec includes this statement: "Many video files being distributed over the Internet use the DivX AVI format . . . ." In early 2006, Google began to offer downloadable videos, including gvi files in the AVI_DivX format (said to be DivX4 with MP3 audio). |
| Licensing and patents | See AVI and DivX |
| Transparency | See DivX |
| Self-documentation | See AVI |
| External dependencies | See AVI |
| Technical protection considerations | See AVI |
| Moving Image | |
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| Normal rendering | Good support. |
| Clarity (high image resolution) | Moderate to good, given that this is a format typically used for compression and does not support interlaced video. Outcome will depend on the type and extent of compression, and the encoder used. High resolution work is limited in the Windows environment due to file size limits (2 GB with FAT 16 technology; theoretical 8 GB with later technologies). |
| Functionality beyond normal rendering | See AVI |
| Tag | Value | Note |
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| Filename extension | avi |
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| Filename extension | gvi |
Extension for files downloaded from Google Video. |
| Internet Media Type | See related format. |
See AVI |
| Magic numbers | See related format. |
See AVI |
| Microsoft FOURCC | DIVX DIV3 DIV4 DIV5 DX50 |
Only the first of these FOURCC codes (DIVX) was registered to DivX at the Microsoft registry of FOURCC and WAVE codes before Microsoft stopped maintaining the registry. In March 2012, the others are listed at http://www.fourcc.org/codecs.php, with various annotations discouraging use of DIV3, DIV4, and DIV5 as obsolete. DIVX was used in versions 4 and later of the DivX codec. Version 5 of the DivX codec is reported to also use DX50. |
| Microsoft FOURCC | goog |
According to the Wikipedia page for Google Video (viewed April 4, 2006), the Google .gvi files "are just standard RIFF AVI files, with an extra list with the FOURCC 'goog' immediately following the header." When consulted in May 2010, the Wikipedia entry provided a more complex description of "save as" outcomes for those downloading Google videos, although the description of gvi files as "modified AVI files" with the goog fourcc code remained. |
| General | |
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| History |
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