DivX technology allows movies to be compressed to a fraction of their original size. Downloading movies on BitTorrent and other P2P networks commonly involves DivX formatted files to conserve bandwidth. Any of several available DivX players open and play back these files.
Using DivX compression dramatically speeds up the download of movies on P2P networks. Typical movies or television programs with DivX compression applied may shrink by 85% or more from the original. Several available DivX compression tools generate these files.
To achieve such high compression rates, DivX sacrifices some image quality. However, many people barely notice the reduction in quality of visuals.
DivX compression technology found on P2P networks is not related to the Digital Video Express (Divx) rental system for DVD movies created by Circuit City in the late 1990s.
