DivX :D, i wuuvvs ya *mwah for divx* :D lol :P

dRD, mpeg-4 is a worthy format (and capable too), but in truth, unless one is willing to sit hunched over their keyboard watching stuff on their computer monitors, what good is it? (really). Only the merest fraction of independent hardware manufacturers support standalone mpeg-4 playback, right? (Divx, an mpeg-4 derivitive, is also DRM-inhibited). It may or may not be as bad (pitiful) as .wma, but I just can't easily tolerate crippled, restricted formats.

I lost interest in DivX when it went closed source. To encode using the pro version, either one must purchase it now or have that annoying GMT adware process installed. Going by the top downloads on Afterdawn, it appears most are switching over to XviD.

I still believe strongly that MPEG-4 has a future, but not in the stand-alone living room devices. I'm a strong advocate of totally wireless computing and I've written tons of articles to various publications about my beliefs that the TV and radio as we know will disappear within a decade or so and will be replaced by IP-based devices, whether they look exactly like our old TVs or are handheld mobile things that connect to the Net via IPv6 & 4G+ networks. Once the average bandwidth that virtually every Western household has, via mobile or via cable/VDSL/similiar, is around 10-100MBps (some countries are there already -- some countries call 128k ISDN a 'broadband'), transferring DVD-quality MPEG-2 over the Net in real-time is piece of cake. This can be achieved with slightly lower bandwidth by using MPEG-4 instead -- but then again, it needs tons and tons of standardization before it is anywhere near usable for any mass-market purposes.