Difference between DivX and Xvid?

First, an example, what do these things have in common?

1. Microsoft in Redmond, WA
2. Apple in Cupertino, CA
3. LAME, the open source project on SourceForge

Answer: all of them offer a MP3 audio encoder.

Likewise...

1. DivX Inc. in San Diego, CA
2. Xvid Solutions in Hof, Germany
3. XviD, the open source project on SourceForge

All of them offer an MPEG4 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) video encoder. The Xvid Solutions encoder is the same as the XviD open-source encoder and often appears in free software. The DivX encoder is proprietary and only appears in DivX Certified software such as the free DivX Converter.

Convert Phone Video using FFMPEG

I recently shot some video using the camera on my HTC Touch Cruise. I was easily able to send it as an e-mail attachment using Pocket Outlook and my gMail account. However, when the video arrived it was in an unusable format so I had to do some FFMPEG processing on it.

DivX Noobs

I saw this question today so I'm posting my response here for everyone.

> I am seeking a way to covert my dvd's to a video file format.
> I am looking to use mp4 or divx...

In the USA it is illegal to circumvent the copy protection found on most commercial DVDs. However, if you have an unprotected DVD, you can use DivX Converter to convert the DVD to a DivX file.