A blast from the past! DivX turns 25 and looks back on its digital video legacy
If you’re of a certain age, the name DivX might bring back fond memories of CDs and DVDs with hand-scrawled titles, slow downloads, and the thrill of watching a video that actually played smoothly on your computer. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone mention it, but for a time, DivX was everywhere -- and now it’s marking its 25th anniversary.
Founded in San Diego in 2000, DivX arrived just as online video was finding its footing. Its codec made it possible to shrink video files to a manageable size without turning them into pixelated messes. In an age before fast broadband and cloud storage, that felt close to magic.