Commercial Video Codecs: Best one?
 

Hi,

I'm trying to find a good, fairly inexpensive AVI or WMV video codec, that I can legally distribute with a commercial game.
I was thinking about Ogg Theora, but apparently it's not supported by Adventure Maker.

Some codecs I'm thinking about:

DivX 7: It's US$20 for the full DivX codec, but I'm not sure whether that includes the commercial distribution liscence as well.

Indeo 5.11: Same uncertainties as above, $5 less.

Any suggestions?

Thanks very much,
James

I too have been through all this before too - I too do not have the option of using theora - since it involves a bunch of c libraries, etc....

I cannot find a decent simple dll type codec (something as simple as copying the codec dll into the end-users system directory and updating a couple registry entries)

- I know the big guys use "Bink" - however thats $6000 for a one-time royality free payment. (I am not sure - but that might be a bunch of source code libraries too)

I don't mind paying something in the $500 range but bink is too expensive for me anyway.

Theres also Xvid- but not sure about the licensed - I think its only free to distribute if your program is also distributed under the same free license as it is.

I also heard something about Mpeg 1 patent running out - so that should be free to use now - however I cant exactly find an actual mpeg1 codec.dll file to use.... One that will actually download and install and then show up in my movie software and one of the codec options to compress my movie.

Its funny... because I am sure there are other developers out there with this similar issue - however no one ever talks about it.

What is everyone using for their ingame cut scenes and intro movies???????????

Xvid
 

http://xvid.org/

Xvids fine for commercial distribution, as long as you let the codecs source code be accsessable to the end-user. It's a powerful codec near DivX quality, and open-source like Theora.

Thanks, and I belive I've found what I need.