Software Update: DivX Player 2.0 Alpha 2

Anonymous: 45930 announced that an Alpha version of DivX Player 2.0 can be downloaded from DivX.com. Alpha 2 includes the following improvements:

[New]

• Added user preferences that allow you to disable the startup splash screen and the startup version check.
• Added error handling to the “custom aspect ratio” dialog to prevent bad values ​​from being entered.
• Added a user preference that allows you to choose a specific playback mode for the application to start in when the application is started by double-clicking a video file (eg, so you can have movies immediately begin playing in fullscreen mode after double-clicking a file).

[Improved]

• Improved audio handling in DivX 3.11a video files.
• Improved the handling of third party MPEG-4 files. The MPEG-4 standard is huge, and version 2.0 Alpha had some problems parsing certain types of MPEG-4 files. We fixed these parsing and data handling issues. Our support for all MPEG-4 files will be an ongoing process. A remaining known issue is that we do not support MPEG-4 files with multiple video streams.
• Made some general performance improvements. These should smooth out playback on some systems.
• Changed the startup version check and made it an asynchronous operation. The application will now respond to events while the version check is taking place.

[Fixed]

• Fixed a bug where the Player would instantly exit when opening a video file. This was caused by the built-in MP3 audio decoder we are using and how it was doing seeking.
• Fixed a known issue where the resuming playback would be delayed when you paused and resumed playback on a video with no sound track.
• Fixed a bug where hitting the escape key while the newsletter subscription dialog was displayed would freeze the application.
• Fixed a known issue where files with the “~” character in their names would cause visual artifacts to be displayed next to the movie name in the GUI.