LEMMING  How does this compare to VisualHub? Does it have more features? Does it create better quality files at the same or smaller size? Is it faster?  
(Version 1.2.5)

LEMMING  Actually, on their main feature page (http://www.divx.com/en/products/software/windows/compare-divx

), nowhere does it say that MKV support is restricted only to the DivX player. In fact, all it says it that it "Plays HD H.264 video (.mkv)" and it "Plays DivX video (.divx, .avi)." On another page, they specifically state that "DivX 7.0 for Mac can play existing high definition .mkv files." They don't differentiate between the plugin or the player, except in the release notes.

Until recently, DivX for Mac has been solely a Quicktime plugin. The DivX player is a recent addition. Therefore, when DivX.com brags about MKV support in the Macintosh version, it is reasonable to expect they're talking about the Quicktime plugin and not just the DivX player (which is a buggy POS, anyway).

Additionally, if you look at "About DivX Player," you'll see it's listed as "Alpha." It's not even a beta version. So DivX has also released alpha software without clearly identifying it as such.

So, yes, I'm disappointed that the DivX plugin currently doesn't play MKV files. I'm also annoyed that they don't clearly identify this plugin deficiency on their website.   
(Version 7.0)

LEMMING  I'm not interested in the DivX standalone players. There are several standalone players that are far superior to DivX player.

I want a plugin for Quicktime that will play MKV files without pre-caching. DivX 7 is supposed to support MKV files, but it doesn't. Only the DivX player supports MKV files, not the plugin.   
(Version 7.0)

LEMMING  Despite claims to the contrary, DivX 7 doesn't appear to support MKV files. After installing this, Quicktime Player gives the error "This is not a valid movie file" when trying to open MKV files.

So, anyone wanting to play MKV files with Quicktime Player or Front Row will have to use the Perian plugin. Unfortunately, Perian has to pre-cache the MKV files first which is slow and tedious.

I see no reason why anyone should use DivX. Handbrake is better for encoding and it's free. Perian supports more file formats. And VLC and Movist are better standalone players.

If DivX 7 will actually play MKV files in Quicktime and Front Row without pre-caching, then I'll recommend it. Until that happens, skip it.  
(Version 7.0)

LEMMING  Doesn't work with Front Row. Screen goes black. WTF? Is this a Front Row bug?  
(Version 1.0.1)

LEMMING  What are the filenames of the TV shows? VideoDrive seems to work best when the TV show AVI files have the following name structure: "Show Name S01E03 Episode Name.avi"

So, for instance, a recent episode of South Park would look like this: "South Park S12E03 Major Boobage".

Try renaming your video files (episode name is optional) and see if that helps.   
(Version 1.4.1)

LEMMING  Yes, of course you can do that. But VideoDrive allows you to tag your AVIs with IMDB info, cover art, and other tag info. Normally, you can't do that with AVIs or MKVs; you have to convert them to MOV, MP4, or M4V files first. VideoDrive provides a quick and easy fix to iTunes inability to read tagged AVI files.  
(Version 1.4.1)

LEMMING  There's nothing amiss here. It's perfectly clear. It says "VideoDrive makes it easy to add videos to iTunes without converting them or losing quality." No conversion is necessary when adding to iTunes for viewing in iTunes or Front Row. VideoDrive easily adds AVI, MP4, and MKV files without converting them.

However, if you wish to add non-compatible movie files (AVI, MKV) to your iPod, iPhone, or AppleTV, then of course they'll have to be converted because those devices only support MP4, MOV (not all), and M4V.

The difference is between iTunes (an app) and Apple devices (iPod, iPhone and AppleTV). VideoDrive allows iTunes to play MKVs and AVIs without conversion. The same Quicktime trick won't work with iPods, iPhones, and AppleTVs; hence the need for conversion if that's the type of movie file you have.  
(Version 1.4.1)

LEMMING  Awesome video file tagging app. I use it to tag my movies and TV shows to be watched with Front Row on my Mac Mini connected to my TV.

I like it better than MetaX. VideoDrive is smarter about grabbing movie and TV descriptions. It supports multiple video file types and it has many tweakable options to match the type of meta-data tagging you want to do.

Development has been rapid and bugs seems to be quickly fixed. I like the interface but the app doesn't yet have drag 'n' drop capability. This feature definitely needs to be added.

Overall, this is a very promising and useful app.  
(Version 1.3)

LEMMING  Make sure you back up your movies first, because I've lost six movies in two days to MetaX. The movies just vanished after I added metadata.

Also, often the metadata doesn't stick. This app needs a lot more work.  
(Version 2.3.2)

LEMMING  Thanks for the Leopard-compatible update.

By far the best keystroke logger. It's unobtrusive and doesn't suck up CPU cycles like all the other keystroke logger.  
(Version 2.2)

LEMMING  logKext no longer works under Leopard (OS X 10.5). It's going to require an update.  
(Version 2.1)

LEMMING  It's so great to finally see some utilities for dealing with the irritating MKV container format.

MoKgVM2DVD is a bit buggy, but it perfectly converted a MKV to AVI for me.  
(Version 1.0.1)

LEMMING  It's great to see an update to NicePlayer. I love this app. Unfortunately, it still can't play second audio on DivX files (via CoreVideo) even though that feature was supposed added to version 0.95.  
(Version 0.95)

LEMMING  This is a neat app, but why can't it be minimized to the Dock?   
(Version 2.0)

LEMMING  The last two versions of Acquisition don't work right for me. Acquisition is using over 600 MB of RAM and 75% CPU on my iMac G5. Specifically, the culprit is something called AqLibraryCore that is launched whenever Acquisition is launched.

I'm going back to Cabos for now.  
(Version 124.1)