[4][5] The video codec, which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant, was extracted around 1998 by French hacker Jerome Rota (also known as Gej) at Montpellier.

[6] Rota hacked the Microsoft codec because newer versions of the Windows Media Player would not play his video portfolio and résumé that were encoded with it.

Instead of re-encoding his portfolio, Rota and German hacker Max Morice decided to reverse engineer the codec, which "took about a week".

[7] In early 2000, Jordan Greenhall recruited Rota to form a company (originally called DivXNetworks, Inc., renamed to DivX, Inc. in 2005) to develop an MPEG-4 codec, from scratch, that would still be backward-compatible with the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 format.

In early 2001, DivX employee "Sparky" wrote a new and improved version of the codec's encoding algorithm known as "encore2".

[11] In February 2018, a deal was finalized to sell certain DivX assets, intellectual property and subsidiaries from NeuLion, Inc. to Fortress Investment Group.

The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them.

DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial backward compatibility with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB subtitles) can at least play that primary video stream (usually the main movie if the DMF file contains multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials).

DivX Plus HD files contain an H.264 video bitstream, AAC surround sound audio, and a number of XML-based attachments defining chapters, subtitles and meta data.

[16] Because the grouping is a specific subset of what is in the standards, there are certification processes for each of the profiles that device manufacturers must follow.

In 2009, DivX, Inc. received format approval from major Hollywood studios including Sony, Paramount, and Lionsgate, which has allowed content retailers to sell protected videos that will play on current and previous generations of DivX certified devices.

Devices that have been DivX certified usually brandish one of the following marks:[24] DivX certified devices have included DVD players, car stereos, mobile phones, televisions, Blu-ray players, and even alarm clocks.

[25] Aside from verifying proper decoding of files conforming to the DivX profiles the certification also confirms the device can play back DivX Video on Demand content, which includes Hollywood content that can be purchased from Internet retailers.

[28] On 17 December 2007, firmware upgrade 2.10 was released for the Sony PlayStation 3, which included official DivX Certification.