DivX has launched the newest iteration of the codec - v6.8.

The change-log has some interesting comments:

Welcome to DivX Codec 6.8! Following up on the improvements we added for HD support in the 6.7 release, we've added additional optimizations to our decoder to take full advantage of multi-core computers. These latest advances allow the decoder to perform up to 50% faster on multi-core machines making HD content playback even better!

Additionally we have added the option to utilize custom quantization matrices into our encoder. This will allow you die-hard perfectionists to fine tune the encoder for specific content types such as anime or CGI.

Please give us any feedback you have about this release via the DivX Labs website: http://labs.divx.com

And remember, if you want to show off your DivX video creations to the masses, try publishing it to Stage6, our video community website.

www.stage6.com Stage6 offers free hosting for high-quality DivX videos and lets you watch them at full screen in your web browser using the DivX Web Player or download them to enjoy on a DivX Certified device.

- The DivX Team

You can download the free version of DivX 6.8 here.

Let us know if you experience any encoding speed-up on your dual- and quad-core PCs. We'll be running it through the labs shortly.