DivX is a video codec offering a high level of compression with good visual quality. It uses a version of lossy MPEG 4 compression, so there's some loss of quality when compared with uncompressed video, but for many uses, particularly on smaller players such as PDAs and mobile phones, the quality loss may well be unnoticeable.

The DivX 7 player is free; you can download it from www.divx.com and use it to play any DivX video. DivX 7 Pro, reviewed here, includes the DivX 7 player but also DivX 7 Converter, which can convert video from a wide range of different formats to DivX. This costs £13.99; pretty reasonable, but the MPEG2 converter, which adds MPG, VOB, TS and SVCD file import, is an extra £6.99.

DivX 7 Converter's modest little interface looks for all the world like a 1980s Casio watch, but benefits from simplicity. In fact it couldn't be much simpler to use; select a video file in any supported format and drag and drop it onto the watch face, where it helpfully says ‘Drag & Drop here'. At the bottom are navigation arrows to select the quality and size of the finished video. There are six options: Home Theater, HD 720p, HD 1080p, DivX Plus HD, QMobile and Mobile.

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As it stands, DivX 7 Converter can convert from WMV, AVI and MOV files and in tests we converted a 2.60GB, 137-minute MPG movie to a Home Theater mode, 1.26GB DivX file in just over two and a half hours. The PC we used is a 3.4GHz Pentium 4, so nothing exotic, but this is still not quick. If you're converting a library of MPGs it could take a while, but you can queue up a set of conversions in the Converter and leave it unattended.

Version 7 can create H.264 HD video and supports MKV files. It also caters for AAC sound format and for another extra £6.99 you can add in the DFX audio enhancer.

Comparing the quality of the resulting DivX video with the source MPG showed very little noticeable degradation, but we weren't viewing on a big screen. Even so, we would be happy watching movies converted to DivX with this converter on PDAs, netbooks, notebooks and PC screens, certainly up to 22-inch or so. And if you're watching on a 42-incher, why would you be compressing your videos anyway?

If you want to create compressed videos for a variety of different devices and from most of the main video formats, DivX 7 Pro is inexpensive and very easy to use. Both MPG conversion and the DFX audio enhancer are extras, but even adding them in the package is still good value. Bear in mind, though, that other video compression algorithms - such as XviD - are available, some of them free to a greater or lesser extent.