Of course, you wouldn't know it from talking to DivX boosters. Like start-up CEOs in training, they'll tell you that the software promises to shake the Hollywood distribution system, making digital copies of films as accessible to anyone with a Net connection as music has become. "It has the potential to explode like MP3s," says Dave, aka "Krazy8," the founder of Isonews, a fan site that has become an unofficial hub of DivX news.

"It's the Holy Grail of video technology," says another fan, who didn't want to be identified.

Can DivX mimic MP3 and spark the kind of passion that induces fans to fight for the right to download entertainment?

Well, not this week. DivX, which is software that essentially fuses an MP3 audio stream with digital video, still faces some serious technological limitations. Video files are huge and unwieldy; getting a copy of "High Fidelity" onto your desktop and swapping a copy of it for "The Virgin Suicides" is nothing like quick and easy; such a feat would probably rule your life for days.

As it stands now, DivX, which appeared as early as eight months ago and really started to take off in March, remains a technology with a lot of theoretical potential and some very practical failures. Great it may become; MP3 it is not.

I found the program easily enough; a quick search on Google led me to the official DivX Web site. Perhaps having learned a thing or two from the legal brouhaha afflicting Napster, Gnutella, DeCSS and pretty much every technological breakthrough that makes it easier to share copyrighted music or video without permission from the copyright holder, DivX doesn't identify its authors beyond the handles "Gej" and "MaxMorice," found in its information file. The program is also pretty secretive about system requirements needed to run DivX.

The download went off with nary an error message, so I figured I was ready to start viewing the site's sample trailers. Yet when I tried to play the opening scene from "Apollo 13," nothing happened.

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