How do I transfer videos from DV camera to divx?

How do I transfer videos from DV camera to divx?

I have a videocamera that uses mini-dv tapes. In the past, I've transferred the files and made DVDs, but that was time- and disk-space- consuming. I wanted to find new tools and to figure out how to convert the videos to something smaller like divx but I didn't know enough about all the different formats to answer a previous question.