The EasyVideo ActiveX control lets you integrate real-time video into any Win32 app that can host an ActiveX control. Video features supported include video capture, transmission, compression, and decompression, using standard Windows codecs as well as MPEG-4. Additional niceties include multicast support and bandwidth adjustment.

Version 3.0 is shipping in March, 2003.

http://www.lht2000.com/video.html

mp3record is a command-line utility for recording any audio (system mixer, input, mic, etc.) directly to an mp3 file on a linux system. It can run for a set interval and shut itself off. Ideal uses for this script would be recording streams, meetings, etc.

Release 1.3 is shipping in March, 2003.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3record/

John Robinson’s page on BTPC, which includes documentation, samples, links, and source. BTPC is designed to do both lossy and lossless compression of images.

John updated this package to version 5 in March, 2003.

http://www.intuac.com/userport/john/btpc5/index.html

The first time I ever heard the phrase Canonical Huffman Coder was in reference to the technique used in PKZip to store Huffman tables. I don’t know where the technique originated, but it is basically a way to construct a Huffman table so that the actual codes don’t have to be stored when storing the table. This makes for some nice space savings when compared to a first-pass naïve implementation. (Like the ones I’ve done in the past.)

It turns out that somebody named Gareth was attempting to implement this code but was having a bit of trouble. His post to comp.compression brought out some useful help from some of the newsgroup regulars, and did a lot to shed light on the topic, and includes a reference to the paper that actually gave birth to the concept.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=370afe3d.0303041329.23
f0affe%40posting.google.com

Waver is a program that can convert back and forth between MP3 and WAV formats, using the Blade and LAME MP3 codecs. This product’s claim to fame is its ability to soak up all the cycles on more than one CPU simultaneously. So if you’re lucky enough to have a multi-CPU MOBO, you can go to town with this commercial product. You get a 30-day free trial to decide if it’s worth the price.

http://www.waver-converter.com/

Somebody posting as thewhizkid complained to the comp.compression newsgroup that he just couldn’t figure out how to do a CRC calculation. He got a couple of good pointers here, including one to the zlib code, and another including a bit of Java that could do the job. I’ll add a pointer to my ancient-but-still-cogent article from DDJ,

File Verification Using CRC to the mix. Between the three choices, I hope the poster was able to get a handle on the mysterious CRC.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=31b3e6e5.0303042023.78
52ba26%40posting.google.com

Ace Media Player supports an impressive list of media types, including Real, MPEG, DivX, QuickTime, VCD, WMF, and of course, MP3. This is a commercial product, but you can get a 30 day eval copy.

Version 2.2 of Ace Media Player shipped in March of 2003.

http://www.gustosoft.com/media-player/ace-media-player.php

Another company determined to swim upstream with a commercial media player. Although in this case, jetAudio Basic is free, jetAudio Plus is the the commercial product. You’ll pay for the upgrade if you decide you need support for creating MP3 and MP3Pro files, broadcasting MP3 files, and converting files to MP3 or MP3Pro.

jetAudio has a nice looking UI with some alternative skins. Version 5.01 is shipping as of March, 2003.

http://www.jetaudio.com/news/details_21.html

This paper describes an adaptive Huffman scheme that is designed to work with large numbers of symbols - at least that’s what the abstract says. The web page indicates that there are executables in the archive, but all I see is a Word document.

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pigeon/programs/programs.html#huffman

Power WMA Recorder is a program that can create WMA files from any available sound source directly without using any additional disk space. In addition to supporting Microsoft’s WMA format (including the variable bit rate option), Power WMA Recorder can encode directly to MP3 format.

Version 1.34 is shipping in March, 2003.

http://www.cooolsoft.com/wmarecorder.htm

Oleg Z. has created this program to to split, encrypt with your own unique key, compress and restore to original state large files of any type. The author says the program has an intuitive GUI, and works on most Win32 platforms.

Version 1.0.0.1 shipped on March 6, 2003.

http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/62856.shtml

Coding integers of an arbitrary length is an interesting problem. Steven Pigeon discusses a way to code integers in a very efficient manner, which approaches the optimal Log2(n) value.

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pigeon/

Alex Ng posed the question on comp.compression: “In general, you cannot have one image coder can compress well for ALL
images. Why?”

This set off a lively and somewhat useful discussion, with lots of thoughtful posts from Thomas Richter and others. Always good to find some intelligent thought on the compression newsgroup.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=b3kjij%244ok1%40imsp21
2.netvigator.com

EZ Transcoder is a wrapper for three pass encoding with mencode designed specifically for transcoding existing MPEG2 files (such as those captured by a TV Capture card) to DivX/MPEG4 format. It is currently a perl console app.

EZ Transcoder 0.2 shipped in March, 2003.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/eztranscoder/

ezConverter is a program that is designed to make it easy to convert your audio files between various formats. Converts between WMA, MP3, MPEG, and many more formats. ezConverter also takes input directly from your sound card, allowing you to record from analog inputs or from the output of other programs. The publisher advertises it as fast and easy. You can download a trial version from the web site, but registration is going to set you back roughly $US 25.

Version 1.1 was shipping as of March, 2003.

http://ezc.goldlimit.com/index.htm

Your Microsoft Xbox is a great gaming platform, but it also has the capability to do much more. What a bargain it would be if you could use it as a digital media player, serving up MP3 files across the network, perhaps with nice videos on the high-definition outputs. All this becomes possible with just two things. First, you need to get a copy of the free Xbox Media Player, which lets you play DVDs, Internet Radio, MP3 files, etc. Second, the hard part: you need to get an Xbox Modchip, which lets you bypass Microsoft’s security restrictions and do as you please with your hard-purchased computer.

Version 2.3 is shipping as of February 15, 2003.

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/newweb/news_latest.php

Enbaya makes a product called ProGATE that is used to compress 3D graphics and animations for game developers.

http://www.enbaya.com/html/Products.htm

This Win32 program is designed to work directly with your sound card, allowing you to record audio from virtually any source and any program. It makes it into DataCompression.info because it will encode directly to MP3 format.

Version 1.05 is shipping as of March, 2003.

http://www.fairstars.com/overview/index.htm

This product is advertised as a revolutionary compression package from QuickCAT Technologies. It comes in two versions: a Pro package that compresses documents and images, and a Basic version that compresses only images.

http://www.miliki.net/