simply said, OGG Vorbis is an opensource replacement for MP3.

here are some of the reasons for switching to OGG...
1. it provides better sound quality at same bitrates than MP3. our tests showed more accurate wave preservation and superior performance in high frequencies. it's recommended quality encoding setting often produces smaller files than MP3...
2. it's encoding capabilities and support of multiple sound streams makes it comparable not only to MP3, but also to MPEG2, MPC, AC3, AAC and other 'industry standards'...
3. it is available in open source and it's support is growing on daily basis. it is already supported in all standard players. at this point we recommend winamp...
4. it's implementation in video files is seamless and will be used in future kosmoplovci video and demo releases to raise sound quality... our future music releases will also take benefit of ogg whenever possible...
5. it is not owned by arms producing company or any other group or individual who may blackmail your use and distribution! actually it is not owned by anyone and is truly in public domain...

OGG Vorbis is quite well supported online through official sites at www.xiph.org and www.vorbis.com which provide not only codec downloads for multiple platforms but also constantly updated database of software supporting OGG Vorbis encoding and decoding.

however, here are some downloads links for a quick start on windows platfom...

OggDropXPd v1.7.6 [243kb]
  drag'n'drop utility for encoding and decoding. it's easy to use and it also supports FLAC and some other lossless codecs...
vorbis-tools-1.0.1-win32.zip [401kb]
  command line encoding/decoding tools with latest libvorbis core 1.0.1
nxmyogg.zip [200kb]
  OGG encoding/decoding plugin for NERO with latest libvorbis core 1.0.1
Ogg Vorbis DirectShow filter collection 0.9.9.5 [464kb]
  provides system-wide ogg decoding support in windows media player and other software using directshow.
VorbisACM v0.0.3.6 [328kb]
  ACM WAV support with options in japanese and with older libvorbis core. may be useful for decoding wav's already packed with ogg...

links:
www.xiph.org
www.vorbis.com
homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/
neroplugins.cd-rw.org

another Xiph.org opensource audio development project, FLAC, provides free lossless audio compression. in simple words, this compression will downsize your wav files WITHOUT ANY SOUND LOSS. it works similar to archive utilities like RAR or ZIP, but unlike archive files, FLAC files are still playable in sound players. what is most important, FLAC provides better compression ratios than RAR media compression and additionally support ID3 tag information the same way as OGG or MP3...

if you are a musician and your wav music renders occupy gigabytes of your precious harddisk space, FLAC is for you. and with NERO plugins for FLAC and OGG installed, you can encode OGG files directly from FLAC...

here is a short exerpt from the official FLAC documentation...
- - - - - - - -
What is FLAC?

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to MP3, but lossless.
The FLAC project consists of:

• the stream format
• reference encoders and decoders in library form
• flac, a command-line program to encode and decode FLAC files
• metaflac, a command-line metadata editor for FLAC files
• input plugins for various music players

"Free" means that the specification of the stream format is fully open to the public to be used for any purpose (the FLAC project reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance), and that neither the FLAC format nor any of the implemented encoding/decoding methods are covered by any known patent. It also means that all the source code is available under open-source licenses.

FLAC compiles on many platforms: most Unixes (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, OS X), Windows, BeOS, and OS/2. There are build systems for autoconf/automake, MSVC, Watcom C, and Project Builder.
- - - - - - - -

Official FLAC development site is located at flac.sourceforge.net.
Xiph.org provides additional support and links for software downloads.

here are some downloads for a quick start on windows platfom...

flac110m.exe [620kb]
  windows installation pack, including all necessary encoding and decoding tools with windows gui, winamp5 and winamp2 plugins
nxmyfla.zip [48kb]
  FLAC encoding/decoding plugin for NERO
flac-1.1.0-win.zip [1.38kb]
  official win32 binary release

links:
flac.sourceforge.net
www.xiph.org
neroplugins.cd-rw.org

for quite some time, DivX video compression has become just another hip internet product, with more and more features conditioned with money and/or advert-terror. it has come to our attention that DivX, as we know it today has even slowed down it's development just to squeeze more and more money out from the uninformed people who don't now more than to click on divx.com, believing it is the only high quality video encoding option.

however, not many people know that the original Project Mayo OpenDivX project is still alive and continues developing opensource mpeg4 implementation widely known as OpenDivX, of which one of the most exciting implementation is certainly XviD, maintaned though xvid.org project, dedicated to keeping it both high quality AND opensource.

since it may be a bit tricky to find the binary download location, here we provide the installer for the latest WIN32 [all windows versions] build we could find...

XviD-1.0-Beta3-26122003.exe [449kb]
  09:44:52, Dec 26 2003
  libxvidcore version 1.0.-126 ["xvid-1.0.0"]
  Koepi's [Selam] CVS Build

official links:
xvid.org
project mayo

powerful video compression was developed during last few years but seems like DVD industry didn't like the fact that DivX has prospects of generating DVD quality and make movies fit on ordinary cd-rom. like many similar projects, DivX is pushed underground, although it's intentions are to improve the online video distribution. with extensive propaganda and witch hunt, DivX has become widely known as a tool for pirating DVD movies, but it is far from truth.

DivX's intelligent implementation of Mpeg4 video technologies produces results with quality superior to all 'standard' codecs like indeo or cinepak or mpeg, while making the files even smaller and providing full 25 fps frame rate even on common home computers, using small bandwidth which makes it usable on existin TCP/IP connections.

latest DivX incarnation is OpenDivX initiative which is developed as open source project under GPL and is aimed to provide support for several platforms. at this stage it promises to offer even more than original DivX, but at this moment DivX ;-) still is better in many ways, especially in encoding speed, and is therefore widely used...

here are some usefull online resources and download for easier entering the world of DivX...

online resources:
OpenDivX homepage [Project Mayo]
DivX digest homepage [all information and links for software]
DivX.com [new openned DivX.com site]

intel/windows binaries:
The Kristal Studio Codecs Pack V4.3.3 [zip arhive, 1.176.570 bytes, nfo]
including:
- OpenDivx v4.0 alpha 48,
- Coder & decoder DivX V3.2 (3.11Alpha + Scene detect patch).
- Coder & decoder DivX WMA Audio V4.2 (Standard)
- Coder & decoder MPEG-Layer 3 Audio V4.2 (Professional). With control panel.
- Decoder for AC3 Audio V2.2.
- Coder & decoder KS MPEG-4 VKI (For ASF/DivX Conversion).

AngelPotion distribution pack [installation exe, 872,209 bytes]

OpenDivX v4.0 alpha 50 [installation exe, 192,803 bytes]

DivX v3.20 [installation exe, 741,376 bytes]

Virtual Dub v1.4c [zip archive, 679,512 bytes]
[avi encoding/recoding software]

BSPlayer v0.832 [installation exe, 458,627 bytes]
[very fast and small DivX player, very usefull on slower machines. have some unique features]

very interesting concept of 'rewiring the net' how authors call it, with improved security, shared netspace and implemented anonymity. server software is available as open source release with precompiled binary releases for linux and dos/windows.
official support site with in-depth information and downloads is available at FreeNet official page.

dvd-munitions.tar.gz - open source project for creating DVD players on linux and other non-M$ environments.
[tgz archive, 3,408,831 bytes]
more information at OpenDVD.org.

The Breaking of CyberPatrol® 4 [text file, 129,156 bytes]
utility to decode the CyberPatrol 4 cyber.not file [c source, 31,654 bytes]
matrix tables for cndecode.c [c source, 8,192 bytes]