Vsofts
Vsofts is a Video SW company headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Saint Petersburg (Russia). The company offers advanced video technology solutions and was a pioneer in high quality and low CPU budget in H.264 codec implementation. Vsofts was the first to demonstrate (IBC September 2003) a real time Standard Definition Audio (AAC+) / Video(H.264) running on a PC machine. This was the quick start in making H.264 accessible to a wide range of applications : from broadcast equipment to video features on cell phone !
Vsofts was the first company to offer a free evaluation version of its H.264 codec on the web. Unfortunately, this was at the time that the H.264 standard was being finalized, and last-minute changes meant that a version compliant with the final standard was not available in time to include on the CD. Vsofts intends to post this codec on its website, so readers will be able to download it from the following link. http://www.vsofts.com/codec/h264_download.html I suggest you check this site regularly; I expect that there will be improved versions of the codec posted from time to time.
Vsofts did kindly provide versions of two other codecs. "VSS Codec Light" is a free version of the company's proprietary codec that is claimed to be a fast and powerful video compression software. It provides about 40-60% better compression than most of major real time codecs. The "VSS Wavelet Codec" is provided in an evaluation version that expires on October 30,2003. If you acquire this CD after this date try this link at the VSS website http://www.vsofts.com/codec/wlt_download.html and enquire for a later version.