A new video codec called Nancy is set to displace MPEG-4 as the leading small-platform video codec. It will be used initially in PDAs and Cell Phones in China, Japan, and Korea. Texas Instruments has put their foot in the door to in an effort make sure they're the only American company to capitalize on it.
After reading this article, it's given me a few ideas on writing my own video codec. Now, if only audio was so easy to compress....
OK, the usual disclaimer:
WARNING: Some of these prices may shock you, leave you breathless, make you sick, get out your wallet, or something else dangerous or drastic in some way. The Junkyard is not responsible for your actions.
| Memory (256MB) | |||
| Type | Price | from last week | Retailer |
| PC-100 | $16 | -$3 | enet marketing |
| PC-133 | $17 | -$1 | Alpha International |
| PC-150 | $25 | $3 | Neutron USA (phone order, must mention pricewatch) |
| PC-1600 | $39 | $8 | Connect Computers (must mention pricewatch) |
| PC-2100 | $37 | $7 | BayAds |
| PC-2400 | $46 | $8 | iComPZ.com (phone orders only, must mention pricewatch) |
| PC-2700 | $60 | $2 | HardcoreCooling.com (phone orders only, must mention pricewatch) |
| PC-800 RDRAM | $77 | -$3 | nexthardwareshop.com (mention pricewatch) |
| CPUs | |||
| AMD Athlon XP 1900 | $244 | $0 | Accubyte (phone orders only, must mention pricewatch) |
| Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz | $408 | $10 | Star Components |
| AMD Duron 1.1GHz | $77 | -$4 | Compubuzz |
| Intel Celeron 1.1GHz | $86 | -$2 | Accubyte (phone orders only, must mention pricewatch) |
WARNING: chances are, these CPU prices are for the OEM package. That is the CPU only, no instructions, no stock fan/heatsink. No cool box either. Sorry. That's what you get for saving 20% on everything ^_^
| 40GB 7200RPM EIDE Hard Disk Drives (5 choice manufacturers) | |||
| Maxtor | $85 | -$1 | House of Computers (must mention pricewatch) |
| Seagate | $89 | -$1 | Components Direct |
| IBM | $93 | -$2 | Next Hardware Shop |
| Western Digital | $86 | -$1 | House of Computers (must mention pricewatch) |
The hard drive I ordered over a month ago is STILL backordered. Damn Seagate. I recommend WD for quiet drives, IBM for durability, and Seagate for quality... if you can find them. Maxtor just plain sucks. I don't care if they DID come out with ATA/133 first. I'd rather go SCSI anyway. ^_^
