[MEncoder-users] mencoder interoperable formats

[Hans-Werner Braun]

> --- Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp at hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:39:09 -0800
> > > Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp at hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > I tried MPEG-1, but it did not work in Windows. Do
> > you know a CLI
> > syntax for MPEG-1 that you think will work on all
> > platforms? I also
> > read that 640x480 and bigger is iffy in MPEG-1.
> > 
> 
> Please read the postiings of February 21 under the
> thread "need to add audio to movie question" OR you
> post out the complete command line you used for mpeg1.

I assume you are referring to format=vcd? I tried that:

 mencoder "mf://Data/*-PM.jpg" -mf type=jpg:fps=10 -o a.mpg -of mpeg -mpegopts +format=vcd -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video

Doesn't work in Windows. I can make it work easily with the old
mpeg_encode, as I have done for 15 years or so, but that is ways
too slow and CPU intensive for generating 450 real-time animations
per day for each of the 24 cameras I am currently doing this for.
Even with mencoder, those 10,800 animations/day (including the
needed image downsizing) grind the poor (though fast) machine all
but into the ground, and because of that I already had to start
generating separate AM/PM files. I can of course create animations
with Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, but I cannot automate
things there into a hands-off process via a perl-able CLI, preferably
on a Unix system.

I would also like to generate animations much larger than 640x480.
Network cameras I use (mostly to see weather patterns and wildfire
situations) are often 1600x1200 and up to 8 megapixels/camera, and
most certainly most are non-interlaced. But so far playing back
anything larger than 1024x768 seems iffy at best on common computers.

The only reason I am currently using wmv2 format is because that
was the only one generated from mencoder that I could reliably get
to work with Windows playing the result. My preference would have
been MJPEG (I care less about bandwidth use and file sizes), due to
frame editing capabilities (skipping back and forth frame-by-frame
to see weather or wildfires evolve), but mediaplayer does not do
MJPEG.