[MEncoder-users] Removing Duplicate Frames

[Jeremy Hood]

I have video clips that have duplicated frames in them and I'd like to use mencoder to remove those duplicated frames.  I think I've figured out how to get mencoder to identify the duplicatd frames with the "decimate" command, but, when I play back the video clips, there is still a time delay during the period where the duplicated frames were.  It's like mencoder inserts blank frames to essentially "pause" playback until it comes time for the next frame.  That's not the behavior I want.  I want it to go straight to the next non-duplicated frame at the video's frame rate.  Does that make sense?

Here's an illustration of what I mean.  Pretend that the numbers are the consecutive frames in a video clip, starting at 1.  Pretend that underscores ("_") are zero-length frames inserted by mencoder to effectively "pause" playback:

This is what I have:

1 2 3 3 3 3 4 5 6 ...

After using the decimate command to remove the duplicate frames, here's what mencoder gives me:

1 2 3 _ _ _ 4 5 6 ...

Here's what I want (note that there is no time delay between frame numbers 3 and 4 other than the frame rate of the video):

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...

Jeremy Hood
Software Engineer
LaserCraft Inc.