[MEncoder-users] which movie format for different OS (windows, apple, linux ...)

[James Hastings-Trew]

On 12-01-08 11:16 AM, Wolfgang Engelmann wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am new to this list.
> May I introduce myself.
>
> I have worked on biological rhythms and written some books on it. I want to
> illustrate new editions of some of them now with short movie clips on
> rhythmic movements in plants (flowers, leaves) and animals (eclosion rhythm
> of fruit flies out of their puparium, etc) and they should go to a portal of
> the university library Tuebingen, Germany.
>
> I have produced the movies with a Nikon D700 and a timer (taking eg every
> 10 minutes a shot) and converted the TIF images (which are quite large,
> about 9MB each) in jpg which were used under mencoder to produce .mkv
> movies.
>
> I was told by the staff that most normal users don't have a media player,
> such as VLC, to see them. I therefore converted them to .avi, but a test by
> a windows user showed that it can not be played with the window player.
>
> So my question is what kind of format is recommended to serve most people
> seeing the movies.
>
> The next, more specific mencoder question, is how to insert a short title
> (with VLC the file name is shown at the begin of the movie). Or is it better
> to include an audio track? I don't have the equipment yet (microphone and
> recorder, any suggestions?) and don't know the procedure to include it.
>
> And finally, I have tried to do some cropping on some of the movies, but
> haven't succeeded so far. Is there a manual for mencoder which is easy
> enough to be understood by a newbie like me?
>
> Thanks in advance and wish you a good 2012,
>
> Wolfgang
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All Windows and Mac users should be able to play .mp4 files "out of the 
box" on their systems with no further installation of software or other 
codecs. Linux users will likely have to install something like VLC in 
order to view the same files.