I have a question regarding interoperability which I, despite many attempts and much reading, could not figure out myself. For real-time time-lapse animations on http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/cameras/ I am using mencoder to create new animations every few minutes. For this, from a perl program I use: system("/usr/local/bin/mencoder \"mf:///$DIR/$CAMERA/small/$dstamp/*-$APTAG.jpg\" -mf type=jpg:fps=10 -o $DIR/$CAMERA/$dstamp-temp.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2 > /dev/null 2> /dev/null"); as the results work natively in mplayer (or course), and Windows mediaplayer; although not on an OS X Macintosh. What I would like to create is a format that plays at at least 640x480 size in Unix (mplayer or whatever), Windows (mediaplayer), and OS X (quicktime (not requiring quicktime pro)). I would much appreciate suggestions to modify the above mencoder line towards a video format that accomodates all three platforms, as I have been unsuccessful there so far. Hans-Werner
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:39:09 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
What I would like to create is a format that plays at at least 640x480 size in Unix (mplayer or whatever), Windows (mediaplayer), and OS X (quicktime (not requiring quicktime pro)).
Either you have the users install codecs on the system (eg. Divx/Xvid on Windows), or you stick with very old formats like MPEG-1.
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:39:09 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
What I would like to create is a format that plays at at least 640x480 size in Unix (mplayer or whatever), Windows (mediaplayer), and OS X (quicktime (not requiring quicktime pro)).
Either you have the users install codecs on the system (eg. Divx/Xvid on Windows), or you stick with very old formats like MPEG-1.
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. Hans-Werner
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:42:38 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
I tried MPEG-1, but it did not work in Windows.
Works for everyone else...
--- Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:39:09 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@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. DEF ____________________________________________________________________________________ Bored stiff? Loosen up... Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games. http://games.yahoo.com/games/front
--- Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:39:09 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@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.
On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 07:19:20 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
mencoder "mf://Data/*-PM.jpg" -mf type=jpg:fps=10 -o a.mpg -of mpeg -mpegopts +format=vcd -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video
If you don't have any audio, you need to use -of rawaudio. This has been covered many times on the mailing lists.
On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 07:19:20 -0800 Hans-Werner Braun <hwbmp@hpwren.ucsd.edu> wrote:
mencoder "mf://Data/*-PM.jpg" -mf type=jpg:fps=10 -o a.mpg -of mpeg -mpegopts +format=vcd -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video
If you don't have any audio, you need to use -of rawaudio. This has been covered many times on the mailing lists.
Doesn't work either. But, never mind, I will not waste your time any further. I finally tried ffmpeg and it works just fine from there building interoperable MPEG-1 animations. Thank you all for your help. You confirmed that MPEG-1 was the way to go, and that was good and helpful.
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