Hi, I'm totally new to mplayer and mencoder. I'm just trying to use it to convert a sequence of ppm images (or any other image format which can easily be gotten from ppm, e.g., jpg) to an mpeg movie with a specified frame rate. I've compiled mplayer and mencoder, but when I run mencoder it doesn't seem to recognize the .ppm format (or a .jpg format). This surprises me since "ldd mencoder" shows ldd `which mencoder` libvorbis.so.0 => /usr/lib/libvorbis.so.0 (0x40017000) libogg.so.0 => /usr/lib/libogg.so.0 (0x40037000) libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0x4003c000) libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x4005f000) libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0x4006d000) libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x4008b000) libtermcap.so.2 => /lib/libtermcap.so.2 (0x400f3000) libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x400f7000) libungif.so.4 => /usr/lib/libungif.so.4 (0x4010d000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x40115000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x40123000) libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x40127000) libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x42000000) libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x40149000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) I've tried various versions of command lines. All seem to fail. A typical failure: mencoder movie?.ppm -v -o movie.mpg -ofps 2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video MEncoder 1.0pre1-3.2.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Tualatin (Family: 6, Stepping: 1) Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes CPUflags: Type: 6 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0 Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE Reading /home/lml/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/lml/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory Using built-in default codecs.conf File not found: 'frameno.avi' Failed to open frameno.avi Reading config file /home/lml/.mplayer/mencoder: No such file or directory init_freetype Using MMX (with tiny bit MMX2) Optimized OnScreenDisplay [file] File size is 1470017 bytes STREAM: [file] movie0.ppm STREAM: Description: File STREAM: Author: Albeu STREAM: Comment: based on the code from ??? (probably Arpi) success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x166E41 Checking for YUV4MPEG2 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e0b88 ASF_check: not ASF guid! DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e0b88 Checking for NuppelVideo DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e0b88 Checking for REAL DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e0b88 Checking for SMJPEG DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e0b88 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 Searching demuxer type for filename movie0.ppm ext: .ppm Checking for MOV DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 Checking for VIVO header block 1 size: 54 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 Checking for PVA DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 Checking for MPEG-TS... THIS DOESN'T LOOK LIKE AN MPEG-TS FILE! TRIED UP TO POSITION 0, FOUND 0, packet_size= 254 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 MPEG Stream reached EOF ds_fill_buffer: EOF reached (stream: video) MPEG packet stats: p100: 0 p101: 0 p1B6: 0 p12x: 0 sli: 0 a: 0 b: 0 c: 0 idr: 0 sps: 0 pps: 0 PES: 0 MP3: 0 Not MPEG System Stream format... (maybe Transport Stream?) DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 ==> Found audio stream: 0 DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing sh_audio at 0x84e3de8 ==> Found video stream: 0 ds_fill_buffer: EOF reached (stream: video) DEMUXER: freeing demuxer at 0x84e13f0 DEMUXER: freeing sh_video at 0x84e7e20 ============ Sorry, this file format is not recognized/supported ============= === If this file is an AVI, ASF or MPEG stream, please contact the author! === Cannot open demuxer. Exiting... I've also tried: mencoder movie0.jpg movie1.jpg movie2.jpg -v -o movie.mpg -ofps 2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video mencoder -mf fps=2:type=jpeg -ofps 2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video -of mpeg -v -o movie.mpg *.jpg They fail too. What am I not understanding?? Please email me (Lawrence.Lifshitz@umassmed.edu) since I don't read this group regularly. Thanks in advance. Larry BTW, I couldn't find any easy way to search the mail archives for this topic (all I could see was to access each month's archive separately and then scan through threads). Is there a way to do this? -- Lawrence M. Lifshitz, Ph. D., Associate Professor Biomedical Imaging Group (http://invitro.umassmed.edu) University of Massachusetts Medical School (http://www.umassmed.edu) Phone: (508) 856-3392 email: Lawrence.Lifshitz@umassmed.edu Fax: (508) 856-1840 web: http://invitro.umassmed.edu/~lml