Re: [ferret_users] convert GIFs to movie

[Ryo Furue <furue@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you all who responded.

Here I'll try to summarize the methods you suggested:

=======================
1. Flash via "make_flash":
     Brockmann Patrick <Patrick.Brockmann@xxxxxx>

> I have developped a tool to produce flash animation from png files.
> A example about an IPCC comparison on 2 scenarios is available from
> http://dods.ipsl.jussieu.fr/brocksce/ipcc_animations/IPCC_tas_CTRLvsA2.swf
> Images have been produced with ferret of course.
>
> The script is available from
> http://dods.ipsl.jussieu.fr/brocksce/flash/make_flash
> Pass a google translation on it.

2. GIF animation: William S. Kessler <william.s.kessler@xxxxxxxx>

> I use whirlgif (http://linux.maruhn.com/sec/whirlgif.html for linux,
> http://whirlgif.darwinports.com/ for MacOSX). It's a simple and fast
> routine that concatenates gifs. [. . .]

3. QuickTime movie via GraphicConverter:
    Glenn Carver <Glenn.Carver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> If you are using Macs then I recommend using GraphicConverter. It
> will take a sequence of gifs/pngs (and any other image format) and
> produce a quicktime movie. It allows a choice of compression
> algorithm to manage filesize, framerate and so on. [. . .]

4. QuickTime Pro: Toru Miyama <tmiyama@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

5. AVI (msmpeg4v2) or Flash via mencoder:
     Willi Rath <wrath@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 

> I use mencoder with the msmpeg4v2 codec. [. . .]
>
> I also used mencoder to convert the resulting AVI to FLV which then
> can be embedded in any website together with a free FLV player (like
> this one: http://www.platipus.nl/flvplayer/ ... not sure about the
> license ...). [. . .]
> played on virtually every computer with a recent browser + flash
> player. Think I started here
> http://www.jeremychapman.info/cms/mencoder-avi-to-flv-conversion to
> learn how to do that.
>
> #!/bin/bash
> name=$1
> for file in `ls $name*.gif`
> do
>   filebase=`basename $file .gif`
>   echo $filebase
>   convert  $file $filebase.png
> done
> mencoder "mf://*.png" -ovc lavc \
>  -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vpass=1:vbitrate=4000000 \
>  -nosound -o /dev/null -mf fps=8
> mencoder "mf://*.png" -ovc lavc \
>  -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vpass=2:vbitrate=4000000 \
>  -nosound -o $name.avi -mf fps=8
================

I basically tried to test these methods one by one, starting from
the ones involving only tools immediately available to me,
and I found an AVI movie produced by mencoder according to
method 5 correctly plays on VLC.

Normally I go with GIF animations (method 2), but there aren't
many media players that play GIF animations, unfortunately.
VLC, in particular, doesn't.

I have access to Macs only at home so I haven't been able
to test method 3.  Methods 1 and 4 are certainly attractive
when you have the right tools and the results must be very
good.  (png2swf and swfc required for method 1 are still
experimental and not immediately available for the Linux
distribution I use.)

Thank you again and I hope this summary is helpful in the
future.

Regards,
Ryo