Re: [ferret_users] convert GIFs to movie

[Glenn Carver <Glenn.Carver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ryo,

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.  I use it all the time. Some compressors aren't always available on windows though.

Glenn

On 4 Oct 2010, at 10:37pm, William S. Kessler wrote:

> Hi Ryo -
> 
> 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. It doesn't change any colors. The output is an animated gif that plays on any system, or on a web page. (I haven't tried it using VLC on Windows). The output size is the size of all the gifs together plus a tiny amount.
> 
> I've attached an example so you can try it using VLC. This is simply 5 gifs that were easy to string together and make a small movie (124Kb).
> 
> By the way, I find this is a nice way to flick through a series of similar plots; i.e., not watching it as a movie but just using the arrow keys to look at them one at a time, go back and forth, etc.
> 
> Billy
> <test.gif>
> 
> On Oct 4, 2010, at 1:36 PM, Ryo Furue wrote:
> 
>> Hi Ferret users,
>> 
>> This is not a Ferret question, but I guess there are many Ferret
>> users who can help or who may be interested in this discussion.
>> 
>> Basically I need to generate a movie from a time series.  Normally,
>> I generate a set of GIF files with Ferret and use "ffmpeg" or
>> the "convert" command (from ImageMagick).
>> 
>> The problem I'm facing now is that such movies cannot be played
>> correctly by VLC (a movie player) on Windowns, which my colleague
>> has to use.  On VLC, the color is off (looks weird).
>> 
>> So, basically, I'd like to hear what methods/tools other people
>> are using.  I'd like to try them and test the results on VLC.
>> 
>> Or, if anybody knows how to fix VLC, it would be wonderful.
>> 
>> Other things I tried were
>> 
>> - Use a Windows version of ffmpeg. --> Same result (bad color).
>> - Use "Open Video Converter" --> Produces a perfect video,
>>  but cannot handle large input data.
>> - Use "Fx GIF Converter" --> Produces a video that plays
>>  correctly on VLC, but the image quality is very low and
>>  there are no parameters or switches to adjust.
>> 
>> Things I haven't tried are
>> 
>> - Explore parameters of ffmpeg.  There are simply too many
>> parameter combinations, so that a trial-and-error method
>> isn't practical.  If somebody could suggest a parameter
>> combination, I'd appreciate it very much.
>> 
>> - Explore mencoder.  Same reason as the above.  I'd appreciate
>> suggestions of command-line parameters to give to mencoder.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Ryo
>