New freeware to create mpeg stills?

[kitty]

<quote>
A menu can be EITHER a STILL or a VIDEO CLIP.

A still is exactly what it sounds like -- a high or normal resolution frame. You can set how long for it to display, etc.

A video clip is exactly what it sounds like too -- an animated clip (i.e., standard VCD spec mpeg) that acts as the background for the menu (e.g., like an animated DVD menu).

IMHO, the best way of creating an mpeg still, is to use Nero or CD Motion to create a small disc image of a VCD with the pictures you want as backgrounds to your menus. Then use VCDXRIP to extract the mpeg stills for the NRG image.

You can use I-Author to do it too.

There is now (finally!) a small freeware utility that will do it for you called mplex.exe -- I don't know if it is out to public yet but it was in the VCDImager "testing" directory.

Regards.
_________________
Michael Tam
</quote>

Anyone know where to get this new utility - mplex.exe? Does it work?

Da Kitty

[timmy_boi]

nah not yet kitty,

I heard Hvr is still workin on that or was that someone else but it has to do with VCDimager so all we can do is wait.

[El_Mero_Zooter]

Here ya go!
found one url, dont know the version of it, but it lookz like a command-line Muxer (multiplexer or however its spelled)

1.)
http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/eos/info/csc/mmworks/Reports/mpeg%204%20and%20tools/soft/win/util/mplex11/



when in doubt, google...


ZtR


some other linkz

http://vcdimager.hvrlab.org/pub/vcdimager/contribs/still_images/
somewhere under the "GPL Movie Studio folder" , it think

http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/video.html

[hvr]

...in order to stop rumors from getting too fancy here's some official information

the mplex.exe tool in the .testing dir is a command line multiplexer;
it's taken from a development snapshot of http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/, a project I'm cooperating with....

recently still picture mpeg generation support has started to emerge, we (actually it's mainly andrew stevens who does the coding work, I'm just the one motivating him and sending him bugfixes are trying to get it finished asap... while work is in progress, I've started to ensure that the tools can be build for the all-beloved win32 platform... the mplex.exe is the first outcome of this effort... but it's not ready for production use yet... (mainly untested)

the more important tool will be mpeg2enc.exe, a mpeg-1/2 encoder and a yet-to-be-written png2yuv.exe for converting PNG pictures to the input format required for the mpeg encoder...
ps: it's not just freeware, it's even better, it's free software

[kitty]

hvr - you rock.

Please keep us informed when you feel it's at the stage to test.

Da Kitty

[RFontenot]

If you use the Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit you'll find it can already automatically convert .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga and other picture formats to MPEG stills. In addition, it has an easy to use GUI for authoring complex, professional quality VCD's. Best of all, it's FREE.

See the guide for more info:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/VCD2TK_Index.htm

RF


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RFontenot on 2001-08-22 16:04:19 ]</font>

[Vinpire]

i recently created a menu from a series of jpegs. i wanted different delay times etc... after much thinking i figured out i could use jasc's animation shop(comes with paintshop pro). it works like a charm. i made a new animation, added the jpegs, set the delay times and then it as an avi file which i then encoded into vcd format using tmpeg. it really was soooooo easy. the same method applies to turn 1 image into an mpeg still, create a new animation and add the jpeg as the only frame, save as an avi, encode and you're done.

hope this means something to you,

get a demo from http://www.jasc.com

Vince.

[hvr]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>On 2001-08-22 16:03:54, RFontenot wrote:
If you use the Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit you'll find it can already automatically convert .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga and other picture formats to MPEG stills. In addition, it has an easy to use GUI for authoring complex, professional quality VCD's. Best of all, it's FREE.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

btw ...do you get paid for advertising? or is this spam... for FREE?

ps: vcd2tk may be downloadable free of charge, perhaps even legally; but it's surely not FREE in the sense that you can do with it whatever you want, e.g. sell it... and btw, this tool runs only on win32, although that may represent the majority when it comes to computer operating systems, it's not the only one... (thank god!)

[RFontenot]

hvr,

If I got paid for this, you'd see a lot more messages touting the wonders of VCD2TK! Besides, there are already plenty of people shilling for VCDImager. You must be pay them pretty well!

As for legality, what makes you think there aren't legal issues with VCDImager? Look what happened to AC3DEC.

Finally, VCD2TK runs on Win16, not Win32. This means it runs on:

Win3.x
Win95
Win98
WinME
WinNT 3.x
WinNT 4.x
Win2K
WinXP
MacOS (w/Virtual PC or RealPC)
Linux (w/VMware)
Solaris (w/RealPC)

Let's see, that just about covers 99.999% of the computers on people's desktops worldwide. (The AIX, HP-UX, and Irix guys will just have to do without.)

The bottom line is that for authoring VCD's, the VCD Toolkit is the best choice. For SVCD, however, it's VCDImager all the way.

Anyway, as they say, competition improves the breed.

RF

[patrickm]

while i do like the Toolkit and use it a lot for VCD (even though it's a pain to get compliance out of some files...) it's drawback is that it won't make MPEG-2 stills or SVCDs, so there is a legitimate reason for this new program too.

[hvr]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>If I got paid for this, you'd see a lot more messages touting the wonders of VCD2TK! Besides, there are already plenty of people shilling for VCDImager. You must be pay them pretty well! </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

...guess so

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>As for legality, what makes you think there aren't legal issues with VCDImager? Look what happened to AC3DEC.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

...because I'm in contact with philips, and have checked the legal situation with philips licensing...

btw, that ac3dec thing is a very bad thing indeed... how are we supposed to write a complete open source software DVD player.....?

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Finally, VCD2TK runs on Win16, not Win32. This means it runs on:

Win3.x Win95 Win98 WinME WinNT 3.x WinNT 4.x Win2K WinXP
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
that's fair... (although win16 apps look sometimes a bit out of place in newer windows incarnations)

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>MacOS (w/Virtual PC or RealPC)
Linux (w/VMware)
Solaris (w/RealPC)</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

...this is not... it's correct that you can run it in emulated environments, but I'm sure everyone hates doing so, and prefers native applications over emulated ones... (and you have to stay in that)

ps: iirc there was a native version for MacOS....

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Let's see, that just about covers 99.999% of the computers on people's desktops worldwide. (The AIX, HP-UX, and Irix guys will just have to do without.)
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

...you forgot about the amigaOS people...

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
The bottom line is that for authoring VCD's, the VCD Toolkit is the best choice. For SVCD, however, it's VCDImager all the way.

Anyway, as they say, competition improves the breed.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I wouldn't say it's really the best choice... on the other hand I don't want everybody to use vcdimager and forget about vcd2tk; it's always a good thing to have a choice.

btw, the competition thing is right... but vcd2tk won't improve anymore, not because it's already perfect, but because it has been neglected for over a half decade...

[hvr]

there are samples of SVCD stills available... please help test them if you can in order to get the mjpegtools' still creation feature available sooner...

see more information at
http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/help-vcdimager/2001-August/000242.html

or get directly to the streams in http://vcdimager.hvrlab.org/pub/vcdimager/examples/mpeg/stills/testing/