Rendering a Video from Images

[Arrowstar]

Hi all,

I've got a MATLAB script working to create a series of plots. I'm looking to be able to stitch these plots, saved in JPG or PNG format, together into an AVI or some other video format. I've browsed the net for a bit now, but I haven't come up with anything that looks good or even works. Can anyone point me in the direction of (preferably free) software that can do what I'm looking for?

 

[martins]

You can write Matlab frames directly to avi (check im2frame and movie2avi commands).

Otherwise, you can use Virtual Dub to convert jpg frames to avi.

 

[TSPenguin]

For more flexibility, non VFW encoders or containers other than AVI (and in general) I recommend using Avisynth as a frameserver and then feeding it into the encoder of your choice.
Very simple, very powerful and very fast

Vdub will suffice for most people and simple jobs though.

 

[Arrowstar]

Yeah, I've been messing with Vdub. I can grab the image sequence and play it properly in the application, but it doesn't seem to create valid AVIs. In particular, it outputs an AVI file sized at 8KB that no viewer I have claims is valid. I think something is up, but I'm rather inexperienced in the video creation arena, so I'm not sure what's going on. Any tips?

 

[TSPenguin]

In the video menu, select Full processing mode. Choose the desired frame rate and color depth. Under compression you have to choose a valid VFW codec (or uncompressed).
Windows only comes with bad codecs that no one should use. If you have to, you can try the old WMV that is available.
Depending on your source material different codecs might be usefull. If you want to encode lossless try Huffyuv. If you want to compress, it might be a good idea to look at a MPEG4/ASP codec like http://www.xvid.org/.

Todays standard is MPEG4/AVC aka MPEG4 part 10 aka H.264. It is used by Flash and therefor on nearly every streaming site on the web (Youtube, Vimeo, etc.). BlueRay also holds H.264.
It is by far superior to MPEG4/ASP but can not fit into the AVI container and there are no VFW codecs. So it can not be used by VirtualDub.