| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38020] |
Tue, 17 February 2004 12:24  |
Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998
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Senior Member |
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"Haje Korth" wrote...
> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as
a
> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
Hi Haje,
You may be able to push the bitrate of the IDL MPEG encoder to get
acceptable results but the files will be pretty big. I posted regarding
this a few weeks back but the OP never responed with results. I haven't
taken the time to investigate myself.
IDL2AVI is the state-of-the-art. But don't despair, you can set the
encoding parameters once per IDL session and then run without the dialog.
Only one initial interaction then it can run unattended.
Other options would be to find a command line encoder that processes
individual frames. The only one I know of is ppm2fli which takes .ppm
images are creates an 8-bit flick file. Probably not what you are looking
for but something else might exist.
> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
> NOW!
This isn't so easy. What CODEC should they settle on? There isn't a
single, quality CODEC that is supported on every platform IDL runs on. Even
if RSI pays to license an MPEG-4 encoder only a certain % of their customers
would be able to view the files it created.
-Rick
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38104 is a reply to message #38020] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 07:54  |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Rick,
thanks for your reply. I see nothing has changed in a year. So I went back
to recompile AVI2IDL for IDL v6.0. I will submit this to Ronn for posting on
his web site. You are right, interactions with the options screen is only
necessary once; this is great news. The coded questions is really a tough
one. I want a codec that gives great animation quality, small file size, and
cross-system compatibility. Well, as you might guess, there is no such
thing! I can't get DiVX to show in WMP or Quicktime, MPEG4 does not run in
Quicktime but in WMP with a pink stripe on the right side, etc. I actually
got good quality and reasonable file size with the Indeo Video 5.10 coded.
These files show in Quicktime and WMP with no pink stripe. This makes me
wonder, why isn't there an animation standard just like PDF for text
documents?
Haje
--
"Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:c0tta4$les$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> "Haje Korth" wrote...
>
>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes
as
> a
>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of
animations
>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and
AVI2IDL
>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>
> Hi Haje,
>
> You may be able to push the bitrate of the IDL MPEG encoder to get
> acceptable results but the files will be pretty big. I posted regarding
> this a few weeks back but the OP never responed with results. I haven't
> taken the time to investigate myself.
>
> IDL2AVI is the state-of-the-art. But don't despair, you can set the
> encoding parameters once per IDL session and then run without the dialog.
> Only one initial interaction then it can run unattended.
>
> Other options would be to find a command line encoder that processes
> individual frames. The only one I know of is ppm2fli which takes .ppm
> images are creates an 8-bit flick file. Probably not what you are looking
> for but something else might exist.
>
>
>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers
go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a
solution
>> NOW!
>
> This isn't so easy. What CODEC should they settle on? There isn't a
> single, quality CODEC that is supported on every platform IDL runs on.
Even
> if RSI pays to license an MPEG-4 encoder only a certain % of their
customers
> would be able to view the files it created.
>
> -Rick
>
>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38350 is a reply to message #38020] |
Wed, 03 March 2004 08:14 |
joseph.b.gurman
Messages: 15
Registered: October 1995
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Junior Member |
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>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
>> NOW!
>
> This isn't so easy. What CODEC should they settle on? There isn't a
> single, quality CODEC that is supported on every platform IDL runs on. Even
> if RSI pays to license an MPEG-4 encoder only a certain % of their customers
> would be able to view the files it created.
This is a red herring, isn't it? Many people use IDL to create content
not just for their own use, but for Webservers. Any video format support
could be a licensable add-on (as e.g. the wavelet stuff is). My vote is
for QuickTime, which would automatically make the MPEG-4 codec available.
The question for RSI is if there are enough takers for them to make
money on any development effort for MNG, AVI, QT, or better MPEG.
--
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
- Douglas Adams, 1952 - 2001
Joseph B. Gurman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics
Branch, Greenbelt MD 20771 USA
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