Maybe many of the readers have the same problem I have: disk space. As
far as I understand the mpeg standard it should be possible to generate
mpeg output directly from pov, without having to store every one and
single frame of an animaton on disk before compressing.

Here is the idea:

- Tell povray the sequence scheme of I/P/B frames.

- Write single frames into files (e.g. ppm)

- Every time an I-frame is generated, compress the last I-to-I sequence,
append it to the mpeg file, generate a valid mpeg header and delete the
uncompressed images.


Of course, one could do this without modifying Povray:

- Generate a Povray INI file depending on the I/P/B scheme.

- Shell out from the Povray animation loop after every I-frame has
finished rendering and call a program that does the same as descibed
above.


That way you would only have to store a few uncompressed images (e.g. 10
if you use IBBPBBPBBI). I am not volunteering for writing such a program
or asking anyone to do so. I would just like to get some comments, if
you think this would work and/or be a good idea to do.

/PETER/

-- 
Peter Santo (PUMP development)
HP: http://www.exaweb.de
> Ever heard of .cshrc?
That's a city in Bosnia.  Right?

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