Hi,

I have an animation which is in MPEG format. I would like to include this
MPEG in my POVRay Animation as a laptop screen.

Currently my laptop screen is a image map which is feed "lap%%%%%.GIF" with
the %%%%% being the frame number.

This is ok but at the moment all of the laptop image maps are the same (a
nice blue rectangle) because I can not figure out how to disect my MPEG
movie back into individual bitmaps.

I didn't make this MPEG file so I can't simply rerender it and digitally
composite it with the live video action. The MPEG was from a local Animation
House which made a TV Ad.

Does anyone know of a MPEG decoder which would enable me to convert the
movie back into individual image files for each frame?

Any help would be great,

Thanks,
Christopher Fairbairn.

Post a reply to this message

Christopher Fairbairn wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have an animation which is in MPEG format. I would like to include this
> MPEG in my POVRay Animation as a laptop screen.
> 
> Currently my laptop screen is a image map which is feed "lap%%%%%.GIF" with
> the %%%%% being the frame number.
> 
> This is ok but at the moment all of the laptop image maps are the same (a
> nice blue rectangle) because I can not figure out how to disect my MPEG
> movie back into individual bitmaps.
> 
> I didn't make this MPEG file so I can't simply rerender it and digitally
> composite it with the live video action. The MPEG was from a local Animation
> House which made a TV Ad.
> 
> Does anyone know of a MPEG decoder which would enable me to convert the
> movie back into individual image files for each frame?
> 
> Any help would be great,
> 
> Thanks,
> Christopher Fairbairn.

I don't have a specific file name in mind but have seen software
to do this. You might try a search at http://filepile.com 

Another approach would be to run the mpeg in question in single frame
playback mode and use a program like Paint Shop Pro to do screen
captures of the frames you are interested in. This will allow you to
save in most any image file format you wish.

-- 
Ken Tyler

tyl### [at] pacbellnet

Post a reply to this message

Hi,

Ken wrote in message <36A95BAE.C8F3B7D8@pacbell.net>...
>I don't have a specific file name in mind but have seen software
>to do this. You might try a search at http://filepile.com
>
>Another approach would be to run the mpeg in question in single frame
>playback mode and use a program like Paint Shop Pro to do screen
>captures of the frames you are interested in. This will allow you to
>save in most any image file format you wish.


A bit of a pain though considering there are about 2000 frames :-) Also I
did try the method with Paint Shop Pro 4 but couldn't get it to work with
the default Win98 mpeg player that Microsoft wrote. It kept getting a black
rectangle instead of the actual frame in the screen capture.

Thanks,
Christopher Fairbairn.

Post a reply to this message

Sounds like a fun project.  Could you share the code for doing this, if one had
in fact a bunch of separate IMAGE%%%.GIF's.?

Thanks a bunch.

Christopher Fairbairn wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Ken wrote in message <36A95BAE.C8F3B7D8@pacbell.net>...
> >I don't have a specific file name in mind but have seen software
> >to do this. You might try a search at http://filepile.com
> >
> >Another approach would be to run the mpeg in question in single frame
> >playback mode and use a program like Paint Shop Pro to do screen
> >captures of the frames you are interested in. This will allow you to
> >save in most any image file format you wish.
>
> A bit of a pain though considering there are about 2000 frames :-) Also I
> did try the method with Paint Shop Pro 4 but couldn't get it to work with
> the default Win98 mpeg player that Microsoft wrote. It kept getting a black
> rectangle instead of the actual frame in the screen capture.
>
> Thanks,
> Christopher Fairbairn.

Post a reply to this message

In article <36a98684.0@news.povray.org> , "Christopher Fairbairn" <lgc### [at] esconz>
wrote:

>A bit of a pain though considering there are about 2000 frames :-) Also I
>did try the method with Paint Shop Pro 4 but couldn't get it to work with
>the default Win98 mpeg player that Microsoft wrote. It kept getting a black
>rectangle instead of the actual frame in the screen capture.

You can try the QuickTime Movie player, it should allow screen shoots.


    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Christopher Fairbairn wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Ken wrote in message <36A95BAE.C8F3B7D8@pacbell.net>...
> >I don't have a specific file name in mind but have seen software
> >to do this. You might try a search at http://filepile.com
> >
> >Another approach would be to run the mpeg in question in single frame
> >playback mode and use a program like Paint Shop Pro to do screen
> >captures of the frames you are interested in. This will allow you to
> >save in most any image file format you wish.
> 
> A bit of a pain though considering there are about 2000 frames :-) Also I
> did try the method with Paint Shop Pro 4 but couldn't get it to work with
> the default Win98 mpeg player that Microsoft wrote. It kept getting a black
> rectangle instead of the actual frame in the screen capture.
> 
> Thanks,
> Christopher Fairbairn.

My next suggestion then is to take a look at http://mpeg.org
They might be able to direct you in the right direction.

Ken Tyler

Post a reply to this message

Christopher Fairbairn wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Ken wrote in message <36A95BAE.C8F3B7D8@pacbell.net>...
> >I don't have a specific file name in mind but have seen software
> >to do this. You might try a search at http://filepile.com
> >
> >Another approach would be to run the mpeg in question in single frame
> >playback mode and use a program like Paint Shop Pro to do screen
> >captures of the frames you are interested in. This will allow you to
> >save in most any image file format you wish.
> 
> A bit of a pain though considering there are about 2000 frames :-) Also I
> did try the method with Paint Shop Pro 4 but couldn't get it to work with
> the default Win98 mpeg player that Microsoft wrote. It kept getting a black
> rectangle instead of the actual frame in the screen capture.
> 
> Thanks,
> Christopher Fairbairn.

Hi Chris,

I don't know, whether you have any programming skills. If it's the case,
there are freeware or PD mpeg-players available in source. It shouldn't
be the big problem to write a file instead of copying a bitmap to
screen. Targa is easy to create. If this is a way you would try to go
and need more hints how to do so, you can contact me start of next week
at my company. I'm sitting behind a firewall and will not be able to
post here during the week, so you will have to contact me directly.

My company email address is: Hei### [at] bbnhpcom

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Hi,

Greg M. Johnson <"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote in message
<36a9ebaa.0@news.povray.org>...
>Sounds like a fun project.  Could you share the code for doing this, if one
had
>in fact a bunch of separate IMAGE%%%.GIF's.?

It's simple. The IMAGE and .GIF parts stay static while the %%% part you
want to change so you do something like this.

<code to get clock variable into a usable state ie an integer into IMGNUM>

and then in your image_map part where you normally place the image name in
quotes place this:

concat("IMAGE",IMGNUM,".GIF")

Post a reply to this message

The best way I would figue is convert it to AVI with and MPG to AVI converter
and then use Gif Construction set to convert the AVI to individual GIFs.

Gif contruction set can be found at http://www.download.com  just do a search
for GIF.
As for the MPG to AVI I'm not too sure where you can get that :(
I'm sure there is one available tho.



Christopher Fairbairn wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have an animation which is in MPEG format. I would like to include this
> MPEG in my POVRay Animation as a laptop screen.
>
> Currently my laptop screen is a image map which is feed "lap%%%%%.GIF" with
> the %%%%% being the frame number.
>
> This is ok but at the moment all of the laptop image maps are the same (a
> nice blue rectangle) because I can not figure out how to disect my MPEG
> movie back into individual bitmaps.
>
> I didn't make this MPEG file so I can't simply rerender it and digitally
> composite it with the live video action. The MPEG was from a local Animation
> House which made a TV Ad.
>
> Does anyone know of a MPEG decoder which would enable me to convert the
> movie back into individual image files for each frame?
>
> Any help would be great,
>
> Thanks,
> Christopher Fairbairn.

Post a reply to this message

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I've been using a dos based image/movie viewer called Display for ages, 
it supports a whole bunch of image/movie formats. I have used it on a 
number of occasions to rip frames from an mpeg.

I don't have a url for you (I don't even know if it is in development 
anymore).

The best I can do is tell you to do a search for disp189a.zip on 
http://ftpsearch.lycos.com/ or some similar search engine, you may also 
find it on a simtelnet mirror.

Good luck ;-)


In article <36a94a86.0@news.povray.org>, Christopher Fairbairn 
<lgc### [at] esconz> wrote...
> Hi,
> 
> I have an animation which is in MPEG format. I would like to include this
> MPEG in my POVRay Animation as a laptop screen.

[snip snip]

Post a reply to this message