Sorry but I only read halfway through your message until it occurred to
me that your problem is diskspace because you woant to use uncompressed
AVI. I don't see why you would want that. VirtualDub can compile frames
to better usable formats (compressed) and as far as I know it can also
add sound from a WAV file. (I haven't tried that though, I wanted to add
sound from a midi file to an animation and that it can't do).
Perhaps I was missing the point, but what you're planning on doing
should be possible without having to use 6GB files.

Remco

Post a reply to this message

"Andrew Coppin" <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote in
news:3f6dff29@news.povray.org: 

 
> 
> Next, TMPGEnc seems to do strange things if you tell it to stop part
> way through. (The audio is 6 minutes, I have about 48 seconds of video
> so far. I'm only doing tests, but I *need* to check that the video
> matches the sound.) Sometimes the soundtrack finishes before the video
> - any idea why? Also, sometimes Media Player struggles to play back
> the video - sound and movement are intermittent. Any ideas? Neither of
> these seem to happen if I generate a full 6 minutes of video (which I
> can only do at 320x240 because of the above).
> 

Also use Audacity to trim the audio length to match the video length.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

-- 
Tom
_________________________________
The Internet Movie Project
http://www.imp.org/

Post a reply to this message

Andrew Coppin <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
> POV-Ray -> still frames (TARGA, 640x480, 24 bits/pixel, 25 frames/second)
> still frames -> VirtualDub -> AVI (uncompressed, no sound yet)
> AVI + WAV -> TMPGEnc -> MPEG-1, audio is layer-II at 192 kbits/second

  Why would you use such an old and inefficient format as MPEG-1?
  When you have the AVI, you can use VirtualDub to save it to another
AVI but using whatever MPEG-4 codec you may have (DivX, for example).
You will get a lot smaller file with better quality. Also, as for sound,
you can encode in mp3 format.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

> Sorry but I only read halfway through your message

LOL - that's quite ok. (Can't believe I typed 8KB of text... man!)

> until it occurred to
> me that your problem is diskspace because you woant to use uncompressed
> AVI. I don't see why you would want that. VirtualDub can compile frames
> to better usable formats (compressed) and as far as I know it can also
> add sound from a WAV file. (I haven't tried that though, I wanted to add
> sound from a midi file to an animation and that it can't do).
> Perhaps I was missing the point, but what you're planning on doing
> should be possible without having to use 6GB files.

Yes, I believe VirtualDub can add the sound...

Clearly I've been trying the wrong codecs... Every one I try results in
extremly poor quality video. (Haven't tried DivX - I would imagine I don't
have the ability to encode, only decode. Haven't checked tho.) MPEG-I is a
very common, widely supported format, and it doesn't seem to mangle the
video too much. (The sound appears to be identical - kinda impressive. I'm
pretty sure it IS being compressed...)

Post a reply to this message

> > POV-Ray -> still frames (TARGA, 640x480, 24 bits/pixel, 25
> > frames/second) still frames -> VirtualDub -> AVI (uncompressed, no
> > sound yet) AVI + WAV -> TMPGEnc -> MPEG-1, audio is layer-II at 192
> > kbits/second
> >
>
> - Use png instead and save a lot of disk space
>   with no image quality loss.

Yeah, PNG is goooooood. But last I checked, VirtualDub doesn't support it.

> - Get the png vfapi plugin from p.b.u

Erm... huh???

> - Skip the virtual dub avi step and use
>   tmpenc directly with the png files

Didn't know TMPGEnc can work on single frames... I thought it only encodes
AVIs?

Post a reply to this message

> > Next, TMPGEnc seems to do strange things if you tell it to stop part
> > way through. (The audio is 6 minutes, I have about 48 seconds of video
> > so far. I'm only doing tests, but I *need* to check that the video
> > matches the sound.) Sometimes the soundtrack finishes before the video
> > - any idea why? Also, sometimes Media Player struggles to play back
> > the video - sound and movement are intermittent. Any ideas? Neither of
> > these seem to happen if I generate a full 6 minutes of video (which I
> > can only do at 320x240 because of the above).
>
> Also use Audacity to trim the audio length to match the video length.

In the final version, both will be the same length, so it won't matter. I
might well use Audacity to trim it for the tests though...

Post a reply to this message

> Andrew Coppin <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
> > POV-Ray -> still frames (TARGA, 640x480, 24 bits/pixel, 25
frames/second)
> > still frames -> VirtualDub -> AVI (uncompressed, no sound yet)
> > AVI + WAV -> TMPGEnc -> MPEG-1, audio is layer-II at 192 kbits/second
>
>   Why would you use such an old and inefficient format as MPEG-1?

What else is there?

>   When you have the AVI, you can use VirtualDub to save it to another
> AVI but using whatever MPEG-4 codec you may have (DivX, for example).
> You will get a lot smaller file with better quality.

Not last time I tried it... Well, ok, *way* smaller file... but *terrible*
image quality.

>Also, as for sound,
> you can encode in mp3 format.

Yeah, I know that, but I'm wondering if that might affect the timing (and
hence mess up the synchronisation with the video). Anyway, once it is joined
to the video, it's up to what the combined format can handle... (The sound
is only 65MB anyway; not exactly huge, is it?)

Post a reply to this message

Andrew Coppin <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
> Not last time I tried it... Well, ok, *way* smaller file... but *terrible*
> image quality.

  You don't have to compress with the default bitrate. You can bump up
the bitrate until it looks good. You will still get a lot smaller file.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

> > Not last time I tried it... Well, ok, *way* smaller file... but
*terrible*
> > image quality.
>
>   You don't have to compress with the default bitrate. You can bump up
> the bitrate until it looks good. You will still get a lot smaller file.

Didn't see anywhere to adjust that... I was a "quality" setting, with I set
to 100% (despite being warned that 90% would probably be as good). Still
looked aweful! I'll have another look at it...

Post a reply to this message

Andrew Coppin <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
> Didn't see anywhere to adjust that... I was a "quality" setting, with I set
> to 100% (despite being warned that 90% would probably be as good). Still
> looked aweful! I'll have another look at it...

  If you are using for example the DivX5 codec, then in virtualdub
you can select Video -> Compression... -> DivX whatever -> Configure
  It will pop up the DivX configuration dialog which, among other things,
has an "Encoding bitrate" slider. Set it to something like 3000 kbps or
more and that should be plenty enough.
  Other codecs (such as Xvid) have similar configuration dialogs.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

Post a reply to this message