[PD] gem & cinepak video on linux

MvH cola at looze.net
Sat Mar 19 03:05:44 CET 2005


Hello!

here's my 2 cents on video codecs on linux:

I like MJPEG since it's still quite fast in full pal ( ntsc) compared to 
DV. If I want to be cheap, I recode the dv to quarterpal ( 352x288) 
mjpeg, wich in my opinion doesn't look much worse then dv already does.
Keep multiples of 16 and you can go steps in-between easily ( eg 512x480 
something works too ). Using the mjpegtools ( mjpeg.sf.net ) you can do 
editlist preprocessing of material, and I love mplayer's filters for 
brightness contrast and so on. Play the output to a yuvpipe ( fifo) and 
reencode them using the mjpegtools I get the most quality.
DV codec on linux is useless for anything that has to be even near-realtime.

Still mjpeg is demanding. Maybe there's a way to use mpeg4 with only 
I-frames. compression is not really visible but decompressing really 
fast. I use it in veejay or a compressed-yuv inside an avi container but 
I don't know if it's available in gem ( its a veejay only codec for 
realtime stuff ). PhotoJPEG seems to work too but more for the macos 
platform (?). MPEG4 with i-frames only( so you can do trickplay too) and 
little compression is really not that bad ( compared to the original dv 
uglyness or mpeg2 ). if it can play in gem, try options of 
mencoder/mplayer, I think you can fix it to make I-frames every frame.

oh, motion jpeg doesn't differ in either quicktime or avi. it's just a 
container. the ffmpeg codec is a bit faster then the mjpeg.sf.net one.

codec hell!

cheers!
mvh

patrick wrote:
> hi tim,
> 
> sorry can't help you with the memory leak... but
> 
> i'm looking too for the best video codec for linux/gem. since libdv is
> really slow on linux (expensive on the cpu), i have to encode my footage,
> but i want to keep a good resolution (640x480). so, i did some test with
> lots of formats and codecs. the best codec for quality and not too expensive
> on cpu is avi :: rawvideo (yuv i think). but the colors of the video in gem
> are bad (rainbow)...
> 
> so, i tried mpeg2. it's loading fine, but there's a problem: gem can't loop
> it, i have to reload the video. maybe it's the way i encoded it (using
> ffmpeg). some people say that motionjpeg with quicktime is the best, but not
> for a 640x480 video...
> 
> still doing some research, i'll let you know and let me know!
> pat
> 
> 
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