The internal saving as a mpg using ffmpeg does not create a mpg file that Windows media player will play. I have successfully created a series of png files, but now need to figure out how to turn that in to a mpg movie file.
ffmpeg is not a recognized command at my DOS prompt. I cannot find any documentation about ffmpeg.
How do I tell if I actually have ffmpeg? I have seen one example in the tutorial, but it is not for the output type I need. Is there documentation about the program somewhere?
-Joe
p.s., I have attached a text file from the Synfig command window, showing the unsuccessful attempt to create a mpg file. Attempt to create MPG.txt (5.15 KB)
According to the console message ffmepg is installed and recognized. The problem is that ffmpeg’s people changes the interface use of the application so frequently and our command line arguments are wrong. Ffmpeg versions of Windows and Linux can differ because in Linux we rely on ffmpeg system version (pacakages system) and in Windows we need to use installed windows ffmpeg version. Some times the Windows version is newer than a normal Linux version and vice-versa. It is a nightmare to keep those changes and the command line arguments for ffmpeg could fail (like in your case).
It won’t be easy to install the proper ffmpeg version in a windows machine and tell Synfig how to find and use it. At last it is not a two clicks thing.
So I strongly recommend to render animation to png sequence. As Rylleman explained to you in other thread, png sequence has many advantages, specially when you’re forcing Synfig to its limits. To simply watch your animation within Synfig Studio you can use the Preview Dialog. Take account that meanwhile Synfig Studio is rendering to a movie you shouldn’t change the animation or playback it. It would ruin the output render. So when you are going to render just do that, render.
It is possible to render a Synfig document into a png sequence or a movie using a command line interface in a separated space from Synfig Studio. If you’re interested in that please let me know. We could give you some steps to make that. Usually people tend to get away from command line interfaces, but once you break the barrel you love it.
With the command line interface, you can make a version of the Synfig document in Synfig Studio and launch a render task in a separated window and meanwhile continue working with that or other Synfig files.
Alternatively you can do this:
If you’re working with file called A.sifz in Synfig Studio, save it to file with other name (Av1.sifz) and keep both A.sifz and Av1.sifz opened. Launch render for Av1.sifz and continue working with A.sifz normally. It would overload your application though. With the command line interface the task of render would probably use more efficiently the multi core of your computer.
I have been successful in creating a series of png files when I render. But, I cannot get ffmpeg working. If it is installed, what do I do at the dos prompt? If I change to the directory where the png files are located, and type ffmpeg, shouldn’t something happen? Even if I get the stuff after the ffmpeg wrong, shouldn’t ffmpege somehow reply differently than it does below?
[code]C:\Temp>ffmpeg
‘ffmpeg’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\Temp>[/code]
Also, the only ffmpeg group I came across in my search on the internet seems to be in a campaign for trans-gendered stuff. Is that the group?
I just spent a little time looking over some of the options you listed. I decided that Avidemux looked like the most mature and easiest to use of the programs. However, now that I have installed it, I have been unsuccessful in guessing how to load a series of images to form a movie. There is a link on the wiki which says, “Create video from still image”, but that is about creating more of a slide show, and each image is loaded one-at-a-time, which is obviously not practical for hundreds of pictures.
Do you know if Avidemux can, in fact, accept a large number of still images to form into a movie, or do you just know it as a video converter? Is there a good search phrase I should be looking for on their Wiki?
Heres a tutorial for Virtualdub, https://www.respower.com/blog/?p=389.
AviDemux doesn’t seem to be updated since 2009 so I’d consider that project dead…
Also the term you need to use in your searches is image sequence.
Shouldn’t Windows Synfig come up with its own, proper ffmpeg (appropriate for Synfig version it comes with)? That would fix window’s part of the problem.