How to create a MPEG movie

[Sivakatirswami]

on 07-17-2002 04:20 PM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com at
use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:

> How to create a MPEG movie,,

A bit off the thread here but may be important so that Peter doesn't end up
in the same pickle I am in now...

I have a few MPG's that were created by another team. We don't even have a
good record of what codex they used when they exported the MPG from the
original full resolution data that came out of the camera. They will all
play off the multi-media standalone we created on any MAC, even an iMac with
not much RAM (128K) but unfortunately the larger ones (640 X 480 and 800 X
600)  will not play on a Windows machine here (a Dell in our accounting
office) I installed the latest version of QuickTime on that machine and they
still will not play. Smaller ones do play (320 X 240).  I could have grouped
the non-windoz playable movie trigger buttons and checked the platform under
script to hide that group if it was playing on a windoz machine, so the fact
that some movies won't play  would simply not be seen by a windoz user...
But ran out of time before we went into production for this run which was
needed asap...Also, those movies had the richest data content so I resorted,
(in hopes that maybe some windoz machine might be able to play them)... to
an ugly disclaimer on the interface "Some movies may only play on a Mac. If
you click to play a movie and your screen goes blank, wait two seconds and
click again to come back here." Pretty gross...

Now, we want to diagnose the problem...to fix it for the next upgrade of the
presentation. Is there a way to query an MPG to determine the CODEC under
which it was exported? This would help. One could presume if the codec turns
out to be the exactly same as the small ones, then it has more to do with
the machine's processing power (i.e maybe our windoz machine doesn't cut it
for larger movies...) But if the codec is different, then we need to know
that before we re-run the MPGs from the original data. The movie team
doesn't want to touch it again until I can give them a definitive answer to
what codec will work (for sure) on both platforms regardless of the size of
the movie. If post compression diagnosis of an MPG is not possible, then at
least an answer to the last question should suffice.

Himalayan Academy Publications

Sivakatirswami
Production Manager
katir at hindu.org 
www.HinduismToday.com, www.HimalayanAcademy.com,
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