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Hi

I have loads of sequenced rendered JPG images created in Mandlebulb and I want to convert them directly in to MP4 video format. VirtualDub will create an AVI from the files
but I want to create an MP4 directly from the files. Any ideas what software will let me do this?

Cheers!

PT

avi2mp4
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=108172 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=108172)

Thanks but i want to avoid AVI - Is there anything that will take the jpgs and compile them directly in to an mp4?

Nothing free that I know of - but if you want to spend a fortune, and have one of the best video editors out there, things like Sony Vegas, Adobe After Effects, and other very high end software can do it.

But if you want a free route, your best bet is VirtualDub to make an uncompressed avi, then convert and compress with any of the vast number of free video converters out there.

Good Luck with it   O0

thanks guys :)

AVI is a container not a format.
You can create an AVI that uses a compatible codec to mp4 then use VLC to swap the container to mp4.
mp4 uses either H264 or H.263 encoding, X264 codec for Windows will do the H264 encoding, Xvid or DIVX can do the H.263
When converting to mp4 make sure the VLC option to 'keep original video track' is ticked.
This means the video is not re-encoded, no generation loss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_2

Cheers guys :)

to the basic ....,i suppose that you already know that png would offer better quality then jpg but just in case...

in windowqs you may also use Super (a bit bloated but does well its work) to convert any  series of (jpg, png..) frames in Video format (with even too many options to chose)

Although converting to MP4 using VLC works fine, the file size is about the same. Whats the best way
to compress the MP4 to get (obviously) the best quality versus for the smallest size? Someone suggested
an app called Handbrake. Any thoughts?

As mentioned - if you want high quality, Never use jpg as a start!

Always use a lossless image format like png, or for those editors which do not support png, then use bmp.  But Absolutely Never start with jpg!

I never heard of handbrake, but try it if it's affordable!

Then just try various codecs until you find one that suits your taste.  I like H264, but many swear by XVid.

It's all a matter of taste and available codecs / software after a point.

One general tip is to render at a higher than needed resolution and reduce that to size for final output. 

What resolution are you using?

That matters too.  Low resolution will always look awful if viewed full screen, but I assume you knew that.

My advice is to experiment by rendering the same sequence with every tool you have, and see what works best   :educated:

VLC is a cool viewer but not the best to convert (even if may somehow do some conversion)

again in Windows OS, "Super" http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html is excellent if you know what you are doing

i wrote "if you know what you are doing" because offers you all possible options included some that could not be applied to
all formats and codecs (i.e it will let you try to convert in format or using codec that require a precise image ratio even if your work has a different image ratio...but obviously the result would bring no joy at all )

But as already said the 2 most basic points are

1 render as large as you can ...the very minimum is fullscreen size,(but double is much better )
2 Never save frames as jpg (no ... not even at "100% quality" ) i believe  png is the looseness format that  require less disk space.

Sadly, Mandelbulb does not allow saving to PNG or BMP, only JPG... :'(

Basically, use Virtual Dub to save the JPGs as a AVI video stream using h264, then use AVIdemux to change the container format to MP4. You can also use AVIdemux to splice AVIs or MP4s together (the codecs, resolutions, frame rate must match) and save them without degrading the quality. Why do you have a specific requirement that they need to be MP4? AVI is just as good IMO.

The biggest problem with AVI is from way-back-when people used obscure or obsolete codecs, like that gosh-awful Cinepak and MS-Video1 and Real-Crap-Player, etc, then the downloader finds out they don't work, and either has to delete the file or search for a codec pack that works. It really is less of a problem now-a-days than it used to be, since nearly everyone uses Mpeg-4, Xvid, or h264 now. h264 is the best mainstream codec to use.

???

Do you mean Mandelbulber ? if so seems strange but i am not sure about

IF instead you mean Mandlelburb3D i am sure that can save as png or BMP..

Oh well thinking better i didn't try yet to save M3D animation, ma since M3D may well save single png, would be strange if could not save also a series of png.

too lazy now to check in the M3D README (README.txt=that file that no average Windows user would never read even if contains everything needed to  know how to use the program, and that is included in the program zip ) but for sure there is explained also how to save animation for best quality

Mandelbulber, sorry. The names are easy to get confused. :tongue1:

You can use AviSynth (http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page). It is a frameserver, which means it will use a script to perform (optional) modifications on files mentioned in the script and serves up frames to, for instance, an encoder without producing an intermediate avi file.

Suppose you have a sequence stored in "C:\images" named "sequence_1.png" to "sequence_2000.png" which you like be be a 25 fps clip

You write a simple script in notepad (for example). Let's call it "test.avs" ("avs" is avisynth's extension):

Now you can load this script in, for instance, MeGUI (http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui/) to have it encoded to mp4. MeGUI also lets you specify which encoder to use, set it up, add a music clip to be muxed into the resulting mp4 etc...

Quite flexible

 You can render PNG 16bit files with Mandelbulber. Both alpha channel and non alpha versions, as you wish.

 Of course it's better to use that format instead of JPG. As they told you before, PNG is a lossless codec and the best way to preserve as much detail as you have. But that's not the only advantage because mandelbulber outputs 16bit per channel (http://www.theartofretouching.com/blog/photoshop-cs5-5-tutorial-difference-between-8bit-16bit-color-space (http://www.theartofretouching.com/blog/photoshop-cs5-5-tutorial-difference-between-8bit-16bit-color-space) ) PNG files and you've the option to get alpha channel (transparency). JPG is a lossy codec, only 8bit depth and without alpha channel.

 The PNG(JPG) -> mp4(whatever) conversion could be easily made with ffmpeg: http://ffmpeg.org/faq.html#How-do-I-encode-single-pictures-into-movies_003f (http://ffmpeg.org/faq.html#How-do-I-encode-single-pictures-into-movies_003f)

 It's easy to extrapolate the parameters to use on this particular case. For example, to encode a PNG sequence into a MKV using the same PNG codec (lossless, playable with VLC)

  Source: http://superuser.com/a/318412 (http://superuser.com/a/318412)

Regards,
 

ffmpeg is free and works great for this

if you need help with the exact command line, shoot me a message

This is the best option IMO. ffmpeg is fast, free and it can convert any number of images into any video format you want with whatever resolution, frame-rate, and bitrate you want. It will handle both PNG and JPEG no problem, and if you have images ffmpeg can't handle, you can use ImageMagick to convert them to something ffmpeg can handle. If you are using Ubuntu, ffmpeg can be installed with and ImageMagic is already installed by default. If you Google these programs and visit their websites, they have very good tutorials and documentation. If you've never used a command-line interface, it's a good opportunity to learn.