Attached Link: http://waldosworld.org/video/wentz02.avi

OK, I'm at my wits' end here. I've tried several conversion utilities to make my original .avi animation for a client into an MPEG, because that's the format they need, and the conversions either are squashed or the quality simply is terrible. There's got to be a way to take my source files (56 in all) and turn them into a high-quality MPEG animation. Isn't there??? Can someone either point me to a program or utility that will batch my bitmap files (or whatever image format you may name) and make an MPEG animation out of them? I've spun my wheels all morning, and I'm feeling dumb. The above link is to the original demo animation (the final will be much better, actually, because I'll have more frames to work with and it will not be very compressed -- at least I hope not, depending how mpeg will limit me.)

what mpeg format ? 1, 2 or 4 Windows movie maker on Win xp should do it. There are a number of freeware or demos that will do it. TMPGENc if you can figure out the interface. Personal AVI editor if you have a mpeg codec. Vegas Movie studio 4 is also good. Downloadable demo and priced less than $100 to buy. Do you have uncompressed avi files or a series of stills ? If the zipped files are not too big I could probably do it for you.

I have stills. Windows Movie Maker, eh? I am at the office and have Win2K, so I didn't see anything like that. I have XP on another system, currently at home. I may have to check that out. I appreciate the offer, but the zipped files would be ... 20 megabytes. They're bitmaps at present, and, though there are only 56 of them at present, converting them would be somewhat of a pain, as I don't know how to batch convert in Photoshop. I'm checking into Vegas Movie Studio now. I'm in a bit of a bind at the moment, so I was hoping for something simple and, preferably, free. I had hoped I was overlooking something basic, because I really haven't ventured into video before. Thanks. Oh, if you are interested in the source files and 20 megabytes doesn't scare you off, I could upload them to my website for you to download and convert, if you are still interested. That would, indeed, help me out for the short term. I truly appreciate the offer. But, if these source files are too beefy, I would understand. John

Try this open source tool , http://avidemux.berlios.de/forum look in the windows forum to last version.

If it's anything like the version of .avi that Pentax uses, you might be hard pressed to find something that will actually convert it. (I've tried just about anything and have had no luck in getting it to edit, although media player plays it just fine.) Good luck!

Attached Link: http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html

Download TMPGEnc 2.5 (free.

Windows Movie Maker will do

PM me if interested, I will take the files via AIM file transfer and will batch convert them using final cut pro's compressor application.

A great thread for animation... Someone should cross-reference it to the animation forums as well!

Sorry, but I dosen't undestend some things. Firs of all, this is how to compressed the movie to 2 MB in resolution of 888x748 pix ? (what this codec Indeo Video 5? ) whay Divx-5 dosen't good ? secondly, what towards I need to do in the progs fot good resulte... I mean the Fream rate and Data rate... and another things.... Thanks.

Well, first-off, the movie might not FIT under 2 MB necessarily. My guess, though, with 56 frames you should be able to pull it off. That's not quite 2 seconds of animation, and if you're using MPGE compression, you should be fine. Frame Rate: 30 Frames-per-second (fps) is standard for medium-quality video. You don't have that many frames, though. You really don't have ENOUGH frames to do much, you'll either have to discard some or make more. 15 fps would give you not quite four seconds of animation. You're short 6 frames... WAIT, you're not? You're not Waldomac!?!? What's going on around here, anyway?

Will the real Waldomac please stand up? No, different person with good questions nonetheless. I'm going to upload source files to my webspace this morning, as soon as I get to my office, where I have a better connection. Final Cut Pro is what madmax_br5 is using to help me out. Hopefully it will work well, and I can produce the final animation with roughly twice as many frames. At 30 fps, I'm thinking I will try to get it to rotate from one side to another once every 6 seconds, which would be about right for 180 frames. Rendering will take me about three times as long as the last go-round.