ENCODE

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: April 2001
Page Index

NAME

encodedv - encode a series of images to a digital video stream

SYNOPSIS

encodedv [ options ] video_pattern [ audio_input ]

DESCRIPTION

encodedv takes a series of images in PPM/PGM/video format and optionally an audio stream and compiles them into a DV-encoded video stream. pattern specifies where the input data is located and may be either - for stdin, or a printf-style pattern taking one numeric argument that gets replaced by the current frame number. Like image%03d.ppm, which gets expanded to image000.ppm, image001.ppm, etc.

--version

show encodedv version number.

-s, --start-frame=count

start encoding at frame number count (defaults to 0).

-e, --end-frame=count

end encoding at frame number count (defaults to unlimited).

-l, --wrong-interlace

flip lines to compensate for wrong interlacing in the input data. Happened with mpeg2dec generated data.

-p, --vlc-passes

vlc code distribution passes (1-3) greater values = better quality but not necessarily slower encoding! This defaults for best quality = 3.

-v, --verbose

show encoder statistics / status information

-i, --input=filter-name

Choose input-filter: [>ppm<, pgm, video] The ppm-filter only supports raw rgb ppm files. The pgm file format is the one generated by mpeg2dec of the livid project. ( http://linuxvideo.org ) This means: Y-data appended by U and V data which are scaled down by 2 and placed side by side. This option defaults to PPM. Some things you want to keep in mind:

1) If you want to stream video frames (using video_pattern = "-") you have to make sure that there is no trailing garbage at the end of the pictures. This is ignored by most image manipulation programs!

2) If you are one of the poor persons with a buggy PCI bus-mastering board be sure to have a backup handy if you want to use video support. Some versions of the VIA board chipsets crash your machine and even your harddisk. Since encodedv uses full resolution capturing it is more likely to trigger these bugs than other programs. If you have a VIA board you definitely want to upgrade to Linux 2.4.3 or higher.

3) The encoded pictures must have the correct resolution. If they don't, you may want to try ppmqscale. The used video format is chosen by picture resolution. Use 720x576 for PAL and 720x480 for NTSC.

4) If you want to speed up things a little bit and you are generating the input pictures automatically you may want to try pgm's instead of ppm's since they are encoded somewhat faster. But keep in mind, that this pgm format is only optimal for PAL since NTSC averages the U and V values somewhat differently.

-a, --audio-input=filter-name

Choose audio-input-filter: [>none<, wav, dsp]

-o, --output=filter-name

Choose output-filter: [>raw<]

-q, --static-qno=table-no

Static qno tables for quantisation on 2 VLC passes. For turbo (but somewhat lossy encoding) try -q [1,2] -p [2,3]. There are only two static qno tables registered right now:

1 : for sharp DV pictures

2 : for somewhat noisy satelite television signal

If you want to add some more, go ahead ;-)

-f, --fps=fps-number

Set frames per second (default: use all frames)

-d, --force-dct=dct-mode

Force dct mode (88 or 248) for whole picture

Help Options

-?, --help: Show help message.
--usage: Display brief usage message.

AVAILABILITY

See http://libdv.sourceforge.net/ for the latest version.

AUTHORS

encodedv was written by James Bowman <jamesb@excamera.com> and Peter Schlaile <udbz@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>.

This manual page is based on encodedv's help message and was written by Daniel Kobras <kobras@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). It was updated by Peter Schlaile <udbz@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>.