From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Displaying video in a window on an SGI machine - how?
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:03:01 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

Sorry for the delay, sometimes I have to do work in between
the email:

In article <Bv5MCB.G1@wm.estec.esa.nl>, guy@wmsg02.wm.estec.esa.nl writes:
> In article <qa1hpr8@zola.esd.sgi.com>, portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) writes:
>  > We provide two tools, Moviemaker and Movieplayer, which
>  > can create, edit, and play movie files.
>  > 
>  > .. stuff deleted...
> 
> Where can I get Moviemaker and Movieplayer ? You seem to imply
> that they are included in the (next?) distribution.

Moviemaker and Movieplayer are included with the 4.0.5E (F?)
release of IRIX, which is available only for the Indigo
and RealityEngine systems.

They will be part of the standard system software in the next
general IRIX release.  I don't know when that will be.  I
also don't know if you can order the Digital Media tools (of
which moviemaker and movieplayer are a part) separately.

>  > 
>  > If you'd like to know more about the existing movie
>  > tools, however, feel free to ask...
>  > 
> 
> Yes what is available. I have been scanning the news
> groups without much luck, and archie doesn't come up
> with much on MPEG.
> 
> Any information you can give would be most appreciated.

There are actually three programs (I lied) that are part of
the Movietools 1.0 package:

	moviemaker - can produce movie files from sequences
	of images (produced by anything from renderers to
	framegrabbers) and audio.  Provides a graphic
	interface for cut-and-paste editing of movie files.
	Can produce excerpts of movies, or break up movies
	into their component images and audio.

	movieplayer - plays back movie files, with audio
	on IRIS systems which support it.  Provides VCR
	style on-screen controls.  Several command line
	options allow you to control movieplayer when
	invoked from another application (such as showcase).

	svtomovie - When used with the IndigoVideo board,
	svmovie will record live video, together with audio,
	directly to a movie file.  The recorded video in
	the movie file may then be edited with moviemaker
	and played with movieplayer.

Currently, the movie tools use a Silicon Graphics proprietary
movie format and compression scheme.  The movie format is
publically available, but the details of the compression
scheme are not.  The compression scheme employed (MVC1)
achieves up to a 10:1 compression ratio for video, with
little noticeable impact on image quality.  The audio tracks
are currently uncompressed.  Playback of movie files on an
Indigo R3000 with Entry graphics runs at approximately 15
frames/sec for a 320x240 sized frame with a 22Khz mono
soundtrack.  A 640x480 sized frame (full-screen NTSC video
size) will play back at around 4-6 fps on the same system.

We do not currently provide support for MPEG, though this
is on our wish list for things to support in a future release.
We also plan to support Apple's QuickTime movie format (as
the original message in this thread inquired).

If someone is maintaining a FAQ file, could this information
be placed in it?

--
Michael Portuesi   Silicon Graphics, Inc.   portuesi@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi