Instructions for encoding videos with mencoder. The demostrated settings are for 30 fps. Frame size is preferred to be divideable by 16.

Create a title image, the same size as all other content. Add 5 seconds of title first:

 bash$ for f in {1..150}; do echo title3d.png >> vidcont.txt; done

Mencoder does not read PPM files, so they have to be converted to e.g. PNG:

 bash$ for f in *.ppm; do echo $f; convert -depth 8 $f foo/${f%ppm}png; done

Then add all your frames:

 bash$ ls -1 --color=none foo/*.png >> vidcont.txt

Now vidcont.txt is your frame list. You can preview your video with

 bash$ mplayer mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30

Excerpt from ~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf

[mpeg4cg]
profile-desc="MPEG4 for computer graphics"
ovc=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1400
ffourcc=XVID
lavcopts=mbd=2:mv0=yes:trell=yes:v4mv=yes:cbp=yes:last_pred=3:predia=2:dia=2
lavcopts=vmax_b_frames=2:vb_strategy=1:precmp=2:cmp=2:subcmp=2:preme=2

[mpeg4cg-1]
profile-desc="mpeg4cg, pass 1"
profile=mpeg4cg
lavcopts=vpass=1:turbo=yes

[mpeg4cg-2]
profile-desc="mpeg4cg, pass 2"
profile=mpeg4cg
lavcopts=vpass=2

These settings are based on the very high quality setting at mencoder libavcodec example settings. About the standard mpeg4, see http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=ISO_MPEG-4 .

The 2-pass encoding is done by:

bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg4cg-1 -o video.avi
bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg4cg-2 -o video.avi

Excerpt from ~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf

[mpeg1cg]
profile-desc="universal MPEG1 for computer graphics"
of=mpeg=yes
mpegopts=format=mpeg1:tsaf=yes:muxrate=2000
noskip=yes
ovc=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=1152:keyint=15:mbd=2:aspect=4/3

[mpeg1cg-1]
profile-desc="mpeg1cg, pass 1"
profile=mpeg1cg
lavcopts=vpass=1:turbo=yes

[mpeg1cg-2]
profile-desc="mpeg1cg, pass 2"
profile=mpeg1cg
lavcopts=vpass=2

These settings are based on encoding to mpeg format instructions for “suitable to be played on systems with minimal multimedia support”. Notice the 4:3 aspect ratio.

The 2-pass encoding is done by:

bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg1cg-1 -o video.mpg
bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg1cg-2 -o video.mpg

Excerpt from ~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf

[mpeg1cgh]
profile-desc="universal MPEG1 for computer graphics, 1.8Mbps raw"
of=rawvideo=yes
noskip=yes
ovc=lavc=yes
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg1video:vbitrate=1835:keyint=15:mbd=2:aspect=4/3

[mpeg1cgh-1]
profile-desc="mpeg1cg, pass 1"
profile=mpeg1cgh
lavcopts=vpass=1:turbo=yes

[mpeg1cgh-2]
profile-desc="mpeg1cg, pass 2"
profile=mpeg1cgh
lavcopts=vpass=2

The 2-pass encoding is done by:

bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg1cgh-1 -o video.raw
bash$ mencoder mf://@vidcont.txt -mf type=png:fps=30 -profile mpeg1cgh-2 -o video.raw
bash$ mplex -f 0 -b 230 -r 3500 video.raw -o video.mpg

Mplex command is part of mjpegtools package. First the raw mpeg1 video is encoded, and put into mpg-container with mplex, because mencoder's mpeg muxer does something wrong. The end result is a video, that should work on a Windows XP out-of-the-box, but as a file is larger than needed. It compresses up to the expected video file size.

Creating composite images with ImageMagick convert> http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/layers/

bash$ convert -depth 8 -size 384x288 xc:black pic1.ppm -flip -composite pic2.ppm -geometry 100x50+0+50 -composite output.png