Anim2Movie is an unsupported QuickTime[tm] utility to convert animations and sounds of many formats to QuickTime movies for playback on your Mac. Right now it converts images in PICS, RGB raw, scrapbook, or PICT format and sounds in AIFF or snd resource format. The program will read in your sequence of images, compress them, using compression techniques and parameters of your selection, and save them as a QuickTime movie file. You can add sounds to your images. You can also open existing movie files and add soundsor replace the existing soundtrack. You can also make "slideshows". Movie files created with this application can be played back using the MoviePlayer application.
Instructions
Basic instructions: Make the settings such as the compression options, scaling, etc that you want. Then open the image data and sound data. When everything is as you want it, use SAVE AS MOVIE to write it out to a QuickTime movie file.
File Menu
* Open PICT, Open PICS, Open RGB, Open Scrapbook
Open the file you want to compress. If you open a PICS file, all the images for the sequence are in the one file. For PICT and RGB raw files, it will read in a sequence of files. Name your files name.n, name.n+1, name.n+2, etc. When you select the open option on the menu, pick the first PICT or RGB in your sequence, and it will automatically find all the successive frames in the same folder for this sequence.
Each image in the sequence should have the same dimensions, or it will not accept it. Numbers at the end of the names may have leading 0's as long as the total number of digits does not exceed 4. For RGB images, it expects 24 bit data, and asks you for the image dimensions. If the dimensions don't match the size of the file, it will beep and let you try again.
* Open Movie
Open an existing movie file. It will display the first frame of the first video track. The settings (compression options, dither, scaling) do NOT affect an open movie.
* Close
Close the open image (PICT, PICS, Srapbook, RGB, or Movie) file. This allows you to reset the settings or open a new image file.
* Save as Movie
This will save the currently open images and sound to a movie file, which can then be played back using MoviePlayer. Each frame will appear on your screen as it's being processed. The currently selected compression technique, frame rate, scaling factor, etc will be used for this movie, as well as the most recently opened sound and image files.
Settings Menu
The settings affect any subsequently open image files except movies. The settings are chosen before opening an image file, and will remain in effect until they are changed again.
* Compression
The compression options do not affect a movie, just the other image types.
* Method
The compression algorithm that is run on your images.
* Color Space
The available color space is determined by which compression method you choose. This refers to the color space in the resulting movie.
* Spatial Quality
Higher quality mean the resulting movie looks better, but takes up more disk space, and possibly plays back slower. The available settings are determined by the choice of compression method.
* Temporal Quality
If this is checked, then the compression will use interframe coding. The quality setting controls the quality of compression on the temporal scale. Lower quality means the fast motion will suffer artifacts. The available settings are determined by the choice of compression method.
* Max Frame Rate
This is how many frames/second are stored in the movie file. The playback attempts to achieve this rate, and will drop or add frames to compensate.
* Keyframe Rate
If you're using temporal compression, this controls how often keyframes are inserted. Key frames are encoded without useing the previous frame. Non key frames are encoded using differences from the previous frame. The number you select indicates how many non key frames between each key frame.
* Scaling
Select the % to scale your images by before they are turned into a movie. If the averaging option is checked, then the scaling is done using filtering.
* Dithering
If dithering is checked, then the converion of your images from their original depth to the depth of compression is done using dithering.
Sound Menu
* Add sound
Select an AIFF file or a file that has a snd resource attached. If you pick a file without a snd resource, the dialog will keep coming back until you pick a valid one or cancel. The open sound will be added to the movie when you "Save as movie".
* Replace existing sound
If you have a movie file open, this option will be available. When checked, any existing sound tracks in the movie will be deleted and the new sound track will be inserted. If it's not checked, then the new sound track will be in addition to any existing sound tracks.
* Shift sound
Shift the starting point of your sound so it starts before or after your movie. Type in the number of seconds. A negative number will start the sound before the video; a positive number will start the sound after the video
* Close sound
Close the currently open sound.
Slideshow Menu
A slideshow is a sequence of images with varying time durations between them. (with or without a sound track).
* Start slideshow
This brings up a dialog, which lets you select a sequence of PICT files. You specify for each how long it is to appear, giving you a slideshow. In the dialog box you select your image by clicking on the image box. Type in a duration for this image in seconds (which must be greater than 0). This is how long you want the current slide to play.
Once the image and a valid duratione have been selected, hit the "Done Slide" button, and that slide is done. The "done Slide" button will then grey out and you can start preparing the information for the next slide. The slide number you are working on is displayed at the top of the dialog box. It won't let you "done slide" until you have a time duration which is greater than 0 and a valid image file. (Each image file in the slide sequence must be of the same dimensions). If you can't hit the "done slide" button it is because either you chose an image file which held an image of dimensions different from the other images in the sequence, or you did not specify a non-zero duration.
When you are done specifying all of your slides, hit OK. If you hit cancel, your information is lost. Once you have hit OK, this information will be remembered and written out the next time you "Save as Movie". Again, all the settings and the current sound will be included when you save a movie.
* Close slideshow
This cancels the currently specified slideshow, freeing you to make another one, or to open PICT or PICS for use in a movie.
Warnings &Limitations
* There are no alerts. If you do something wrong (like open a non-image file when you ask for a RGB), the program just quits or puts you in the debugger.
* You can open a PICT and RGB with filetype 'TEXT' or '????' to allow flexiblity if you obtained your PICT or RGB from a home-grown conversion program. Don't try to open something that's not really the right kind of image. The program will bomb.
* The settings do not affect an open movie.
* The sound is not interleaved with the image data.
* Once you save as movie, the process cannot be stopped until the movie is done.
