SGI movie Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is one of the Silicon Graphics FAQ series, which consists of:

    SGI admin FAQ - IRIX system administration
    SGI apps FAQ - Applications and miscellaneous programming
    SGI audio FAQ - Audio applications and programming
    SGI diffs FAQ - Changes to the other FAQs since the last posting
    SGI graphics FAQ - Graphics and user environment customization
    SGI hardware FAQ - Hardware
    SGI impressario FAQ - IRIS Impressario
    SGI inventor FAQ - IRIS Inventor
    SGI misc FAQ - Introduction & miscellaneous information
    SGI movie FAQ - Movies
    SGI performer FAQ - IRIS Performer
    SGI pointer FAQ - Pointer to the other FAQs
    SGI security FAQ - IRIX security

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Topics covered in this FAQ:
---------------------------
   -1- Is there a QuickTime movieplayer available for SGI?
   -2- I cannot play a QuickTime movie on my Silicon Graphics computer.
       How can I make it work?
   -3- I cannot play a QuickTime movie created on a Silicon Graphics
       computer on my Macintosh.  How can I make it work?
   -4- What version of QuickTime does Silicon Graphics support?
   -5- How can I create a QuickTime file on an SGI?
   -6- I need to play MPEG movies.  Does SGI offer MPEG support?
   -7- I created a movie with Capture, but now I can't edit it with
       Movie Maker or play it with Movie Player.
   -8- How can I write a program to create, edit, convert, or play
       movies?  Where can I get a copy of the SGI Movie Library?
   -9- I can't use images exported with Moviemaker in any of my
       applications.  What image format does Moviemaker use?
  -10- Can anyone provide details on the SGI movie format?
  -11- Can anyone provide details on the QuickTime movie format?
  -12- How can I convert from SGI movie format to MPEG?
  -13- How can I convert from Microsoft AVI movie format to SGI movie
       format?
  -14- Is there a way to bring up a movie (using movieplayer) within
       Showcase using a button click...and having it place itself
       automatically in a certain location and start?
  -15- I am using Mosaic.  When I try to view a movie, movieplayer
       starts, but then shows a message: no movie.  How can I make it
       work?
  -16- I have the Galileo (or Indy Video/Indigo2 Video) option, but I
       can't get Capture to use it.  When I run it, the IndyCam shows
       up.  What do I do?
  -17- I cannot get the right video to show in the Capture tool! I get a
       video source other than the one I want or the screen is black.
       What do I do?
  -18- Why does Capture tell me to "Please Stand By", instead of
       capturing video?
  -19- Capture just grabbed a file for me, but now I can't find it.
       Where did Capture hide it?
  -20- Under IRIX 5.3, my system has a video board and/or IndyCam, but
       Capture won't let me use it.  It just greys out the video options
       on its menu.  How can I make it work?
  -21- I created a movie with audio using makemovie, but the soundtrack
       plays back really garbled and choppy.  What do I do?
  -22- Does anyone know the maximum size a movie file that MovieMaker or
       MoviePlayer can handle?  Is it limited by free memory, or will it
       play from the hard drive?
  -23- How do I write a program to access the pixels of a video frame in
       a movie file for image processing purposes?
  -24- How do I write a program which can write individual frames from a
       movie file out to a still image file?
  -25- I'm using the Movie Library to create QuickTime movies using
       Apple's Video compression.  When are default key-frames placed in
       a QuickTime movie made with the SGI movie library?
  -26- The Movie Library has calls to play a movie in a file, memory or
       a file descriptor.  But all of them seem to assume that the
       complete movie is available locally.  How can I play a movie all
       of which is not available locally?
  -27- When programming with the Movie Library, can we insert and delete
       frames from a playing movie?
  -28- When writing frames to a movie with the Movie Library, if we fix
       the image track parameters, does the byte size of the frame
       remain constant across frames?
  -29- How do I write a program to play a movie entirely from memory?
  -30- How do I capture movies from live video within my application?
  -31- How do I write a program to read and write compressed data to a
       movie file?
  -32- I want to write a program which creates a JPEG-compressed movie
       file, but I need to control the compression quality.  How do I do
       this with the Movie Library?
  -33- I want to write a program which can create a JPEG-compressed
       movie file compatible with the Cosmo Compress board, SGI's
       hardware JPEG accelerator.  How do I do this?
  -34- I simply want to create a JPEG-compressed movie which is
       compatible with the Cosmo Compress board.  I don't want to write
       my own program.  How do I do this?
  -35- I want to capture a still image from video using a shell script.
       The Capture tool doesn't seem to be appropriate because it waits
       for the user to click the mouse button. How can I accomplish
       this?