Houdini 12 Reference Stand-alone utilities

Convert an image sequence to a movie file.

Synopsis

    mcp [-v] input_movie [input_audio] -o output_movie

Description

mcp converts a sequence of images to a single movie file, extracts image frames from a movie file, or re-encodes a movie file. The supported movie formats differ across platforms. Run mcp without any arguments to see the usage instructions, which include a list of supported formats.

Options

-v

Enables verbose output.

input_movie

is one of:

filename.ext (where .ext is a supported input movie container extension)

[filename] ...

-f min max [-i inc] xxx$Fxxx

-w width -h height -f 1 max stdin

min is the minimum frame number max is maximum frame number inc is the frame increment $F is a placeholder for the frame number within filenames.

input_audio

is: -a [-x] audio_file

The -x option specifies that the audio is to be copied without transcoding.

Note: This option is not supported on all formats.

output_movie

is: [-w width] [-h height] [-f min max] [-i inc]

[-c compression] [-r framerate] [-l lib:format] output_file

Note: After a movie is read in, its frame numbers are renumbered to the range 1,2,3,... the -f and -i options of the output_movie act on the new range. The default frame rate is 24 frames per second.

output_file

is one of:

filename.ext (where .ext is a supported output movie container extension)

xxx$Fxxx

stdout

-c <option_file>

Encoding some movie formats will display a dialog of available compression settings. This option suppresses this dialog and reads the relevant compression settings from the specified file, created earlier using the '-C' option. This option is not supported by all formats. See the usage output from mcp for details.

-C <option_file>

Encoding some movie formats will display a dialog of available compression settings. This option saves the chosen settings to the specified file so that they may be reused later with the '-c' option. This option is not supported by all formats. See the usage output from mcp for details.

Examples

    mcp
This will display the usage message, including supported formats. 

    mcp -v -f 1 40 CorkScrew\$F.pic -o CorkScrew.avi
This will convert a sequence of images from 1-40 named CorkScrew1.pic... CorkScrew40.pic to an avi file (if supported).

To save and reuse compression sessions, try: 

    mcp -v -f 1 150 -i 1 input\$F.pic -o -C settings filename1.mp4
    
    mcp -v -f 1 150 -i 1 next_input\$F.pic -o -c settings filename2.mp4