motion targa (mtga) directshow playback

[yair]

hi, i have a mencoder encoded motion targa (MTGA) file.

mencoder.exe mf://*.tga -mf w=456:h=298:fps=25:type=tga -ovc copy -nosound -o dump.avi

i can play it back using mplayer

mplayer.exe dump.avi

but i need to play it back in a directshow based player, Stereoscopic Player (http://3dtv.at/Products/Player/Index_en.aspx)

i couldn't find it under ffdshow, any suggestions?
i am using windows 7

[GodofaGap]

I'm not sure what you want even exists. If you google motion targa this thread is the only sensible hit on the first page.

Perhaps you should just convert it to another format that ffdshow does support.

[yair]

ye i too noticed im first on google.
oh the joy...

shame on this no mtga support

[pandy]

what is special in Motion TGA? support for Alpha or more than 8 bit per component? maybe MPNG can be used instead of the MTGA?

AFAIR TGA is quite simple format, bitmap, optional compression (RLE?), for MTGA probably no Delta is used (sequence of the independent pictures)

[yair]

yes i used MPNG with great results (and ffdshow can decode it with libavcodec,
what i like about them both is that there is virtually no encoding, mencoder simply packs the frames into a stream (-ovc copy).
very very fast (as fast as copying them frames to another location) and of course no lose of quality.
i need targa as the whole 3d post workflow is in targa. its a well used format in 3d rendering.

[pandy]

maybe You can switch from TGA to PNG - both are equally the same (ok PNG is better but it also 20 yrs. younger)

[yair]

im not sure tga and png are the same, from my understanding tga is a raw format, and png is not.
i cant really influence the workflow, ill try the ffdshow-tryouts dev thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1402903&posted=1#post1402903) and use an intermediate format in the mean time.
thanks

[pandy]

im not sure tga and png are the same, from my understanding tga is a raw format, and png is not.

?
What mean RAW - if You mean lossless compression - they are the same with exception that PNG support more advance compression and can create smaller files at a cost additional calculations

[Blue_MiSfit]

TGA is not raw, in the sense of holding "raw" sensor data. It is uncompressed for sure (but does support some compression as well).

[yair]

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/dataformats/tga/
thanks for the clarification,

if you know a directshow/ffdshow developer please fwd him here.

thank you

[nm]

I'll have to repeat Pandy's question: why do you want this "motion-TGA"? If there's no need for an alpha channel, you can store the video as uncompressed BGR24 AVI, which is a widely supported format and conversion is as fast as writing a series of TGA images.

This should work with MEncoder:

mencoder.exe mf://*.tga -mf w=456:h=298:fps=25:type=tga -vf format=bgr24,flip -ffourcc "" -ovc raw -nosound -o dump.avi

If the image is flipped upside down in your player, remove ",flip" from the filter list.

[yair]

i dont have control over the workflow. can advice but not decide.
what im trying to achieve is a quick preview for stereoscopic rendering, (take two image sequences, bake, mux and play @60 fps)
i like using the "-ovc copy" as it doesn't re-enocde, just a fast copy.
them tga files later go and pass heavy composting, and they naturally include alpha channel.

those sequences need to pass many re compressions, im afraid any format that compress will start to degrade at some pass.
anyways, saying tga is dead is far from true, its like MIDI for musicians (if you ever touched a DX7), it will never go away :)

@nm: 3d rendering nowadays use render farms and/or exotic renderers that can net render part of frames. rendering to video is not usually supported, or recommended.

peace in the middle east

[nm]

i dont have control over the workflow. can advice but not decide.
what im trying to achieve is a quick preview for stereoscopic rendering, (take two image sequences, bake, mux and play @60 fps)
i like using the "-ovc copy" as it doesn't re-enocde, just a fast copy.

If the AVI file is only used for preview, you don't need an alpha channel and uncompressed AVI is an option. It's just as fast as -ovc copy, unless your TGA files are RLE-encoded. (But since TGA in AVI is not really supported by VFW, you'd need to decompress anyway.)

[yair]

see my edit, sorry didnt refresh,

[nm]

see my edit, sorry didnt refresh,

I saw it, but I don't understand how any of that is relevant if your point is simply to create a preview video file. All I can say is: use uncompressed AVI!!!

[click2]

"i need targa as the whole 3d post workflow is in targa. its a well used format in 3d rendering."
"i cant really influence the workflow"
"i dont have control over the workflow."

Why do you repeatedly keep telling him to change formats? :confused:

[Keiyakusha]

His source is in targa. Thats fine if he can't change that. As I understand he was suggested to use uncompressed instead of motion-targa, not the source targa.
By the way maybe some lossless that supports rgb will be fine...
EDIT: and if this motion-targa will be needed for further processing and this also can't be changed, then the correct question probably should be: "is there any directshow decoders for m-tga?" And the answer probably will be no.
EDIT2: by the way avisynth can read targa-images. So if motion-targa needed for further processing - let it be, but in player with you probably can see image sequence directly.

[yair]

hey guys, i wasn't going to continue this as emotions were getting high.
after going over the discussion i can understand better nm stand on this issue.
originally i was thinking his advice is to re-render using uncomp avi. not so, as Keiyakusha rightfully concludes.
as for avisynth: it can handle image sequences (i dont use imagereader, coronasequence (http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/) handles images better)
but it cant play them back them (or pass to compression) at more them ~15fps, it is starting to show its age, this marvel.

[pandy]

TGA is Your source but "converting" to AVI RGB24 instead of MTGA is transparent operation and make Your life easier - so whole path can be "plain pure raw" TGA but for previewing You can use RGB24 AVI - as an alternative i see only adding to the ffdshow support for TGA in AVI (if no RLE is used this is plain RGB + some header)