Uncompressed AVI

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Uncompressed AVI

I'm dismayed that uncompressed AVI support is discontinued with recent iterations of Quicktime and/or OS-X. There is a need for it. And a multi-million dollar need at that.

Practically every large-scale pro and amateur sports arena that has digital signage requires the use of uncompressed AVIs. These boards are often of a bizarre format (eg. a "ribbon" board of 30000 pixels wide by 64 pixels high, often mapped onto a virtual second monitor). With animations on these boards running at 30fps, there's simply isn't the time or the horsepower to inject a codec to display those animations -- it must be in RAW (eg. 24-bit BGR) format as the underlying hardware is engineered to work with large-scale DMA read/writes. A 30 second animation on these boards can easily weigh in at close to 5gb.

Having worked in the industry for 25+ years, such file sizes and setups are typical and expected. Even current-day multi-million dollar installs of this equipment by Daktronics, Lighthouse and others require the use of uncompressed AVI's. No other format is acceptable.

So... if uncompressed AVIs remain unsupported, so will this segment of the market.

-- zz

Quicktime-OTHER

Posted on Apr 11, 2012 1:17 PM

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Answer 1

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SupersizeCoke

Level 1

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Jul 21, 2012 6:51 AM in response to zzyzy

There is a very cumbersome work around for these types of displays. The codec that we need to get to is the WRAW (windows raw) codec. The files are virtually bitmap files in a sequence with an AVI wrapper. For the displays in New Orleans Super Dome I used this process.

First I use Motion to create the files because it can support the obscure dimensions necessary for the display. Then I output a simple h.264 QuickTime file. Here is where it gets tricky. Using some freeware called “MPEG Streamclip”, I open the QuickTime file and export it as a new QuickTime file using the “Apple BMP” codec. This creates the bitmap sequence necessary. Now I need to wrap the .MOV the file in a new package. For that I open the file just created in MPEG streamclip and do a save as and make the file format AVI.

This process creates the WRAW file needed to run on these scoreboards. I hope this helps you all.

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Answer 2

Jul 21, 2012 3:45 PM in response to zzyzy

My workaround is very similar, except I use Quicktime 7 as my final output device.

I create my MoGraph using AE or Motion and output as an uncompressed MOV.

Using Quicktime 7, I can then import the .mov and export an uncompressed AVI from the Quicktime export settings.

I'm still using OSX 10.6.8 and am afraid to make the jump to a newer version for fear of losing my ability to use Quicktime 7.

I forget where I found the download link to QT7. Does anyone know if it's still available for download anywhere?

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Answer 3

zzyzy Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 22, 2012 9:17 AM in response to Art_Green

Art...

It would appear that QT7 works on Lion according to this link. There is also a download link to follow to QT7 there. I can test this for you on Lion, if you wish.

I would assume that the PRO version is required to do the exports you describe. There are two common ways to get QT7-PRO: (1) it's activated automatically if one is using FCP (as I've done), and (2) a registration key is available for about $30 via the Apple Online Store.

-- zz

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Answer 4

shrakner

Level 1

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Sep 6, 2012 1:05 PM in response to SupersizeCoke

Supersize, thanks for the tip. I was able to use a streamlined version of your method on a MOV generated by After Effects. I opened the video in MPEG Streamclip and used the "Export as AVI" option with the Apple BMP compressor, and that seems to do the trick.

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Answer 5

Sep 24, 2012 1:00 PM in response to shrakner

Thanks shrakner - about to try the same thing for the same reason. I've got a 40x12000 pixel movie! I can't make a wmv for the client to review either!

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Answer 6

Sep 24, 2012 1:07 PM in response to zzyzy

Anyone of you guys have any idea how to preview these things? My quicktime pro will only render a black screen. MPEG STREAMCLIP works, but WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER DOESN'T WORK EITHER?

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Answer 7

Sep 25, 2012 6:50 AM in response to Dylan Wood

to create authorised WMV files you need to use Flip4Mac:

Flip4Mac

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Answer 8

Sep 25, 2012 7:11 AM in response to Gary Scotland

Yeah - I've been using that. My super large wmv's will only open in editing programs or mpegstreamclip. Using quicktime or windows media player on the pc - it just gives me a playback error. I'm assuming its a matter of size and not format.

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Answer 9

Oct 8, 2012 5:20 PM in response to zzyzy

Just in case you already have a QuickTime Pro 7 registration key you can re-enable the disabled codecs with a little Terminal action...

In order to enable one of the “legacy video codecs” open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal, copy/paste the appropriate line (or all of them) into a terminal window, and hit return. The effect is instantaneous.

qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePlanarRGB enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs SorensonVideo enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs SorensonVideo3 enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleBMP enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleCinepak enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleH261 enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleH263 enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleMotionJPEGA enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleMotionJPEGB enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePNG enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleNone enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleVideo enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleGraphics enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleTGA enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleTIFF enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleComponentVideo enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs AppleJPEG2000 enabled
qtdefaults write LegacyVideoCodecs ApplePixlet enabled

If you also want to enable all of the “legacy audio codecs” you can copy this line to your terminal:

qtdefaults write LegacyAudioCodecsEnabled yes

It's a shame Apple can't provide valid codecs for QuickTime X, just because it's not a favored Apple codec doesn't diminish it's value or importance. To give credit where credit is due I located this in another Apple discussions forum...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3314756?answerId=18075187022#18075187022

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