Save as Movie 

Downloads

Main plugins file: SaveAsMovie_.jar

Files required for all system: javacv.jar ,  javacpp.jar , opencv.jar , ffmpeg.jar

System-dependent library files :

• 64bit Mac OSX: ffmpeg-macosx-x86_64.jar , opencv-macosx-x86_64.jar

• 64bit Windows: ffmpeg-windows-x86_64.jar, opencv-windows-x86_64.jar

• 32bit Windows: ffmpeg-windows-x86.jar , opencv-windows-x86.jar

• 64bit Linux: ffmpeg-linux-x86_64.jar , opencv-linux-x86_64.jar

• 32bit LInux: ffmpeg-linux-x86.jar , opencv-linux-x86.jar

For ImageJ running on Java 1.8, or having any javacv library compatibility issues, please download the updated plugin file and library files at the github repository instead.

Description

The plugin saves current image stack as a movie file with common video formats like AVI, MOV(Quicktime), WMV(Window Media), MP4, FLV (Flash video).

It also supports composite image, overlay, and virtual stack (especially useful when processing huge image stack). 

It is similar to the plugins: QuickTime Movie Writer, and AVI Writer , but works on ImageJ running 64-bit Java, without the 31 characters filename limit and provides further choices of video codec and container.

The core encoding functions are provided by ffmpeg and OpenCV, and bridged with ImageJ via javacv.

Currently only MPEG4 (MPEG-4 part 2), FLV (Flash Video (FLV) / Sorenson Spark / Sorenson H.263), and WMV (Windows Media Video 7) codecs as well as uncompressed rawvideo are implemented. With ffmpeg, it is possible to implement more codecs if required.

System Requirement

 ImageJ 1.48k or above

Installation

1. Put the main plugin SaveAsMovie_.jar into ImageJ's plugins folder.

2. Put the javacv.jar ,  javacpp.jar , opencv.jar , ffmpeg.jar into ImageJ's plugins folder.

3. Depending on your system architecture, put the corresponding files into ImageJ's plugins folder:

• 64bit Mac OSX: ffmpeg-macosx-x86_64.jar , opencv-macosx-x86_64.jar

• 64bit Windows: ffmpeg-windows-x86_64.jar, opencv-windows-x86_64.jar

• 32bit Windows: ffmpeg-windows-x86.jar , opencv-windows-x86.jar

• 64bit Linux: ffmpeg-linux-x86_64.jar , opencv-linux-x86_64.jar

• 32bit LInux: ffmpeg-linux-x86.jar , opencv-linux-x86.jar

4. Then restart ImageJ or run "Refresh Menus". You will find new commands in "File>Save As>Movie..."  and "Plugins>Input-Output>Save as Movie".

# For FIJI users, just add https://sites.imagej.net/FFMPEG-javacv/ to the update site list and enable it. If you installed it by manual copying files,the bundled jar files : javacpp-0.11.jar, ffmpeg-2.6.1-0.11.jar, ffmpeg-2.6.1-0.11-windows-x86_64.jar(or the one fits your system platform)need to be removed.

Video format suggestion

-In general, if you have 3rd-party video player like VLC or MPlayer, all the provided codecs/ formats should be readable. For default system media player (Windows Media Player / Quicktime), WMV will be the safest format for window system and MPEG4 in mov should work for Macintosh.

-About the video quality option, it is basically determined by the bitrate. If the preset doesn't give satisfactory quality, you can try to select the custom option and put in desired bitrate for video encoding (the higher the better qualty).

-For image stack less than 100 frames, H.264 might not work correctly.

Updates

#2015/02/07: Update to latest javacv 0.10 (support H.264 codec by default)

#2012/07/17: Add low memory usage option

#2012/06/17: Add experimental H264 codec support (however, user have to install FFmpeg with libx264 support. )

Known bugs

• Under 64-bit windows, rawvideo not working (resulting in distorted images) . However, we can always use the AVI Writre plugin to export uncompressed raw avi video.

• Under 32-bit windows MPEG4 codecs is not compatible with avi container (resulting in still frame video). Try to use mov or mp4 container (file format).

Contact

Any question or comment, please contact Qingzong TSENG (qztseng at gmail dot com).

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