Feature Request: Adding MJPEG as a ffmpeg_video_codec option

Description

MJPEG is a better codec for security cameras especially when you need to step though them frame by frame. Since ffmpeg already supports MJPEG (and MJPEG is used for streaming) I wonder if this would be a difficult feature to implement.

-- KeithB - 08 Jul 2007

Follow up

I agree we should add this feature.

It may be easy to do with ffmpeg but not efficient to do with ffmpeg. We already have the feature to create jpegs and mjpeg streams for the webcam. It could be nice to be able to save mjpeg films without the need for ffmpeg.

I think it would be easy to do.

We are planning a release this weekend so it will be a while before you see it in Motion.

Naturally other community members should have a chance to comment for or against before I declare it accepted.

-- KennethLavrsen - 08 Jul 2007

Comments

As I understand it, ffmpeg has mjpeg built-in so the patch should be quite simple. Given a bit of time I could come up with a patch to enable Mjpeg.

However, is Mjpeg one of those codecs that leaves a file unplayable if Motion is interrupted (power failure, for example)?

I use mpeg-1 since it is immune to unexpected terminations of Motion. Simply restart Motion, it can pick up the old file and add to it. I suspect I do not get great compression with Mpeg-1 since most video frames are different (due to Motion storing frames taken at grossly different times). Mjpeg simply does not try to compress, each frame is a complete Jpeg image.

-- SimonW - 02 Aug 2007

---