Question

It looks like both FFmpeg and the MovieMaker library in Processing will create a slideshow movie from an array of images. Which is best? Is there a better option?

I need to output a video to be uploaded to a 3rd party website so I’d like to do it on device and it needs to be a real video not just a gallery slideshow.

Answer 1

FFmpeg is a great option. I’ve done it many times myself with time lapse photography experiments.

1. Install FFmpeg with x264 CODEC
2. Number all your slides starting at 0001.jpg
3. Run FFmpeg like below (this is what I use for my images–>video conversions):

FFmpeg command:

ffmpeg -f image2 -i %04d.jpg -vcodec libx264 -f mp4 -vpre main -vpre normal \
   -r 25 -an -threads 4 -b 3000k -mbd rd -flags +mv4+aic -trellis 2 -cmp 2 \
   -subcmp 2 -g 300 -y out.mp4

You may need to tinker with the command line to get the desired output quality you are searching for. Also, the frame rate (-r 25) is probably too high for you. Either experiment with small values, or duplicate your slides programmatically.