avifile (and all that jazz)

[Kristen Richter]

Dear helpful mailing list,

I am attempting to turn a series of plots into an avifile.  While I've 
installed the video add-on package from Octave-forge, I can't add frames to my 
.avi because the AVHandler can't seem to find the appropriate codecs.  Using 
the example below, found here: 
http://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/octave/MAILING-LISTS/help-octave/2005/3694

# Open the AVI file
m = avifile("test.avi", "codec", "msmpeg4v2")

# Generate and add frames
for i = 1:100
  I = zeros(100,100);
  I(i,:) = i;
  I(:,i) = 200-i;
  addframe(m, I/255)
  printf(".")
endfor
printf("\n")

# Close the file
clear mI get the following error:

AVHandler: cannot find codec msmpeg4v2
error: avifile: AVHandler setup failed
addframe: error adding frame to avifile
I've tried the example, specifying many different codecs, including cinepak, 
indeo5, and indeo3.  I've checked my synaptic package manager for appropriate 
codecs... currently I've installed libavifile (vs. 0.7), which mentions the 
indeo library by name.

Are the codecs supposed to be installed in a specific directory? Has anyone 
come across similar issues in the past?
The example is pretty old... dated 2005, and I know the video package was 
updated last this past May.

Any insight on the situation would be greatly appreciated. As always, your help 
in the past has been invaluable.

-Kristen Richter

By the way, does anyone know of a good work around for the getframe 
function?... I have yet to think of a good way to capture the figure on the 
screen into an appropriately formatted image matrix.