About the Transcode software

Transcode is a suite of command line utilities for transcoding video and can be used to convert clips into individual PPM frames. In the provided scripts it is used to convert frames to clips and for basic image handling operations.

There are other free tools available like mencoder, but we have found the transcode software to be the most flexible and support the widest range of formats.  

Transcode RPM installation 

Transcode can be installed from a RPM using the yum command, but it requires RPMS from the livna and freshrpms repositories so you'll need to add support for both of these repositories first, before installing it with the yum command.

1. We had the best luck with the livna repository, so follow the instructions here to add the livna repository: livna
2. Download and install the correct Fedora core version of freshrpm, e.g. for FC3 download and install:http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/3/freshrpms-release/
3. Update the yum repository, and install transcode using the yum command:

   yum update
   yum install transcode
   

Transcode source code installation (not recommended)

If you cannot find a transcode RPM, you can get the source code from http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode and install it, however this is not recommended. There are many depencies to transcode and the build can easily break. Don't do this step unless you absolutely have to.

First download, then uncompress.

tar jxvf transcode-xxxxxxx.tar.bz2

Transcode uses many shared libraries, and you may need to download and install them, depending on what you have installed on your system. Here is the list of some of the RPM packages that we have found are needed:    

 Next, go in the transcode directory and build it. This example disables lame and libdvdread and enables libquicktime which worked on our system. Your system may be some variant of this:

 cd transcode-xxxxxxx
./configure --disable-lame --disable-libdvdread --enable-libquicktime --enable-imagemagick
make
sudo make install

When you are done, skip to step 6, or continue to the next optional step AVED Installation - Step 4. Build and Install Quicktime or OpenQuicktime.

Mac OS X installation

First, if you don't have yum, install it on your mac.  A version that worked on Mac OS X 10.5 is here: http://transcode.darwinports.com. Download the latest version and follow the above instructions for Linux.

When you are done you can skip to step 6, or continue to the next optional step AVED Installation - Step 4. Build and Install Quicktime or OpenQuicktime.