creating movies from simulation output

[Matteo Semplice <semplice@mat.unimi.it>]

Dear everybody,
 I am wondering whether anyone has already come up with a decent solution to 
the following problem.
  I have a rather complicated simulation code that outputs 3D data for a 
time-dependent problem. I transform the data into frames (using opendx, "dx" 
package) and next I want to assemble them into a movie. Currently the frames 
are .miff files, but opendx can write into zillions of formats, so I can 
easily change this. On the other hand I do not want to give on opendx to 
handle the visualization.

It is critical that the movie should contain my frames (say frame001, 
frame002, etc) at no more than 5 frames per second. Hence a dumb run of 
ffmpeg creates movies that run too fast.
Up to now I do "convert frames00* -delay 15 movie.gif" and create an animated 
gif. This however crates a really huge file and it also seems to raise 
compatibility issues when used under a third party O.S. which I don't name... 
(I cannot chose the OS of the pc at the hosting institution, when I give a 
presentation!)

So, here are my questions:
1- which movie format should I use to have maximum compatibility whilst taking 
advantage of compression? (Ideally it should be usable with \movie from LaTeX 
beamer)
2- what's the best tool to create movies of the above format, at a chosen 
frame rate?

Matteo

-- 
Matteo Semplice
Dip. di Matematica - Via Saldini,50
Tel: 02 50316170 (Int 16170)