continously add picture to video

Question

Every x minutes I grab an image from a network-cam. Now i want to add this picture to an existing video file - on the fly.

I don't want to keep numerous image files and then encode them once in a while with e.g.

mencoder mf://@${LIST} -mf type=jpg:fps=${FPS} ...

The video format/codec doesn't really matter, as long as standard tools (mplayer, ffmpeg, vlc, ...) can handle it.

Any ides or suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

One obvious way which should work (at least according to my first tests) is to just write the new jpeg image to the end of the video file - so the video is a mjpeg stream.

cat ${PIC} >> ${VIDEO}

This is an answer to my question, however i was looking for something consuming less space than the pictures stored each by its own would take up.

Other hints?