Video equivalent of PNG?

Question

For raster images there is:
JPG is for natural scenes
PNG or GIF for geometric scenes that are characterized by smooth colors, straight lines and gradients.

For vector animation there is SVG

And for raster video there are various MPEG codecs which do a good job for natural scenes.

So my question is, what should I use for a video which is exclusively rasterized smooth colors, lines and gradients?

Answer 1

You can use animated PNGs.

http://people.mozilla.com/~dolske/apng/demo.html

Answer 2

Actually, GIF is terrible for images with gradients. JPEGs are good for anything with lots of details, gradients, etc. GIFs and PNGs are good for, basically, anything with flat colors (like cartoons and such).

More info from sitepoint.com

Answer 3

I'm not a codec expert, but all .mkv files that I have seen featured extremely clean fillings and gradients. (Yes it was anime.)

Answer 4

Try Huffyuv. It is a lossless codec that might work well with the kind of video you are talking about. Since it is lossless, file sizes may be a lot larger, but it is worth a try. What you are describing (fewer colors and detail than a natural scene) might compress acceptably.

The problem with geometrics and cartoons is that Mpeg 1/2/4, VP3, Theora, MJPEG, and the like use chroma subsampling and block based motion compensation with 8x8 DCT blocks, same as JPEGs. This works okay for lots of colors and motion; our brains fill in the difference until the cable box freezes and we see the blocks. It does not work well with things with a lot of lines and fewer colors.

Answer 5

If Windows formats are an option, use the screen codec:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/codecs/video.aspx#WindowsMediaVideo9Screen

Answer 6

MNG, but it looks like it's not very well supported.

Answer 7

There is a video codec that encodes each from as a PNG image (like MJPEG encodes each frame as a JPEG) called CorePNG

Answer 8

Lagarith is another good lossless video codec, like Huffyuv