I find myself presented with the task of converting a directory of JPEG image files into an MPEG-2 video format. I'm basically using my digital camera as a home security system. It's set up to take pics every so often & then store them in a directory on my new Linux box. Scrolling through pages of pictures isn't very fun & the process could be quicker if I could convert it to a movie format & just hit play. I want to go straight from JPEG to MPEG-2. I'm currently doing research as to what tools I can use and according to some sites it looks like this can be done with the Linux <convert> command. Though it seems possible I have yet to see an example of this form, or see any posts about success stories. {Kind of leaves me in the dark since no site explicitly states that it can convert JPEG to MPEG-2}
- If anyone here may be able to shed any light on my situation please do so, I'd appreciate it greatly!

Have you tried:

convert *.jpeg my_movie.mpeg

to specify an order check here: http://imagemagick.sourceforge.net/www/ImageMagick.html and do a 'find' in your browser for 'mpeg'

If it asks for mpeg2encode go here :
ftp://ftp.mpeg.org/pub/mpeg/mssg/
and download mpeg2vidcodec_v12.tar.gz, untar it, type make and move the program compiled into your path e.g. ~/bin/ or whatever

-- Thanks for the tip

Okay, I'm pretty new to the Linux OS.
Logging in as root would my path just be /root/ ???

and also if I do the:
@ ./configure
@ make
and then put it in /root (or whatever the path for root is), when someone from the admin or root group privelages loggs into the machine will they have access to these library files & tools without having to do anything special ?

Just to throw this out there for anyone, is there a better way to do this then the route that I've chosen??

Ok, sorry!

Your path is just where your shell (the shell is the program that launches all the other programs, a bit like double clicking in windows on a file icon to start a program in windows) looks for programs to run.

Type
echo $PATH
at the command line to see what it includes.

To compile mpeg2encode, download the source file to a temporary directory (yopu might want to make a directory for compiled packages)
and type
tar -zxf mpeg2vidcodec_v12.tar.gz
then change into the newly created sub-directory, and for this program, you only have to type
'make'
in the new directory (the one with files like README).

After a minute (if you have an old computer like me) the computer will stop spouting stuff and you can look in (I think) the subdirectory src/mpeg2enc and there should be a file called mpeg2encode.

Copy this to one of the places listed under your path.

If it does not exist already, you might want to create your own bin directory in your home directory or maybe use /usr/local/bin to give everyone access.
/usr/bin and /bin are generally used for system executables.
/opt/bin (if you have it) is often used for precompiled binary packages you may have purchased.
I suggest, on balance, that you put it in /usr/local/bin if you have root access.

The program should compile setting mpeg2encode to world executable so yes everyone can run it.