octave function 'avifile' help

[Kristen Richter]

Hello all,

I am attempting to create a movie from a series of plots using octave function 
'avifile'.  I found this function in the video add-on package
available from Octave-forge, but I am having some trouble using it because 
octave  can't seem to find the appropriate codecs.  I am trying out some 
example code I found in the mailing list archives.
Link:http://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/octave/MAILING-LISTS/help-octave/2005/3694

I have pasted the code below:

# Open the AVI file
m = avifile("test.avi", "codec", "msmpeg4v2")

# Generate and add frames
for i = 1:100
  I = zeros(100,100);
  I(i,:) = i;
  I(:,i) = 200-i;
  addframe(m, I/255)
  printf(".")
endfor
printf("\n")

# Close the file
clear m

However, after running these commands on the octave command line, I get the 
following error:

AVHandler: cannot find codec msmpeg4v2
error: avifile: AVHandler setup failed
addframe: error adding frame to avifile

I've
tried the example, specifying different kinds of audio codecs, including 
cinepak,
indeo5, and indeo3.  I've checked my synaptic package manager to make sure I 
have these audio  codecs installed.  During troubleshooting, I've installed 
libavifile (vs. 0.7),
which mentions the indeo library by name.

Are the codecs supposed to be installed in a specific directory? Are they 
supposed to be referred to by a text string that also contains the directory 
name? Has anyone come across similar issues in the past?

The example is pretty old... dated 2005, and I know the video package was 
updated last this past May.

Any insight on the situation would be greatly appreciated. As always, your help 
in the past has been invaluable.

-Kristen Richter