What are the possibilities to create videos in Matlab? I was searching and found mainly 3 toolboxes that work in this field, image processing, image acquisition and control vision... but how can I do it without them, just to create the video from scratch? I'm interested in various approaches to have an overview, but I was unable to find any decent tutorial or consistent source of info on the internet. 

Thanks for the help! 

Here are some of the different ways to create movies in (core) MATLAB. 

MOVIE2AVI 

(deprecated, use VIDEOWRITER instead) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# preallocate
nFrames = 20;
mov(1:nFrames) = struct('cdata',[], 'colormap',[]);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   mov(k) = getframe(gca);
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
movie2avi(mov, 'myPeaks1.avi', 'compression','None', 'fps',10);
winopen('myPeaks1.avi')

AVIFILE 

(deprecated, use VIDEOWRITER instead) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# create AVI object
nFrames = 20;
aviobj = avifile('myPeaks2.avi', 'fps',10);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   aviobj = addframe(aviobj, getframe(gca));
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
aviobj = close(aviobj);
winopen('myPeaks2.avi')

VIDEOWRITER 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# create AVI object
nFrames = 20;
vidObj = VideoWriter('myPeaks3.avi');
vidObj.Quality = 100;
vidObj.FrameRate = 10;
open(vidObj);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   writeVideo(vidObj, getframe(gca));
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
close(vidObj);
winopen('myPeaks3.avi')

IMWRITE 

(technically not a movie, but an animated GIF image) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# preallocate
nFrames = 20;
f = getframe(gca);
[f,map] = rgb2ind(f.cdata, 256, 'nodither');
mov = repmat(f, [1 1 1 nFrames]);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
    surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
    f = getframe(gca);
    mov(:,:,1,k) = rgb2ind(f.cdata, map, 'nodither');
end
close(gcf)

%# create GIF and open
imwrite(mov, map, 'myPeaks4.gif', 'DelayTime',0, 'LoopCount',inf)
winopen('myPeaks4.gif')