Due to the open nature of Android, at times device manufacturers make absolutely ridiculous decisions in an attempt to set their devices apart from those of the competitors. A perfect example of this is Samsung's choice of using a proprietary QMG format for its boot animations, as opposed to the standard bootanimation.zip format used on Android by default. The QMG files need to be created using the expensive Qmage commercial software, thus effectively barring the average consumer from cooking up their own.

XDA Recognized Developer smokin1337 decided do something about it and created a hack that brings back Android's standard bootanimation.zip support to Samsung devices. The mod was created for the Samsung Galaxy Note II, but should work on any Samsung device that uses samsungani to load up the bootanimation. The developer has also provided the Google Gears boot animation with the package, but you can choose an alternate instead.

This will add the ability to use a custom bootanimation on any rom with any kernel and probably any samsung device.

It has been tested on the Note II but should work with any samsung device that uses samsungani to load boot animations. If it doesn't work for you please post here.

Uses the typical settings bootanimation is at /system/media/bootanimation.zip, this is for those using a stock rom or a rom the dev didn't add it in.

As always, more information and download links can be found in the forum thread.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, this was also accomplished by XDA Senior Member anbech in his thread originally aimed at the SGS3.