Tech Support Fort - Questions, Comments and Codecs (READ THE OP!)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Tech Support Fort - Questions, Comments and Codecs (READ THE OP!)

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Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Nidoking posted:

You did something wrong, then. It's supposed to take the 60 fps video and drop about half of the frames to make it a 30 fps video running at the same speed, not double the duration of each frame.

Well, then the only thing I can think of is not going to 30fps while encoding but while muxing? Like, I frameserve from Vegas Pro to Megui for the encoding, and the only opportunities for changing the Fps are during encoding or during muxing. At least, as far as I can see.

# ? Apr 13, 2014 21:32

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# ? May 10, 2024 03:36

TheMostFrench: Jul 12, 2009; Stop for me, it's the claw!

Nidoking posted:

KillAudio couldn't possibly work, because you have to load the audio before you can kill it. If it can't load...

Also, general Avisynth note: You're loading the same video twice in that script. Put it into a variable the first time and use the variable if you want the raw clip in later lines.

1) Can you open it in VirtualDub without a script? If so, try re-encoding the audio and Direct Stream Copying the video and see if that works. Not ideal, since that's a lot of re-encoding and MP3 is lossy, but I think the problem is that Avisynth doesn't natively work with MP3.

2) You might want to jump back a step in your process and skip ffmpeg, use MeGUI's File Indexer to work with the original MOD or MPG file, and see how that works. There should be a tutorial in the OP for the HD-PVR that includes the necessary steps.

3) Another option if VDub works is to save a Direct Stream Copy of the audio as an MP3, then download the BassAudio extension and use that to import the MP3. Save a separate Direct Stream Copy of the video with No Audio that you can AviSource, and AudioDub them together in the script.

4) As an alternative to any of the above, figure out how to use ffmpeg to output different formats. This part, I don't know myself, but you don't want MP3.

I tried number 2 so far which gives me separate video and audio which in this case is fine - but im looking into number 4 for the future, I found some commands which again seem like they should help but I get errors at output. I keep feeling like I get really close but then it doesn't work (like how I thought killaudio would be a good idea), I'll also try the other methods. Thanks for the advice!

TheMostFrench fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Apr 14, 2014

# ? Apr 14, 2014 01:32

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

I'm still working on my problem, and gave MSI Afterburner a try. For a free program, it's surprisingly neat. I made a test video with the MJPG compression, and could use another set of eyes to judge if it's okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoZkaJWGSoQ

Yes, there are artifacts around the HUD elements, but I probably can't help that. For starters, you can already see those artifacts while playing the game. Yes, they are in there to begin with. And Yt's encoding makes it a bit worse, as my rendered video doesn't show the artifacts as much as the upload does. I thought about recording uncompressed, but the videos are larger than the 60Fps Fraps recordings, so gently caress that. Other than that, I think this could work. I recorded an Fps intense section, and the game didn't lag. And as said, Fraps already caused lag when nothing was going on and even on 60Fps it wasn't perfect.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 21:58

JamieTheD: Nov 4, 2011; LPer, Reviewer, Mad Welshman

(Yes, that's a self portrait)

Tin Tim posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoZkaJWGSoQ

It, er, seems alright quality wise, as the game doesn't seem too hi-def to begin with anyways... My only real issue with it isn't a technical one, and that was "What the gently caress did I just watch?!?"

Don't answer that, I'll wait for the actual vid, if that's what you're gonna be doing. Either way, seems alright.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 22:31

Aerdan: Apr 14, 2012; Not Dennis NEDry

Tin Tim posted:

MJPG

Don't use MJPG; its main raison d'etre is permitting camera devices to record without having to implement support for other formats. It is literally a series of JPEGs in a single file, without the frame-by-frame differencing which other video formats do in order to save space. (That is, each and every frame is a JPEG; other formats use what are called 'keyframes' every so often and in between each keyframe a frame stores a compressed set of pixels that changed from the last frame.)

If you can do so, use h264 instead.

:spergin:

# ? Apr 14, 2014 23:29

taiyoko: Jan 10, 2008

I'm trying to decide what settings I want to use for my LP, at least for the FMVs. They're 640x480, and I'm upscaling to 720p, but my question is deinterlace the FMVs or not?

Raw:

Upscaled with no deinterlacing, in the MP4 ready to upload on the left, same video, as it appears once uploaded on youtube on the right:

Upscaled and deinterlaced, ready-to-upload MP4 on right, youtube'd version on left again:

Raw is .avi with Lagarith video/uncompressed audio, MP4s are upscaled with Spline64Resize, and encoded with x264/NeroAAC. Deinterlacing is done with Virtualdub's Deinterlace filter, set to blend mode, as anything else looks like crap, including yadif.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 01:16

Edward_Tohr: Aug 11, 2012; In lieu of meaningful text, I'm just going to mention I've been exploding all day and now it hurts to breathe, so I'm sure you all understand.

I'd say stick with interlaced. That's how it's displayed in-game, and it keeps the text, y'know, readable.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 01:57

Xenoveritas: May 9, 2010; Dinosaur Gum

taiyoko posted:

I'm trying to decide what settings I want to use for my LP, at least for the FMVs. They're 640x480, and I'm upscaling to 720p, but my question is deinterlace the FMVs or not?

Well, your first problem is that it isn't actually interlaced. Interlacing is when two frames are displayed on separate "scan lines." What your video has is basically a very lazy method of halving the video height and not bothering to scale up properly.

Because it isn't really interlaced, Yadif can't do anything with it and all "blending frames" will do is make the image half as bright.

What you could try instead is this:

code:

function RemoveBlackLines(clip video, int x, int y, int width, int height) {
    # Crop out just the section we want
    section = Crop(video, x, y, width, height)
    # Point resize to half to effectively remove every other line
    section = section.PointResize(section.Width(), section.Height()/2)
    # And then back to replace the removed lines with the lines above and
    # below them
    section = section.PointResize(section.Width(), section.Height()*2)
    return Layer(video, section, "add", level=256, x=x, y=y)
}

Note that you may have to tweak the Y value if this makes the video black (adding or subtracting one to it). For your sample image, I used:

code:

RemoveBlackLines(video, 54, 16, 530, 344)

This allows you to tweak the game's video while leaving the text entirely alone.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 02:52

Nidoking: Jan 27, 2009; I fought the lava, and the lava won.

I found a Bob deinterlace to be adequately effective at removing the scanlines when I did the Toonstruck LP. If you check the opening video, you can see how the result looked. I'd have to check whether I used any further editing to brighten it afterward, though.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 03:42

taiyoko: Jan 10, 2008

Xenoveritas posted:

Well, your first problem is that it isn't actually interlaced. Interlacing is when two frames are displayed on separate "scan lines." What your video has is basically a very lazy method of halving the video height and not bothering to scale up properly.

Because it isn't really interlaced, Yadif can't do anything with it and all "blending frames" will do is make the image half as bright.

What you could try instead is this:
code:
function RemoveBlackLines(clip video, int x, int y, int width, int height) {
    # Crop out just the section we want
    section = Crop(video, x, y, width, height)
    # Point resize to half to effectively remove every other line
    section = section.PointResize(section.Width(), section.Height()/2)
    # And then back to replace the removed lines with the lines above and
    # below them
    section = section.PointResize(section.Width(), section.Height()*2)
    return Layer(video, section, "add", level=256, x=x, y=y)
}
Note that you may have to tweak the Y value if this makes the video black (adding or subtracting one to it). For your sample image, I used:
code:
RemoveBlackLines(video, 54, 16, 530, 344)
This allows you to tweak the game's video while leaving the text entirely alone.

I'm running this through an encoding now to check it out, but I think this will be exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

# ? Apr 15, 2014 05:17

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Aerdan posted:

Don't use MJPG; its main raison d'etre is permitting camera devices to record without having to implement support for other formats. It is literally a series of JPEGs in a single file, without the frame-by-frame differencing which other video formats do in order to save space. (That is, each and every frame is a JPEG; other formats use what are called 'keyframes' every so often and in between each keyframe a frame stores a compressed set of pixels that changed from the last frame.)

If you can do so, use h264 instead.

Huh, I wasn't even aware that you can use outside codecs with MSI. I'm going to make a test video later and check it out. With that said though, the MJPG test was okay. Both in size and result, so I don't really see why the codec itself is problematic?

JamieTheD posted:

Don't answer that, I'll wait for the actual vid, if that's what you're gonna be doing. Either way, seems alright.

My plan for the thread is having a bunch of guests, so if you want, you can uncover this mystery first hand :v:

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 14:54

Fenrir: Apr 26, 2005; I found my kendo stick, bitch!; Lipstick Apathy

I'm still working on a test post for this, but before I even get that far I'd like some help if possible. I'm working on the DS remake for DQ6. Obviously DS games are a pain in the rear end, because of the oddly shaped screenshots no matter what you do, but there are a few issues with this game in particular:

First off, here's the default size shot:

I'd like that to be bigger but still clear. If I blow up the image manually, the text gets to looking lovely. But it doesn't look lovely in the emulator when I play at 2x size. I'm wondering if maybe there's another program that will take the screenshots at the size you're playing the game in? I can probably work around this but it would be so much easier to take the screenshots through the program itself instead of having to take Printscreen captures of the 2x play area.

Also, easily seen in that same shot is the second problem: the game often compensates for the distance between the two screens in an actual DS, like how the trees cut off weird there, or the clouds here:

I have no idea how to fix that. Maybe I'll end up doing the LP primarily through the bottom screen and only showing the top one when it's needed? Problem is, it's needed a lot. It shows a lot of useful info during battles, and even worse, in dungeons it shows more of the dungeon. While the bottom screen always has the character centered, they added the ability to rotate the screen in the DQ remakes so you could spin it around to see more of what's ahead. Not sure how to deal with that.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:29

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Gave h264 a try, and while the source is good and all, it turns into a garbled mess in Vegas. Apparently, Vegas doesn't like h264 in an AVI container. So now I have to see if I can change the container to Mp4. But so far I don't see how? Here are my settings

If somebody could give me a protip, I'd be very glad.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:34

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

Don't use x264vfw. VfW only supports AVI, and it's bad. How did you get the video in the first place?

Also, "Kompatibilit�tseigenschaften Videoaufnahme" is hilarious.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:38

Admiral H. Curtiss: May 11, 2010; I think there are a bunch of people who can create trailing images. I know some who could do this as if they were just going out for a stroll.

Fenrir posted:

I'm still working on a test post for this, but before I even get that far I'd like some help if possible. I'm working on the DS remake for DQ6. Obviously DS games are a pain in the rear end, because of the oddly shaped screenshots no matter what you do, but there are a few issues with this game in particular:

Grab Irfanview, open the Batch resize tool, set the size to 200%, and uncheck the "Use Resample (better quality)" checkbox.

There's also Crop options to get a single DS screen.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:39

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Suspicious Dish posted:

Don't use x264vfw. VfW only supports AVI, and it's bad. How did you get the video in the first place?

Also, "Kompatibilit�tseigenschaften Videoaufnahme" is hilarious.

Just followed Aerdan's suggestion, because the MJPG codec that MSI comes with is bad for some reason? And I recorded the vid with MSI, which is real easy. The source file is okay when viewed in VLC, just dropping it into Vegas ruins it. But I'm really working on the basis of things that I picked up along the line, so I'm just trying, ya know?

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:41

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

I've never heard of MSI, other than the company that makes motherboards. What is it?

You can remux with the ffmpeg command line. I don't know if there's a simple GUI for it.

Grab the latest ffmpeg builds, drag them to a new folder in Windows Explorer, drag your .avi file in there as well. Shift-right-click on some empty space in the Explorer window and choose "Open command window here", and then type:

ffmpeg -i my_dumb_msi_vid.avi -acodec copy -vcodec copy my_smart_new_video.mp4

If you get any errors or it doesn't produce a new .mp4 file, take a screenshot of the command line window for us to see.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:45

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

MSI Afterburner is a utility program that also happens to be able to record gameplay. At the top of the page, I posted a test video with the MJPG codec. And it's fine in my book. Except for the artifacts, but those are in the game to begin with, and Yt's encoding is also at fault here.

Aerdan said the codec is bad and I should use h264, so I just gave that a try. But so far, all it seems to do is add more time to my process without any real gains. I'd really rather stick with the MJPG, instead of having to change containers after recording and whatnot. If you wonder why I'm even loving around with this in the first place, Fraps causes harsh lag in this particular game.

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:52

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

MJPG is bad and you should not use it.

yes i always wanted my screen recorder to be Winamp.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:55

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Suspicious Dish posted:

MJPG is bad and you should not use it.

yes i always wanted my screen recorder to be Winamp.

Why is it bad? Did you look at the video I posted?

Also, my UI doesn't look as silly as that.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:57

Xenoveritas: May 9, 2010; Dinosaur Gum

That screenshot is terrifying, Suspicious Dish.

Also, this seems relevant: How to Prevent Sony Vegas from Destroying Your Videos

Although I'm a bit confused on which codecs are being used in which programs to accomplish what. The problem is with the recording MSI Afterburner creates, I guess?

MJPEG is a terrible "codec" in that it isn't actually a codec and was made to allow cheap digital cameras to record crappy video before H.264 hardware was cheap enough to include in cheap cameras. It shouldn't be used when recording LP footage. Or anything else, for that matter.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 16:59

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

it's the eye of the tiger, the thrill of recording LP videos

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:00

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Xenoveritas posted:

The problem is with the recording MSI Afterburner creates, I guess?

Not exactly. The problem is that the h264 recording can be viewed fine in VLC, but dropping into Vegas makes the video a garbled mess. That's because Vegas doesn't like h264 in an AVI container as the internet told me. Yeah, dish gave me an option to change the container afterwards, and I'm going to try that in a minute.

And while ya'll say that MJPG is trash, and it might as well be, I still think that the video I posted isn't bad.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:07

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

H264 in an AVI container makes no sense, and is a gigantic hack. Don't do it.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:14

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Yeah okay, I just followed a suggestion itt. As said, the crux of the problem is that Fraps does not like this particular game, but Afterburner does. So I'm just testing what codec options can work.

Also, still waiting for a good reason why my MJPG video sucks. Not kidding, I seriously wanna know what I'm missing.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:19

Xenoveritas: May 9, 2010; Dinosaur Gum

MJPEG is literally a series of JPEGs. That's all it is.

It offers no actual video compression due to that, making it lousy at compressing space, and introduces all the artifacts that a JPEG would introduce. It's essentially an MPEG video made of nothing but keyframes, and MPEG is really old and doesn't contain any of the quality improvements that H.264 does.

H.264 is flat-out better than MJPEG, it's really nothing more complicated than that. You get better quality at a smaller file size.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:34

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Okay, I'm actually not sure about the filesize since I only made a real short test clip, but the MJPG codec in MSI is maybe different than the old stuff ya'll know?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajZ6cELGVQM
This video shows a direct comparison, and it sure doesn't look like an old poo poo codec to me.

Anyway, I'll go back to the drawing board and get back when I've sorted this out.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:47

taiyoko: Jan 10, 2008

Have you tried using Lagarith instead of x264 for recording? I'm using it in Hypercam to record, and it doesn't seem to be adding any lag for me. You should be wanting to record in lossless to start with because the more times you re-encode, the shittier it'll become.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 17:59

Suspicious Dish: Sep 24, 2011; 2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro; Fun Shoe

Tin Tim posted:

Yeah okay, I just followed a suggestion itt. As said, the crux of the problem is that Fraps does not like this particular game, but Afterburner does. So I'm just testing what codec options can work.

Also, still waiting for a good reason why my MJPG video sucks. Not kidding, I seriously wanna know what I'm missing.

The downside to MJPEG is that we're not going to help you at all in the TSF and continue to laugh at you for still using MJPEG in TYOOL2014.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 18:02

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

taiyoko posted:

Have you tried using Lagarith instead of x264 for recording? I'm using it in Hypercam to record, and it doesn't seem to be adding any lag for me. You should be wanting to record in lossless to start with because the more times you re-encode, the shittier it'll become.

Yeah, and Lagarith results in a pretty jittery recording. MSI is kind of a janky program to begin with, so I'm not surprised.

Suspicious Dish posted:

The downside to MJPEG is that we're not going to help you at all in the TSF and continue to laugh at you for still using MJPEG in TYOOL2014.

Lol if you seriously think you can own me for trying a workaround because Fraps won't play ball

# ? Apr 15, 2014 18:55

discworld is all I read: Apr 7, 2009; DAIJOUBU!! ... Daijoubu ?? ?

Just out of curiosity, could you say the name of the game at least. There could be something game wise that could be fixed or worked on there to help with the issues.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 19:00

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Nitro Family. It's an asian Serious Sam clone made on the first version of the Serious Engine. It's somewhat janky and not made very well, so while the issue could lay there, I wouldn't know how to bybass it.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 19:07

discworld is all I read: Apr 7, 2009; DAIJOUBU!! ... Daijoubu ?? ?

Tin Tim posted:

Nitro Family. It's an asian Serious Sam clone made on the first version of the Serious Engine. It's somewhat janky and not made very well, so while the issue could lay there, I wouldn't know how to bybass it.

Well I downloaded the game, booted it up, and started recording with Dxtory with lagarith and this is what I got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3VLlCeNRI

So I'm not sure what issue you're having with recording or playing the game?

discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:05

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Niggurath posted:

Well I downloaded the game, booted it up, and started recording with Dxtory with lagarith and this is what I got
So I'm not sure what issue you're having with recording or playing the game?

I used Fraps, and it made the game lag hard. But it seems like a got lagarith to work after all, and I'll make another test.

E: Thanks for trying though!

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:17

discworld is all I read: Apr 7, 2009; DAIJOUBU!! ... Daijoubu ?? ?

Tin Tim posted:

I used Fraps, and it made the game lag hard. But it seems like a got lagarith to work after all, and I'll make another test.

E: Thanks for trying though!

The good news is that I've got Fraps sitting around as well and I made a recording using that, and it was fine as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXo6I0riHOc

Maybe you got a busted copy of the game or something?

VVVVV
Well I'm up to help if I can.

discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:50

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Niggurath posted:

Maybe you got a busted copy of the game or something?

Whoa, now I'm really stumped. I dunno, my copy is quite old so maybe it's busted? I'll look into that too. Thanks!

# ? Apr 15, 2014 20:59

Fenrir: Apr 26, 2005; I found my kendo stick, bitch!; Lipstick Apathy

Admiral H. Curtiss posted:

Grab Irfanview, open the Batch resize tool, set the size to 200%, and uncheck the "Use Resample (better quality)" checkbox.

There's also Crop options to get a single DS screen.

So I gave that a shot, are these LP-worthy? I still want them to look better, but I don't know how much better a DS image is going to look on a 1080p display

I'd show more pictures but I don't want to get into spoiler land here.

Fenrir fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Apr 15, 2014

# ? Apr 15, 2014 21:17

Flagrama: Jun 19, 2010; Lipstick Apathy

Personally I think you should use nearest neighbor for re-sizing those. Just so the font is crisp instead of blurry.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 21:24

Admiral H. Curtiss: May 11, 2010; I think there are a bunch of people who can create trailing images. I know some who could do this as if they were just going out for a stroll.

Yeah I think you misread me, you need to uncheck the "Resample (better quality)" box.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 21:27

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# ? May 10, 2024 03:36

Quaternion Cat: Feb 19, 2011; Affeline Space

The advice given re turning off resampling should result in something more like this:

# ? Apr 15, 2014 21:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Tech Support Fort - Questions, Comments and Codecs (READ THE OP!)

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