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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nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

A different mic would probably give different results, but unless you have $$$ to spend on trying out a bunch of different ones, doing EQ and compression (on your voice only, yes) in software is your best bet.

(In case you do want to try out different microphones I suppose the way to go would be finding a company renting out professional audio equipment and rent a selection, or to contact a recording studio and ask for a session with an audio engineer. Or of course to buy a selection of microphones from a store with a good return policy.)

Edit: If you wanted to be really fancy, you could also experiment with EQ'ing the game audio, to reduce the bands where it dominates your voice the worst. Even fancier would be a side-chain setup that only reduces those bands of the game audio while you're speaking.

nielsm fucked around with this message at 20:08 on May 22, 2021

# ? May 22, 2021 20:04

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# ? May 15, 2024 19:22

Carbon dioxide: Oct 9, 2012

E: wrong thread

# ? May 23, 2021 16:03

ivantod: Mar 27, 2010; Mahalo, fuckers.

Need some help with video resolutions...

I have a video from a game cutscene, but because it's a PS1 game, the resolution is quite low so it's very pixelated:

When the video is played in full screen this looks very bad. I have tried to apply a blur filter via ffmpeg which smoothes out the pixellation but of course makes the image visibly blurry:

So basically I was wondering if there was a way to find some "in-between" solution which reduces pixellation but also makes the video not quite so blurry (or do you think that the "smoothed" version is acceptable quality?). I'm not really an expert on video processing and even what I tried above was figured out after a lot of googling so I would appreciate any advice/ideas what to do in this situation. I'm not running Windows so solutions/advice which doesn't use AviSynth would be preferable, if possible.

The source video encoding is "H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part10) (avc1)", whatever that means! :v:

Thanks!

# ? Jun 2, 2021 16:57

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.

You can try several upscaling algorithms but at some point you just kinda have to accept that the source is low-res so it'll look some kind of bad on modern displays either way.

What I generally like to do for pixel-y stuff is to do a two-step upscale, first a integer nearest neighbor scaling close to the target resolution, and then a bilinear scaling to actually get there, but that probably doesn't help much with an anime-style FMV.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:06

DMorbid: Jan 6, 2011; With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

I prefer the pixelated original to blur-o-vision, but both versions look fine. It's a PlayStation FMV running at 240p, nobody expects that to look amazing on a modern display.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:09

ivantod: Mar 27, 2010; Mahalo, fuckers.

Admiral H. Curtiss posted:

You can try several upscaling algorithms but at some point you just kinda have to accept that the source is low-res so it'll look some kind of bad on modern displays either way.

What I generally like to do for pixel-y stuff is to do a two-step upscale, first a integer nearest neighbor scaling close to the target resolution, and then a bilinear scaling to actually get there, but that probably doesn't help much with an anime-style FMV.

DMorbid posted:

I prefer the pixelated original to blur-o-vision, but both versions look fine. It's a PlayStation FMV running at 240p, nobody expects that to look amazing on a modern display.

Thank you both!

I will have a look at that page to see if there are any options there which might improve the look of the video, but as you both pointed out, this is in the end a PlayStation 1 game from 1997 so it just isn't going to look great no matter what you do to it! :v:

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:31

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

I think if you wanted it to really look substantially nicer than the source video, you'd have to look into AI-driven upscaling/sharpening tools. And not everyone likes how those look, so basically you can't win! :v:

# ? Jun 2, 2021 17:44

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Consider first downscaling the video to the original encoded resolution, which seems it might be 292x176 pixels, then upscaling from that to your target.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 18:00

ChaosArgate: Oct 10, 2012; Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

Clearly, you should apply a scanline filter to capture the original intent of the video output. :v:

Honestly, you're probably fine to just use the raw pixelated image, there's not a whole lot you can do to restore quality when its been compressed down like that without looking into AI upscaling and even then that's a rabbit hole that you're probably not gonna win with.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 18:08

ivantod: Mar 27, 2010; Mahalo, fuckers.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I think if you wanted it to really look substantially nicer than the source video, you'd have to look into AI-driven upscaling/sharpening tools. And not everyone likes how those look, so basically you can't win!

Haha, I did actually have a think about that, but then I realised that it involves installations of some libraries and stuff that allows the upscaling code to execute directly on the GPU and so on, so in the end I decided that it's probably not worth it.

nielsm posted:

Consider first downscaling the video to the original encoded resolution, which seems it might be 292x176 pixels, then upscaling from that to your target.

That's actually an interesting idea, I will try that also! The resolution is a bit odd because the game has weird thin black bars on the sides, but then the cutscenes are further letterboxed to the aspect ratio you see in the screenshots (which is about 1:1.66 so at least it uses one of the "standard" film aspect ratios for that)--In any case, I have already removed all the black bars that are present in the recording. It's at times like these that one learns to appreciate that these days most if not all games run at standardised resolutions (of course the rendering resolution may be whatever, but at least the output res will not be something weird with strange black bars).

ChaosArgate posted:

Clearly, you should apply a scanline filter to capture the original intent of the video output.

Honestly, you're probably fine to just use the raw pixelated image, there's not a whole lot you can do to restore quality when its been compressed down like that without looking into AI upscaling and even then that's a rabbit hole that you're probably not gonna win with.

Yeah, see my response to the above quotes, this is exactly right. What you didn't get right though

, is that you squeezed the image into 4:3 aspect ratio, but in reality the cutscenes play with black bars on top and bottom (which I've removed), so at least that is one thing which is not a problem with this game's video presentation!

ivantod fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jun 2, 2021

# ? Jun 2, 2021 18:14

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

Another option is to leave the video at its original resolution and pad it with black bars all around, so you get a tiny window of video in the middle of the screen somewhere. That's a lot closer to the way PCs were handling video back then.

# ? Jun 2, 2021 18:36

Geemer: Nov 4, 2010

ChaosArgate posted:

Clearly, you should apply a scanline filter to capture the original intent of the video output.

Honestly, you're probably fine to just use the raw pixelated image, there's not a whole lot you can do to restore quality when its been compressed down like that without looking into AI upscaling and even then that's a rabbit hole that you're probably not gonna win with.

reported for trying to get someone to commit the war crime of enabling scanline filters

# ? Jun 2, 2021 18:36

FredMSloniker: Jan 2, 2008; Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

I'm having a strange issue with the Rightload plugin for LPix.org. If I try to upload an image with 'erry' in the title, I get an 'access violation' error message from Rightload. The file does upload, but I have to click away the error message to proceed to the next file. Given that I'm doing an LP where I'm uploading multiple images related to fellow goon berryjon, you can see how that can be an issue.

I can work around it for now, and I've sent Baldurk an email; is there anything else I ought to do?

# ? Jun 3, 2021 06:26

ivantod: Mar 27, 2010; Mahalo, fuckers.

FredMSloniker posted:

I'm having a strange issue with the Rightload plugin for LPix.org. If I try to upload an image with 'erry' in the title, I get an 'access violation' error message from Rightload. The file does upload, but I have to click away the error message to proceed to the next file. Given that I'm doing an LP where I'm uploading multiple images related to fellow goon berryjon, you can see how that can be an issue.

I can work around it for now, and I've sent Baldurk an email; is there anything else I ought to do?

Do you HAVE to use Rightload or would switching to ShareX be an option? Lpix has the uploader configuration for ShareX ready: https://lpix.org/sharex and I think that's the "officially" recommended tool to use these days. Just something to try.

# ? Jun 3, 2021 10:45

FredMSloniker: Jan 2, 2008; Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

ivantod posted:

Do you HAVE to use Rightload or would switching to ShareX be an option?

I tried ShareX briefly, but I bounced off its interface. I can give it another go.

# ? Jun 3, 2021 16:18

BisbyWorl: Jan 12, 2019; Knowledge is pain plus observation.

Does anyone know of any good translators that takes commissions? Command Mission has a bunch of concept art with notes, and I want to get them all translated.

# ? Jun 19, 2021 06:42

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

BisbyWorl posted:

Does anyone know of any good translators that takes commissions? Command Mission has a bunch of concept art with notes, and I want to get them all translated.

You should probably specify whether you mean French, Japanese, Sanskrit, or something else.

# ? Jun 19, 2021 19:52

FractalSandwich: Apr 25, 2010

Old Church Slavonic, you say? Sure, I can hook you up.

# ? Jun 20, 2021 04:03

BisbyWorl: Jan 12, 2019; Knowledge is pain plus observation.

nielsm posted:

You should probably specify whether you mean French, Japanese, Sanskrit, or something else.

Whoops! Japanese -> English, sorry.

# ? Jun 20, 2021 04:56

Vizuyos: Jun 17, 2020; Thank U for reading

If you hated it...
FUCK U and never come back

BisbyWorl posted:

Does anyone know of any good translators that takes commissions? Command Mission has a bunch of concept art with notes, and I want to get them all translated.

At least some of it has been translated already, though I can't for the life of me find out the actual source for it.

https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_Man_X:_Command_Mission/Gallery#Concept_Art

# ? Jun 21, 2021 04:11

BisbyWorl: Jan 12, 2019; Knowledge is pain plus observation.

Vizuyos posted:

At least some of it has been translated already, though I can't for the life of me find out the actual source for it.

https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_Man_X:_Command_Mission/Gallery#Concept_Art

So I did some digging, and it turns out the translated art on the wiki comes from the Mega Man X: Official Complete Works artbook.

Of course, a lot of the art in-game isn't in the art book, which puts me back at square one. :v:

Oh well, maybe I'll make one more update covering it.

# ? Jun 26, 2021 14:51

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Are Scene Transition Connections broken in Streamlabs OBS for anyone else? I'm trying to set up a specific transition from one scene to the next, but the only transition that works is the global transition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKaLD942Qcs

Did I miss something obvious, or is it broken?

EDIT: Here's some debug logs for when I transition from Whole Thing to Prestream with a Slide Right connection when the Global Transition is Slide Right:

code:

[000:00:22:32.920.054.900][Debug] <OBS::Display::SetSize> Adjusting display size for source studio_transition_f79a6176-5ba0-4db5-ad1b-9dcca5779164 to 916x451. hwnd 395610
[000:00:22:32.921.993.000][Debug] <OBS::Display::SetPosition> Adjusting display position for source studio_transition_f79a6176-5ba0-4db5-ad1b-9dcca5779164 to 60x99. hwnd 395610
[000:00:22:38.545.900.500][Debug] encoder 'streaming_h264' (obs_x264) created
[000:00:22:38.545.926.600][Debug] encoder 'streaming_h264' destroyed
[000:00:22:38.546.327.900][Debug] encoder 'recording_h264' (amd_amf_h264) created
[000:00:22:38.546.342.400][Debug] encoder 'recording_h264' destroyed
[000:00:22:38.550.128.100][Info] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Device initialize called
[000:00:22:38.550.408.000][Info] [WASAPISource::_InitDevice]: Returning device = 00000000
[000:00:22:38.550.424.100][Error] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Device pointer is 0000000000000000 res is -2147024809
[000:00:22:38.550.456.300][Warning] [WASAPISource::TryInitialize]:[does_not_exist] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Failed to init device: 80070057
[000:00:22:38.550.472.000][Info] [WASAPISource::Start] Device 'does_not_exist' not found.  Waiting for device
[000:00:22:38.550.537.400][Debug] source 'does_not_exist' (wasapi_input_capture) created
[000:00:22:38.551.661.000][Debug] source 'does_not_exist' destroyed
[000:00:22:38.551.682.400][Info] [WASAPISource::~WASAPISource]: Device '' source destructor
[000:00:22:38.552.347.500][Info] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Device initialize called
[000:00:22:38.552.537.200][Info] [WASAPISource::_InitDevice]: Returning device = 00000000
[000:00:22:38.552.550.800][Error] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Device pointer is 0000000000000000 res is -2147024809
[000:00:22:38.552.573.400][Warning] [WASAPISource::TryInitialize]:[does_not_exist] [WASAPISource::Initialize] Failed to init device: 80070057
[000:00:22:38.552.585.300][Info] [WASAPISource::Start] Device 'does_not_exist' not found.  Waiting for device
[000:00:22:38.552.629.300][Debug] source 'does_not_exist' (wasapi_output_capture) created
[000:00:22:38.554.236.300][Debug] source 'does_not_exist' destroyed
[000:00:22:38.554.278.900][Info] [WASAPISource::~WASAPISource]: Device '' source destructor
[000:00:23:23.066.391.100][Debug] source '6e3a6613-b465-4410-ac6a-1f41b5a822cc' (scene) created
[000:00:23:23.066.598.300][Debug] [image_source: '__unnamed0026'] loading texture 'C:\Users\Rebecca\Desktop\pictures for streaming\haha-bartz.png'
[000:00:23:23.085.456.600][Debug] source '(null)' (image_source) created
[000:00:23:23.085.799.100][Debug] source '(null)' (text_gdiplus) created
[000:00:23:26.100.049.200][Debug] source 'e1066639-7bc1-492a-b8c6-3bc6fa62352f' destroyed

and when the Global Transition is Cut:

code:

[000:00:24:39.851.915.900][Debug] source '87aeb3a0-f0d5-4fc0-a2e6-716850de98db' (scene) created
[000:00:24:39.852.112.700][Debug] [image_source: '__unnamed0028'] loading texture 'C:\Users\Rebecca\Desktop\pictures for streaming\haha-bartz.png'
[000:00:24:39.871.032.700][Debug] source '(null)' (image_source) created
[000:00:24:39.871.373.700][Debug] source '(null)' (text_gdiplus) created
[000:00:24:39.877.753.200][Debug] source 'b8f9fc4c-4a2b-416a-bd41-d21117645eb1' destroyed

It just...doesn't seem to use the connection. At all. And I have no idea why nor am I able to do any step-through debugging to investigate :byodood:

EDIT: Ended up filing a support ticket with SLOBS, we'll see how it goes.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 26, 2021

# ? Jun 26, 2021 16:21

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

I found out what the problem is. If you're in Studio Mode, Transition Connections don't work. Why, I have no idea. Considering it's called fuckin Studio Mode though I would guess it could handle that!!!!!!!!!

# ? Jun 26, 2021 22:29

Artix: Apr 26, 2010; He's finally back, to kick some tail! And this time, he's goin' to jail!

So just a heads up, apparently the folks who bought Audacity are going to be implementing a telemetry change to have it phone home to Russia.

https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1411435843412189187
https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1411435846310498308

Best as we can tell, this affects any versions after 2.4 so if you haven't updated, don't, and look for either an alternative or a fork.

# ? Jul 5, 2021 00:21

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

Artix posted:

Best as we can tell, this affects any versions after 2.4 so if you haven't updated, don't, and look for either an alternative or a fork.

Do you have more info on what "after 2.4" means? I have 2.4.2, is that affected or do you mean 2.5+?

# ? Jul 5, 2021 02:25

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Artix posted:

So just a heads up, apparently the folks who bought Audacity are going to be implementing a telemetry change to have it phone home to Russia.

These plans were apparently dropped?

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/889

# ? Jul 5, 2021 09:14

VictualSquid: Feb 29, 2012; Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.

Artix posted:

So just a heads up, apparently the folks who bought Audacity are going to be implementing a telemetry change to have it phone home to Russia.

Best as we can tell, this affects any versions after 2.4 so if you haven't updated, don't, and look for either an alternative or a fork.

Not in the mood to click through, are those the attempt to do this a few months ago, which were stopped after people threatened a fork? Or is this a new attempt?

# ? Jul 5, 2021 15:27

Artix: Apr 26, 2010; He's finally back, to kick some tail! And this time, he's goin' to jail!

The most recent update to the privacy policy which includes all this nonsense was from Friday.

# ? Jul 5, 2021 16:33

ivantod: Mar 27, 2010; Mahalo, fuckers.

One thing which is pretty sketchy about this whole Muse Group debacle, is that's very hard to even tell who this company is, or who is behind them. If you go to their website (https://mu.se) you will find that there is absolutely no contact page of any kind and no impressum page of any kind either. No contact address, company registration number or anything like that is listed anywhere on the site. So you should only really use their products if you're happy to hand over your information to a completely incognito entity which goes to great lengths to hide the information about themselves on their website. From their website it's basically impossible to even tell that it's a Russian company to begin with, for example.

Were this company registered in the EU countries, they would be legally obligated to provide a page like this on their website: https://www.jetbrains.com/company/contacts/. As you can see on this page it lists clear address and other contact info, and also near the bottom the company VAT registration number. Being in Russia there are no such requirements apparently, so it's not even clear WHO you're giving your information to.

# ? Jul 5, 2021 21:26

Xerophyte: Mar 17, 2008; This space intentionally left blank

Muse Group is basically guitar tablature website Ultimate Guitar, which has gone on some sort of "let's monetize music-related OSS!" spree over the last couple of years. Audacity is the last in a line of acquisitions, the largest probably being MuseScore 4 years ago. Muse Group is just a renamed parent org, since using the name Ultimate Guitar for all this stuff was dumb. That much is not a big secret.

The way they're pushing out telemetry is still ironically tone-deaf, and odds are Audacity is going to get replaced with a more active and still GPL'd fork very soon if they don't rethink their approach. In this particular case, likely they just want to do regular UI telemetry and are being morons about the details. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity and all that.

FWIW, I think the way they're bulldozing open source contributors to monetize Audacity with a more permissive license is very lovely and that they should've thought more about the privacy details when they added telemetry. I don't think you need to be more worried about Audacity 2.5 than any other desktop program that has telemetry enabled by default (which, on windows and osx at least, is approximately all of them). How much you worry about any desktop program that has telemetry enabled by default selling your data to shadowy russian oligarchs is up to you.

Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jul 5, 2021

# ? Jul 5, 2021 22:30

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

Xerophyte posted:

I don't think you need to be more worried about Audacity 2.5 than any other desktop program that has telemetry enabled by default (which, on windows and osx at least, is approximately all of them). How much you worry about any desktop program that has telemetry enabled by default selling your data to shadowy russian oligarchs is up to you.

Yeah, as noted elsewhere by a privacy lawyer there's nothing unusual about the privacy policy itself, though that's what was getting everyone fired up.

# ? Jul 6, 2021 17:14

IShallRiseAgain: Sep 12, 2008; Well ain't that precious?

-edit Nevermind I found a working SA scraper.

IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jul 9, 2021

# ? Jul 9, 2021 04:57

Jamesman: Nov 19, 2004; "First off, let me start by saying curly light blond hair does not suit Hyomin at all. Furthermore,"; Fun Shoe

My friend is looking for a way to separate the audio from a game and the audio from a Discord call into two separate outputs, for recording purposes, either through a new headset or a mixer or some sort. Does anyone have any suggestions? They were looking at the Astro A40 headset, but they can't tell if it supports this feature natively or not.

The headset I use is the LucidSound LS31 wireless headset, which does this, and they're looking at what other products out there can also do this.

# ? Jul 16, 2021 18:25

Deviant: Sep 26, 2003; i've forgotten all of your names.

Jamesman posted:

My friend is looking for a way to separate the audio from a game and the audio from a Discord call into two separate outputs, for recording purposes, either through a new headset or a mixer or some sort. Does anyone have any suggestions? They were looking at the Astro A40 headset, but they can't tell if it supports this feature natively or not.

The headset I use is the LucidSound LS31 wireless headset, which does this, and they're looking at what other products out there can also do this.

The A40 does register in windows as two seperate output devices

"Headset voice" and "Headset game"

In windows i have one set as default communcation and one as default other stuff.

I suspect it'll do what you want?

you pay for the astro name but it's the only thing that fits my big fat head

# ? Jul 16, 2021 19:46

Jamesman: Nov 19, 2004; "First off, let me start by saying curly light blond hair does not suit Hyomin at all. Furthermore,"; Fun Shoe

Are there better options? I would recommend my LS31 headset for the most part, but they also don't make it anymore and I don't know how the newer models compare.

# ? Jul 16, 2021 23:54

kirbysuperstar: Nov 11, 2012; Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.

SteelSeries Arctis stuff also does it, or at least the 5 and Pro do

# ? Jul 16, 2021 23:59

Deviant: Sep 26, 2003; i've forgotten all of your names.

I like my a40s and I would recommend a set but they aren't cheap

I also liked my console a50 wireless set

# ? Jul 17, 2021 06:03

Natural 20: Sep 17, 2007; Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.

Voicemeeter Banana and Virtual Audio cables will do the job on the software end super easy.

# ? Jul 19, 2021 12:11

Jamesman: Nov 19, 2004; "First off, let me start by saying curly light blond hair does not suit Hyomin at all. Furthermore,"; Fun Shoe

Deviant posted:

The A40 does register in windows as two seperate output devices

"Headset voice" and "Headset game"

In windows i have one set as default communcation and one as default other stuff.

I suspect it'll do what you want?

you pay for the astro name but it's the only thing that fits my big fat head

Hey, coming back to this real quick.

My friend got the A40s for his birthday, but he says it's not registering like this. Do you need the MixAmp for this to be an option (I don't know what a MixAmp is, but he does I guess)?

# ? Jul 21, 2021 03:31

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# ? May 15, 2024 19:22

RelentlessImp: Mar 15, 2011

Anyone else having issues uploading to LPix via Rightload and ShareX? My configurations are updated via the links on LPix.org, but Rightload says it can't upload, and ShareX just returns "URL is empty" over and over again.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 00:22

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

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