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!)

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Suspicious Dish posted:

I'm on the HTML5 player, and it doesn't offer 480p for me. Let me go back to my source and ask him a few more questions.

I find the HTML5 player doesn't offer 480p way too often and I really hate it.

When I first got the WiiU around Christmas it had 480p on it's browser youtube player (not the app, the app is garbage and everyone in their right mind uses the browser player). A few months later (1+, don't remember exactly) 480p was gone. If you load a 720p video you get "240p, 360p, 720p". If you load a 480p video you just get "240p, 360p". WiiU uses HTML5 because there's no flash, and I'm positive it's the reason.

I switched to HTML5 player on my computer too a few months back and 480p has since disappeared there too. It's annoying because if I'm trying to watch a 480p video all I get is garbage 360p. This is a pretty huge problem and I wish they'd fix it, but it's been months :sigh:

Also I have an extension to disable dash playback and holy hell it's so much better. Youtube added "Dash Playback" a couple of months back and it buffers the video in "chunks" and won't buffer past the chunk to """"save bandwidth"""" but all it does is make it so if you move the playhead at all, 99% of the time the video will have to rebuffer. I'm sure you've all ran into this. And if you want to buffer up a long video/movie to watch later on slow internet, it won't work because you'll only buffer 5 minutes of it then get stuck buffering during watching.

Disabling dash playback with an extension makes it go back to normal, where the entire video buffers, and the playhead works again. I don't know why Youtube's so adamant to add all this garbage. Ah yes let's try to save bandwidth years after bandwidth stopped being a problem, even where I am in Australia.

Edit: The extension is talked about here (linking this rather than just the extension to give it a bit more credibility) and the extension adds a lot more rad stuff including a light to make the page dim so you can watch videos without eyesearing white background, centering of the video (I love that Youtube's still trying to keep left align for some reason), automatic video resizing to fill a lot more of the page/your entire window, and a bunch more stuff. It's pretty minimal too and there's even a greasemonkey version for firefox users.

Jewel fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Dec 2, 2013

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 23:30

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 13:34

Jewel: May 2, 2009

toddy. posted:

Be very careful operating RJL, especially on PSP-100X models. The plugin, as you would expect, is very system intensive on the little handheld and is known to cause bricks. I have yet to test it on my newest 2000 model because I don't want another brick lighting $80 on fire. The video-out cable is pretty average image quality, but it's definitely the safer path.

I also had trouble getting it working with many games, a lot of titles just did not want to start up while RJL was running. I'll need to do some testing again on my newest PSP and see if that's changed.

RJL has been fine for my original Fat PSP model and I've never had problems with it? You should press select at the home menu and up overclocking speed though, otherwise some games will lag.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 02:53

Jewel: May 2, 2009

It crashes between transitions on certain games (like locoroco menu screen) but there's a setting that stops it. I completely forgot where it is but it's one of the transfer modes I think, in the remotejoylite settings. It completely fixes all crashing but it varies per game? It's definitely fixable though.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 12:14

Jewel: May 2, 2009

khy posted:

Is there anything with an absolutely minimal amount of lag? Just to make it easier when playing the games. I don't need anything to covert format, just raw video - I plan to stream with XSplit via Twitch. All I need is a live video feed and nothing more.

You're supposed to split the video output, and hook one into the Capture Device, and one into your TV. Stream the capture output and watch the TV.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 03:08

Jewel: May 2, 2009

khy posted:

Blah, that sucks because I don't have a TV in the same room as the PC. Guess I'll just get a really, really long RCA cable and do it that way.

You can also split it, then use a converter to change into a monitor input I'm pretty sure. You'd have to start it streaming first then swap though, since you can't see your computer any more. Unless you have two monitors in which case you're fine.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 03:24

Jewel: May 2, 2009

vibratingsheep posted:

Does anyone have experience trying to repair corrupted MP4 files caused by an Xsplit crash? I had really unfortunate crash at the end of a 3-hour session, and I wasn't streaming so I don't even have a ghetto FLV to work off of, either.

I looked into Video Repair Tool, but that appears to be more focused on cameras and not on, say, video game capture.

Can't help you with your problem but I can help you with the root of the problem: Don't use XSplit. It's absolute garbage and everyone ditched it in the past few months. First they started charging you to use anything over 25 (might have been 30 but still) fps or HD footage, then the entire program became bloatware, taking minutes to start up, showing ads and a "BUY ME BUY ME PLEASE WAIT TWO MINUTES" screen on startup, and it uses a ton of resources.

Everyone (most professional livestreamers and speedrunners who make a living off streaming) swapped to a wonderful wonderful thing called Open Broadcaster Software, or OBS for short. It does the same thing XSplit does but with minimal startup time, and is absolutely free. Has a lot more features as well, actually, and is a lot more minimal and extremely less resource intensive.

Edit: The big SGDQ speedrun event that happened this month that raised $1 million for cancer charity, used their "thank you for 1 million dollars" speech to say "don't use XSplit, use OBS, and thank you to OBS for providing their software", as well, just because XSplit is that lowly regarded these days but nobody knows about OBS.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 07:45

Jewel: May 2, 2009

vibratingsheep posted:

I was already leaning in that direction, but I also paid Xsplit for a license a couple years ago and have been waiting for it to lapse. I guess I should stop being a dinosaur and start using the better software.

Blatant plug/amusing sidenote: Trihex, Cosmo, and Romscout are coming to AOD next week on my dollar, hopefully they'll give me an OBS primer so I am not a lost and flailing sheep.

Oh man, rad as heck. Cosmo is my favorite streamer :allears:

OBS isn't that complex to use though! Just mess with it and see what sticks. I'm sure there's some tutorials out there. It's not too far from XSplit regardless.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 07:56

Jewel: May 2, 2009

EntranceJew posted:

use of livestream is punishable by public stoning.

Livestream is bad. Real bad. Real real bad. Also since you're in the LP subforum why would you use anything but Twitch.tv, or Hitbox.tv for a new alternative if you want a little less delay, or if you're desperate to stream non-videogames (like what), use Justin.tv, by the same people as twitch.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 16:59

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Cheez posted:

You mean the same one that leaves those giant black bars on the side of the source no matter what you do because it refuses to remove them? Even with cropping?

There's smug and wrong, and then there's being exactly right. Also yeah have fun with your garbage hitbox and broken twitch.
Oddly enough, this is not, or at least doesn't seem to be an option for the game in question. I'd have to change the default audio device to the cable and that may lead to needing more cables, and I think that's where my problem is starting. There has to be something I'm missing here because I regularly see streams where people are actually having trouble getting Skype into their stream to begin with.

What are you talking about, the entirety of AGDQ and a bunch of my friends/popular speedrunners use OBS just fine with no black bars and sometimes even up to 5 sources all organised into the one screen space with no problems at all. Also twitch isn't broken it's just heavily delayed, focusing on the bigger people these days (if you don't interact with chat delay is a non-issue) and hitbox is fine for streaming, only lacking features at this point, but it works as is and a lot of people moved to it already.

Just because something doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work at all

Edit: vvv "Livestream" and "Quick and reliable" don't go together. At all. Also this is the tech support thread, if you call up a computer tech support and say "my windows 95 is broken" they'll tell you to upgrade. The support is "stop using obsolete tech AND an obsolete website" and if you don't take the advice, well, don't complain when it doesn't work v :shobon:

v

Edit2: Also by "all the cool kids" you mean "This program AND website literally helped people raise a million dollars for cancer and they thought it was so easy to use and flawless that they had to specifically tell people about how good it was to tens of thousands of viewers"

Jewel fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 17, 2014

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 17:13

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Later on you can make a script that should go kinda like this (untested) (using python formatting for nice colors, it's still just a .avs):

Python code:

defaultCropW = 40
defaultCropH = 40
defaultEndW = 1024
defaultEndH = 768

#L/T/R/B = Left, Top, Right, Bottom

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with cropping of cropL/cropT/cropR/cropB off each side, and resize to endW x endH
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend, int cropL, int cropT, int cropR, int cropB, int endW, int endH) 
{
	cutscene = Trim(fstart, fend).Crop(cropL, cropT, -cropR, -cropB).Spline64Resize(endW, endH)
	return c.Trim(0, fstart-1)++cutscene1++c.Trim(fend+1, 0)
}

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with cropping of cropW/cropH total off each axis, and resize to endW x endH
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend, int cropW, int cropH, int endW, int endH) 
{
	return Cutscene(c, fstart, fend, cropW/2, cropH/2, cropW/2, cropH/2, endW, endH)
}

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with default cropping, and resize to default size
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend) 
{
	return Cutscene(c, fstart, fend, defaultCropW, defaultCropH, defaultEndW, defaultEndH)
}

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with cropping of cropW/cropH total off each axis, and resize to default size
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend, int cropW, int cropH) 
{
	return Cutscene(c, fstart, fend, cropW, cropH, defaultEndW, defaultEndH)
}

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with cropping of cropL/cropT/cropR/cropB off each side, and resize to default size
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend, int cropL, int cropT, int cropR, int cropB) 
{
	return Cutscene(c, fstart, fend, cropL, cropT, cropR, cropB, defaultEndW, defaultEndH)
}

#Make cutscene from frames fstart-fend, with default cropping, and resize to endW x endH
Function Cutscene(clip c, int fstart, int fend, int endW, int endH) 
{
	return Cutscene(c, fstart, fend, defaultCropW, defaultCropH, endW, endH)
}

I provided a ton of overloads so you can specify amount of borders to add and end size. I don't like to resize stuff usually though so maybe you can do something else instead of that but this is the main thing. The top function is without overloads, if you want to just specify numbers each time then feel free to only use that one (or you can do what I said at the very bottom of this post to make it not so cluttered).

A function with cropW and cropH will crop 20 off each edge if you specify "40" as cropW. One with cropL, etc, will crop a specific amount off each side. Should give you pretty fine control if you want! You can even change the variables at the top of the script to change default crop/resize values I think.

The most basic usage:

Python code:

//Do whatever to video

Cutscene(1000, 2000) #Crops 20 off each side from frames 1000-2000 and resizes to 1024, 768

//Do whatever to video

More advanced usage with overloads:

Python code:

//Do whatever to video

Cutscene(1000, 2000, 10, 20, 1000, 800) #Crops 10 off width and 20 off height from frames 1000-2000 and resizes to 1000, 800

//Do whatever to video

Also, you can just copy the functions above the code but I THINK you can also save the functions in a separate file called "Cutscene.avs" and use 'Import("Cutscene.avs")' at the top of your scripts.

Jewel fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Jan 26, 2014

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 11:18

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Just so you know, After Effects does indeed make that easier. You click a point and you click track and it's done. You can choose to track rotation/scale or just position. Parent a layer with an image on it to the resulting point and there's your motion tracked image.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2014 01:09

Jewel: May 2, 2009

I've never ever encountered it though, so. Maybe it's to do with the source video? Anything from fraps/camtasia has never triggered it so it shouldn't be an issue.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 08:53

Jewel: May 2, 2009

If the game uses pixel-wide graphics then use Nearest Neighbor (no interpolation) with integer rescales (2x, 3x, or 4x) and save as png. You got most of them right but you should disable interpolation to get this:

And yeah scaling them up 2x is better.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 14:39

Jewel: May 2, 2009

I like what Geop did in the Dark Souls LP. Hit a wall the moment you say sync. For games that don't have something like this; just do a notable action like crouch each time on "3..2..1..Sync". Anything that you'll remember.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 14:58

Jewel: May 2, 2009

code:

Function ChangeSpeed(clip c, float factor) 
{
    return c.TimeStretch(tempo=100 * factor).AssumeFPS(c.FrameRate * factor).ChangeFPS(c.FrameRate)
}

AviSource("clip.avi")

Trim(1000, 1500) #trim from 1000 to 1500 frames

ChangeSpeed(0.7) #70% speed

Reverse()

Or you can alias the clip

code:

fullclip = AviSource("clip.avi")

trimmedclip = fullclip.Trim(1000, 1500)

trimmedclip.ChangeSpeed(0.7)

trimmedclip.Reverse()

trimmedclip #output the trimmed clip

#OR

fullclip.Trim(0, 1000) + trimmedclip + fullclip.Trim(1500, 0) #append the trimmed clip at a specific part (and output, since output is the last line always)

note: you might have to use "++" in the last line, one of them keeps sync but I always forget which is which.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 13:22

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Thank you for telling me about Droid4x! I've needed a better one for ages, Bluestacks is seemingly good but really bloated, AndyOS is even worse and made by people who make Malware from what I recall, and any others don't really work from what I've seen.

# ¿ May 4, 2015 06:47

Jewel: May 2, 2009

LogicalFallacy posted:

Just out of curiosity, what are the specific issues with MJPEG?

"M-JPEG is an intraframe-only compression scheme (compared with the more computationally intensive technique of interframe prediction). Whereas modern interframe video formats, such as MPEG1, MPEG2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, achieve real-world compression-ratios of 1:50 or better, M-JPEG's lack of interframe prediction limits its efficiency to 1:20 or lower, depending on the tolerance to spatial artifacting in the compressed output."

"Frames exhibiting complex textures, fine curves and lines (such as writing on a newspaper) are prone to exhibit DCT-artifacts such as ringing, smudging, and macroblocking."

"MJPEG is inefficient, using more bits to deliver similar quality, compared to more modern formats (such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC)"

"There are also more sophisticated entropy coding than what was practical when the first JPEG design was developed. All of these new developments make M-JPEG an inefficient recording mechanism."

Also, I'm not sure if I've even seen a single mention of it in the last five years.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2016 10:28

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Also question; are you using latest "OBS" or latest "OBS studio"? Studio is a new remake project that they used a new name for annoyingly, it's a lot better than the original already though.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2016 11:43

Jewel: May 2, 2009

TheGamerGuy23 posted:

Well, neither of those two posts made any difference in the video, for better or worse. I'm going to post the settings I have for everything and see if that narrows down my problem.

I record it in mkv like OBS recommends, and then Remux it into MP4. But even the MP4 video looks pretty much the same. I did try recording a bit directly to MP4, but that also did nothing. I mean it's not like I need it to be 1080p constant 60 FPS or anything. Just a bit closer to how it looks on my TV is all.

Your vid is still private but uhhh

Bump that up to like 5-10k+ or something depending on how good your internet is for uploading later. Streamers livestream in 5k+ often so local recording has no excuse to be that low unless your internet/computer's bad.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 21:43

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 13:34

Jewel: May 2, 2009

Yeah generally these days steam's drivers are the best choice, SCP used to be but now there's no reason not to let steam handle it, especially since they come with user remappings for all games, supports every modern controller, and you can add non-steam games and it still works

# ¿ Sep 20, 2019 11:28

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