Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Note to anyone still using Vegas (specifically Vegas Pro 13.0) instead of any of the better options: holy poo poo make sure you're not using the sRGB color space EVER

Some of the project and render templates default to sRGB, which not only makes your video look like oversaturated poo poo with a fuckton of black crush, but it also makes rendering take four times as long as it should. Guess who just noticed that, after wondering for a couple of days why Vegas is making the videos look so awful :suicide:

Maybe this was common knowledge and I'm just stupid (I mean I do use Vegas so...), but I had no idea that was even a thing.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 1, 2016

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Lunethex posted:

Don't use Vegas to render. Get DebugMode Frameserver and use MeGui to encode.

The workflow I follow is

1. Edit in Vegas
2. Render out wav audio
3. Start Frameserving
4. In Megui, create Avisynth Script (CTRL-R)
5. Find signpost video file.
6. Encode both
7. CTRL-5 Mux audio & Video
Fair enough, I'll give this a shot. Thanks for the tip.

Wayne posted:

Speaking of Vegas, it's not too bad as long as you're using the right settings. I mean, does the advice section still say that the rendering quality thing is backwards and you shouldn't use "Best"? That's definitely not the case anymore. Also, make sure to turn off Vegas's automatic resampling. CJ [I think] linked to a script (well, that's the tutorial, but it links to the script in question) disables it for the session, so you don't have to disable it for every video clip.
Once I finally figured out the sRGB thing, the final renders looked okay to me. I had already turned off resampling, and was still using Draft for the rendering quality setting because I assumed you still had to do that. Now to be fair, the console versions of GTA IV kinda look like blurry poo poo anyway, so there isn't that much Vegas can do to make it worse. :downs: I'll try encoding in MeGUI and see how the video turns out.

edit: Okay yeah this is better, I encoded at a lower bitrate in MeGUI and it still looks nicer than what Vegas gave me (which looked fine for the most part, but some of the darker areas would get really pixelated).

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Apr 2, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Alright, here's a couple of shots for comparison, both are 100% quality JPGs captured in Media Player Classic. Top one is from Vegas' 8 MB/s render which I won't be using anymore, bottom is the 6 MB/s video I did as a test in MeGUI:

[timg]http://lpix.org/2413623/gta4-03-8mb.mp4_snapshot_15.10_[2016.04.02_17.03.09].jpg[/timg]

[timg]http://lpix.org/2413624/gta4-03-muxed.mp4_snapshot_15.10_[2016.04.02_17.06.19].jpg[/timg]

Both are still rather pixelated in dark areas, but the MeGUI encode isn't quite as bad (especially in motion). The videos I get from Elgato Game Capture are somewhat lossy, although I suppose I could use the raw .ts files it creates instead of the h264 MP4 encodes.

Turns out the .ts file isn't quite without pixelation either in this particular area, which is pretty much the only point in any of these recordings that has this kind of problem (in case you were wondering about the store signs like the laundromat and Comrades Bar looking all weird, that's GTA IV's very own post-processing filter at work and has nothing to do with the recording):

[timg]http://lpix.org/2413627/Recording_2016-03-31_18-46-00_0001.ts_snapshot_00.28.55_[2016.04.02_17.28.22].jpg[/timg]

I'm guessing the best approach here is to switch to OBS (now that I finally seem to have gotten that to stop hating my Elgato) and use the trick to make it record losslessly. Was there anything else to that trick than setting an absurdly high bitrate in the encoding options?

edit: I could also switch to the PC version if all else fails, but that port is so terrible that it brings all kinds of new exciting issues with it.

e2: I wanted to re-render the first two episodes in MeGUI using the frameserver, but Vegas crashes every time I try to do that. The videos I've got aren't that bad so I'll make do with them. Never mind, looks like my HDD was having some sort of temper tantrum. A reboot fixed that and now I can actually create the signpost .avi without Vegas locking up or crashing to desktop.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Apr 2, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Is there a reason why my Youtube uploads are only showing up in 360p and 720p and 30 fps? I assumed it just took a while to render the other resolutions (not that it really matters since the video is 720p anyway) and the 60 fps version, but it's been something like 18 hours since I uploaded these three videos and I'm getting kinda impatient.

The lack of 60 fps isn't that terrible either considering that GTA IV rarely goes over 40 fps (30 fps might actually be better since it's consistent), but it's weird.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Oh hey, turns out my problem with the Youtube uploads only showing up in 360p and 720p30 had to do with a Chrome plugin (Magic Actions for Youtube) not showing the correct options for whatever reason. :downs: Maybe I'll be able to actually get this thing going at some point.

edit: after I rerecord the intro for the second (and maybe third) video for the 48th time (slight exaggeration), that is. I realize there is only so much that can be done about my voice, but these intros are entirely too mumbly and I'd like to at least be intelligible for the first three seconds of each video. Welp, it's not like the commentary on these doesn't already have more overdubs than a KISS live album, so might as well go ahead and redo those intros.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Apr 7, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

loving Blue Snowball don't you die on me now :negative:

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just the cable that came with the mic being a piece of poo poo and causing a ton of crackling on my recordings. It seems to be entirely random whether or not the sound will gently caress up, which is just a bit annoying when I'm trying to record a longer bit of commentary. It worked just fine a few days ago, so I don't know what the hell happened. :saddowns:

Guess I'll go buy a new cable, and use another mic in the meantime. It's not as good as the Snowball as far as audio quality goes, but it should do for now.

edit: oh goddamn it this seems to be a Windows 10 driver issue, why did it only start now though

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Apr 9, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

The audio on my DXtory recordings gets desynced over time, seemingly regardless of what codecs I'm using and what options I have selected. I thought I fixed it by switching from Lagarith to UTVideo because the 73-minute recording I did the other day has no desync at all, but the 107-minute video I recorded today once again goes out of sync after an hour or so.

I'm assuming this is happening because I'm recording at 60 fps and the game can't quite keep up a consistent 60, so the audio gets slightly ahead of the video after a while. I suppose I could try recording at 30 fps (and/or try OBS again) and see how that turns out. It's not a massive deal either way because I can easily sync it back up in Vegas, but still a bit annoying.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

I've watched the videos in Media Player Classic (x64) and VLC, and when I drop the file into Vegas and play it there it's desynced as well. From a bit of googling, it appears that this is just something that happens with DXtory recordings for some people and nobody seems to have figured out a reliable way to fix it. :saddowns: Recording in 30 fps didn't help either.

Well, like I said it's really not a big deal to sync it back up in Vegas. I'll give OBS another go at some point, the last time I used it Vegas didn't like the file very much and the colors were all hosed up.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Yeah, it seems I had the wrong settings in OBS (or OBS Studio, which is what I have) and now Vegas no longer throws a fit when I drop one of my OBS recordings in there. Using NVENC and h264 should make things easier for me in general, since I won't need to constantly make space for 300-gig Lagarith files. :v: Cheers!

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong with OBS Studio. I thought I had the settings correct earlier, but it seems that as soon as I drop the recording into Vegas and try to edit it, the colors get horribly garbled. I thought earlier that switching to NVENC h264 helped, but that same clip that looked fine at first started doing the same poo poo when I tried to edit it. The same thing happened when I opened any of my OBS recordings in AVSPmod. Here's an example of how bad it can get in Vegas:



(the game is Wreckfest, I tried to record it to see if it's only my GTA4 videos that look hosed up but it seems like every game does the same thing)

I have no idea what is going on. I've tried different settings, different presets, switching from Direct3D to OpenGL rendering, but nothing makes these recordings work properly in Vegas. It's not an issue with MP4 or H264 themselves, as I captured some Elgato Game Capture HD60 footage from my xbone earlier and that looks totally fine when I put it into Vegas. As does everything else I've recorded with the HD60. The OBS clips also look perfectly fine when I play them back in MPC-HC or VLC. :wtc:

Oh yeah, I downloaded the Adobe Premiere trial and tried my newest GTA recording in that, and it did in fact not gently caress up the colors, at least not immediately. However, the video didn't have any sound. Maybe I should just give up at this point, between this poo poo, the DXtory audio desync and my mic dying it feels like I'm not supposed to be doing LPs. :eng99:

edit: Re-encoding with Adobe Media Encoder seems to have fixed things and now my test clips look normal in Vegas. Maybe I'll be able to salvage today's session after all.

edit #2: Yep, I re-encoded the recording in Media Encoder, still in h264 without changing any settings, and now it works perfectly. I've done quite a bit of googling and haven't seen anyone with this kind of problem with OBS, so I'm not sure why it hates me.

edit #3: It's not just OBS recordings, but Shadowplay as well. Something on my end is obviously messed up, but I have no idea how to even begin to fix it aside from re-encoding the videos. Reinstalling Vegas didn't help.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Jul 25, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Willie Tomg posted:

Could you post your exact settings when recording NVENC h264? That it works upon a reencode (i'm assuming you're using vaguely default settings at your recording resolution), and also works with hardware recording makes me think it's a problem with those. It could also be an issue with VLC/Vegas. I honestly don't know why anyone would gently caress with Sony Vegas in the year 2016, but in the words of the late great Sheryl freakin' Crow; if it makes you happy then it can't be that bad.
I use Vegas in TYOOL 2016 simply because it's what I'm most familiar with. I've tried Avisynth and all that newfangled stuff kids like these days, but I always go back to Vegas because that is what I'm used to. :corsair: And like I said, I'm getting the same issues when I try to use these clips in AVSPmod, so it's not an issue with Vegas. For some reason, the clips will work only if I use Adobe Media Encoder to re-encode -- Avidemux, Handbrake and other programs don't fix the issue.

Here are my current OBS Studio settings, although I've tried many different ones to no avail. And as I said, my Shadowplay recordings have the exact same issue on default settings which I assume should just work(tm):



quote:

(also your other problems scream to me "I didn't check keyframe rates and left framerate as variable instead of fixed integer" fwiw)
The thing about Dxtory is that I can't make heads or tails about what most of the options actually do, since they're all in what appears to be machine-translated English. I did check the "synchronize video FPS" option since that was unchecked for some reason, and my latest recording didn't have any desync but that might've been just because it was shorter than some of the previous ones. I also can't do anything with keyframe intervals while recording with Lagarith. The desync is honestly a minor issue compared to the rest of this stuff and easily fixed in post.

quote:

For what it's also worth I have similar issues where recording NVENC h264 can be a little horsey on preview/editing with bit of hitching and artifacting in some frames like your example--which gets worse recording at 60fps--but on export (effectively a reencode if I'm recording in h264 and rendering out in same for youtube upload) looks fine.
The problem persists after exporting, at least it did the last time I tried to see if that would help.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Willie Tomg posted:

Set your rate control to VBR and not CQP, and then--assuming you're recording at 1080--specify a bitrate between 12,000 and 16,000 depending on your HD space and how you feel emotionally at the time. That should be large enough at 1080 to avoid most artifacting. I use 13.5k fwiw. Leave keyframe interval at 0 so it'll be automatic. Then look up every single term I used that you don't understand on Wikipedia because IMO most of the actual fun of this stuff is in the research phase, and it'll give you a knowledge toolset to maybe help you further if this post doesn't help you.
Thanks, but I've tried changing bitrates and keyframe intervals and gone between VBR/CBR/CQP in OBS several times and it has done absolutely nothing to fix the problems. :saddowns: Those just happened to be the settings I had tried last (mostly copied from an earlier post in the thread).

Despite appearances, I have some idea what I'm doing, which makes it all the more strange when things don't work as they should with OBS and Shadowplay.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Nidoking posted:

Other (paid) programs will probably be able to read whatever.
Unless they hate you and your computer for some reason and make your x264 footage look like this:



I still have no idea why Vegas does this on my computer, but it no longer matters anyway because Premiere works absolutely fine.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Aug 29, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

If I want to do a VLP of an n64 game these days, is it worth going to the trouble of getting a video capture setup for my actual n64, or do most people do games of that vintage via emulator nowadays? The game I have in mind was fairly buggy even on the actual hardware, so who knows what kind of whacky stuff could happen, but if I could do the whole LP with no special equipment aside from the snowball mic my brother loaned me that would be pretty sweet.
What game is it? N64 emulation tends to be a bit hit-or-miss.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

What's the simplest/cheapest way to capture from my n64?
I'm not saying you should get one of these because I'm sure there are better options, but you certainly can't get much cheaper or simpler than this:

Someone in the general retro gaming thread bought a $5 USB capture device (yes, 5 dollars, although it seems to be out of stock at this very moment) from a Chinese ebay seller.

Obviously, the quality isn't exactly equivalent to a $500 setup that involves plugging your retro consoles into an XRGB-mini Framemeister HD upscaler that is hooked up to an Elgato Game Capture HD60, but again it's 5 bucks.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Do these screenshots look decent? Filesize too big? I'm a bit wary of dropping the JPG quality much lower than the current 85.





The subtitle font in Jade Empire looks a bit crummy no matter the image quality, although the resize from 1080p probably doesn't help matters (I suppose I could see how it looks if I play the game in 720p, which would still be decent enough for my boss fight videos).

edit: Since nobody has said anything, I'm going to assume these look okay and I can start working on the actual LP.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Nov 22, 2016

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Artix posted:

For starters, you can make OBS spit out mp4s in the output tab, so that should be your first fix.
I thought the recommendation was to record in FLV because MP4s get corrupted easily if the program crashes or something. OBS Studio has an option to convert your FLV files to MP4 built in, as well.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Is there a way to get Capture2Text to work properly (or a recommended alternative I could try) when you're using a 4K screen and 200% desktop scaling on Windows 10? Right now, when I try to use C2T to grab text from my Jade Empire screenshots it only gives me a garbled mess of letters and random characters.

I tried reverting to 100% scale, but that just made everything unbearably small as you might imagine. I guess I could temporarily set the resolution to 1080p and see if that works any better.

edit: It just started working at 4K/200% scaling. All I did was toggle Capture2Text pre-processing off and back on. :wtc:

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Feb 14, 2017

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Elgato's working fine for me at least. Wonder what's going on there.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

The latest Premiere CC update (or possibly the one before that) seems to have broken the Debugmode Frameserver plugin. When I try to export a video using the frameserver, Premiere just throws up an error about a "low level exception" and the export won't work. :argh:

I guess I'll try Advanced Frameserver and see if that fares any better. (fake edit: That one seems to work okay)

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Is there a frameserver that actually works with Premiere CC 2018? I've tried DebugMode and Advanced Frameserver, and these newer versions of Premiere don't seem to play nice with either of those.

edit: Judging from the lack of responses, I guess the answer is no. Seems like I'm stuck with Premiere's mediocre built-in encoder, then. :saddowns:

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Nov 25, 2017

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Okay then, Advanced Frameserver does in fact work with Premiere Pro 2018, and the only reason I was having problems earlier is the fact I'm an idiot. :downs:

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Max Wilco posted:

I'd probably have to do composite-to-HDMI if I wanted to record something from the PS2 or Dreamcast.
For older consoles, I highly recommend using S-video at the very least because composite absolutely destroys the visual quality of those games. Ideally, you'd want component (YPbPr) for PS2 and VGA for Dreamcast.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

lohli posted:

For this if you're getting an elgato device you need the older model of the "game capture hd" which has the s-video input on it as well as the adapter cable which isn't included.
There are also various analog-to-HDMI adapter boxes that can be used to connect to the newer Elgato models. If you're only going to record Dreamcast and PS2 era stuff, a cheap converter from ebay or Amazon should be totally fine because those consoles generally output 480i/480p. Older games outputting at 240p don't look great on these converters, but 480i or higher isn't a problem.

In any case, my main point was that you should never use composite for anything because it looks like blurry rear end.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Dec 3, 2017

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

I don't remember having any issues with OBS, but early on in my GTA IV LP the lossless raws I recorded in Dxtory had a problem where the audio would drift out of sync in longer recordings. I'm sure there was an option somewhere to fix that, but since Dxtory's UI was translated by some sort of weird robot I was never quite able to find it.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Here's a test recording from my PS3, using component cables connected to an XRGB-mini Framemeister going to an Elgato HD60 via HDMI. I'll admit this is a silly setup and absolutely not what the Framemeister's meant for, but it's what I have to use at the moment because the HD60 only supports HDMI and the PS3's HDCP prevents direct HDMI recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQMbj-laMaM

I know the footage isn't perfect (the Framemeister converting the analog YPbPr signal to digital video generates some noise, and 720p isn't its strong suit in general because it was designed for older consoles), but does this at least look vaguely acceptable for some casual videos or streams? I doubt I'll be recording or streaming enough PS3 stuff to justify spending money on a component-to-HDMI converter or an HDMI splitter that can strip out HDCP.

Oh yeah, and I'm certainly not planning to LP Yakuza 4 anytime soon, I just used it for the test since it's what I've been playing.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Cyg posted:

* PlayStation 4 + Nintendo Switch (HDCP)
Does the Switch have HDCP? I've been able to record gameplay from Switch games just fine on my Elgato HD60, and all I've got is a cheap HDMI splitter that doesn't strip out HDCP (it certainly doesn't on my PS3). On the PS4, you can just turn HDCP off when you want to record.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Agent355 posted:

I bought Vegas Pro in a humble bundle and am using it to encode some video but I'm not super familiar with the program and my first whack at it ended up ugly and fuzzy. It might have been a different problem or it might've been a bad encoder. Anybody with experience that can chime in and talk about which encoder they've found to be useful?

E: in particular the part about the encoded video that I dislike is it's a pixel graphics game and it looks ugly and streaky when the character is moving quickly. Like the video equivalent of a jpg instead of a png.



Like this. I don't know what option to fiddle with to make it not do this. I've never really taken the time to learn the nitty gritty technical side of video making.
Vegas tries to force a resample filter on your video, and you can get rid of it by clicking Edit > Switches > Disable Resample. Or right-click the video and then go to Switches > Disable Resample. I don't know if that will help with your specific problem (although I do know resampling is generally bad for 2D pixel art games), but it's something you should always do regardless when using Vegas.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Ah, excellent, I've been waiting for this.

I've been paying Adobe the monthly license fee for Premiere lately because the ancient version of Vegas I bought years ago is pretty obsolete at this point, but I vastly prefer the Vegas UI over the hideous mess that is Premiere's interface (which seems like it was designed explicitly to make everything as unintuitive as possible) so a newer version of Vegas should be just the thing I need.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

One thing to remember is that the PS3 has HDCP enabled at hardware level, so if you're using HDMI you're going to need some way to strip out the HDCP if you want to record from the PS3. You can find some HDMI splitters that automatically strip HDCP, but from what I understand, manufacturers are being more careful about that nowadays (especially in the EU, where selling devices to remove HDCP is apparently against the law). So, those splitter boxes on Amazon that used to be able to strip out HDCP may have been updated in recent years and might not be able to do that anymore.

I actually use a component to HDMI converter for recording PS3 stuff, so the PS3 outputs a component signal which doesn't have any copy protection. The HDMI end is hooked up to a Micomsoft XRGB-mini Framemeister (a video scaler that's designed mostly for retro consoles but can also take HDMI sources, in this case it handles all the brightness and sharpness etc. adjustments so I don't have to mess with those in post) which is connected to my Elgato Game Capture HD60 for recording.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 21:32 on May 7, 2019

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Hamsterlady posted:

If you have to choose between 720p60 and 1080p30 which is generally preferred? I personally cannot tell the difference but I know plenty of people can and do care
I don't know what is generally preferred, but I always record at whatever frame rate the actual game runs at. So, 1080p30 for 30 fps and 1080p60 (or 720p60 in your case) for 60 fps.

You may also want to render the final videos at 1080p even if the source files are only 720p, because that means YouTube will use a higher bitrate when it compresses your video and as such is less likely to wreck the quality completely.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Geemer posted:

OBS Studio is free and can do what you want (and more). You can just set it up to do local recordings instead of streaming.
I just noticed the OP is so out of date it doesn't even mention OBS or OBS Studio. :corsair: Considering how pretty much everyone uses OBS Studio these days, it should probably be added along with Nvidia's GeForce Experience video capture (which is what I tend to prefer for PC games).

edit:

Meaty Ore posted:

How does capturing footage off an older console work? Is it as simple as plugging the console's outputs into a SD capture device hooked up to my computer, and then recording with OBS, or is there more work involved than that? I can only imagine that serious tinkering would be needed to make old low-resolution games not look like hell on modern PC monitors.
I've been meaning to write some sort of guide for this, but never seem to get around to actually doing it.

Jamesman already listed most of the options (speaking of which, the RetroN should be listed under Emulation or preferably left off the list altogether because it's just a really lovely emulation box with illegally implemented emulators) but didn't mention video scalers/line doublers such as the XRGB-mini Framemeister (which is what I use) or the Open Source Scan Converter which can convert the analog signal to digital HDMI you can then record with an HDMI capture device. These scalers are pretty expensive, but you get what you pay for. More recently, cheaper options such as the Retrotink and the RAD2X have become available but obviously don't have all the bells and whistles you can find on the more expensive devices. If you're going to use one of these things, you'll need high-quality analog cables for your system. Avoid cheap cables from no-name manufacturers because they're always of poor quality and will introduce video noise or audio buzzing, and instead opt for quality cables from Retro-Access.com or RetroGamingCables.co.uk.

Depending on the system and the scaler box you have, you'll generally want either RGB or component (YPbPr) cables. The Nintendo 64 doesn't support anything above S-Video without mods (and PAL N64 consoles don't even support that because Nintendo hated us in the 90s), and the NES can do composite video at best so you should probably just emulate that... and the TurboGrafx-16 which only supports RF! :gonk: The GameCube is a bit weird in this regard because while it does support component video, only NTSC consoles actually support 480p progressive scan and you need an expensive GameCube component cable or an HDMI solution to enable it... or just play the games on a backwards compatible Wii instead. PAL GameCubes only do 480i/576i at best without mods or homebrew solutions, which is also the case with the original Xbox in that region.

You should avoid the cheap, generic converters you can find all over Amazon and eBay for 30 bucks, especially if you're going to play games from pre-Dreamcast systems. Those systems output a video signal called 240p (not to be confused with YouTube 240p which is just lovely low-res video), and as I don't want to bore you with tech I'll just say it was more of a video trick than an actual resolution and these cheap converters hate it, as does your HDTV. They interpret the signal as interlaced 480i and attempt to deinterlace it, which of course doesn't work and ends up looking like absolute poo poo. If you ever see flashing effects behave in a weird manner, e.g. your character disappearing completely upon getting hit even though you're running the game at 60 fps, that's incorrectly handled 240p. These effects will also look wrong in a 30 fps video.

Speaking of 240p, one unfortunate issue with video scalers is the fact some games in the 32-bit era in particular tend to switch resolutions constantly, so you've got 240p gameplay and 480i menus. On a CRT display that is not an issue, as it would handle the transition seamlessly. However, in the digital realm it takes a couple of seconds to switch between modes so games like Silent Hill 1 and Chrono Cross are nearly unplayable on a Framemeister or OSSC. In those edge cases, I'd recommend emulation through either official or unofficial methods.

Another thing you most definitely should avoid are the Pound HDMI cables for various systems. They're pretty cheap and might look like an attractive option, but the actual output looks extremely poor with washed-out colors and blurry visuals.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Feb 22, 2020

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Oh yeah, it is there. Apparently I can't read. Still, the hardware and software recommendations are from 2014 and 2015 respectively!

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

I thought this might be useful to someone here so I decided to share it. Game Maker's Toolkit on YouTube just uploaded (well, just published, as these were originally uploaded last year as Patreon exclusives) a series of video editing/Premiere tutorials, which can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_vkxRSCN3zLlOGzNVAlEydG

The guide is specifically for editing video essays, but a lot of this stuff can be applied to LPs just as well.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Mar 27, 2020

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Commander Keene posted:

YouTube does bad things to video uploaded at less than 720p, and it might even be less than 1080p nowadays; they removed the "HD" thing from their 720p quality a little while ago.
It depends on the game as well. Some games will look fine at 1080p or even 720p, but others get turned into mush by the compression. I often render my videos at 1440p or higher for this reason.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

All I know is that I record my raw footage at 1080p and then render in Premiere at 1440p for less awful compression, and the end result automatically fills the 16:9 aspect ratio of 2560x1440 and looks fine on my 4K screen without any unwanted stretching or borders.

It's admittedly a rather janky solution to YouTube's compression issues, but it works well enough.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Mraagvpeine posted:

I was thinking of getting a capture card. I looked on the first page for suggestions, which I will look into, but maybe things have changed since it was last updated.
The post with the capture card suggestions was last updated in 2014 so yeah, it's very outdated at this point. I bought my capture card (the Elgato Game Capture HD60, the successor to the Elgato Game Capture HD mentioned in the post) around 2015 and it still works great, so I haven't really looked into this stuff in a while, but I know there are now many cards that can record at higher bitrates and even do 4K or HDR.

I believe the Elgato Game Capture HD60S is still considered a solid option if you just want a 1080p60 capture card.

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

Max Wilco posted:

However, I recall that the rendered quality, while not as clear as the raw video, was still pretty crisp, which makes me think it is indeed something on YouTube's end..
It almost certainly is. As I've been saying for some time now, YouTube butchers 1080p video no matter what the settings are on your end. Especially games with lots of fast movement or granular detail suffer horribly from YouTube's compression at 1080p, and the only way to get around that is to render at a higher resolution (i.e. 1440p or 4K) even if the source is only 1080p.

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.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

DMorbid
Jan 6, 2011

With our special guest star, RUSH! YAYYYYYYYYY

CatelynIsAZombie posted:

I'm in the market for an HD capable converter that could also double as rgb for older consoles. There's a million different SCART to HD converter boxes including these really expensive Retro Tink ones a lot of the cheaper ones on amazon are all over the place in terms of quality and reviews, though a common trend seems to be the suggestion they don't play too nice on stream or with a capture device inline. Retro Tink's own website warns they have no compatability with elgato cards or at least don't *guarantee* compatability. Would I be better off getting an SD cap card for older consoles and staying away from upscaling here?
As far as I'm aware, the reason RetroTINK 2X doesn't play nice with some devices is that it matches the exact output refresh rate of the console it's hooked up to. That refresh rate is often not exactly 60Hz, so the Elgato device (and some TVs) gets confused and is unable to display an image, although this only seems to apply to the original Elgato Game Capture HD - which only captures 30 fps video and has been obsolete for years - and not the later ones (See this clip of the SNES running Chrono Trigger on the 2X, for example). The new RetroTINK 5X Pro has tons more features and is much more expensive at 300 dollars, but it also has a triple buffer mode to ensure compatibility if you're having trouble.

As a general rule, stay far, far away from the cheap poo poo on Amazon if you care even slightly about image quality. Those cheap converters treat the 240p output of older consoles (everything pre-Dreamcast, basically) as regular interlaced 480i, so they try to deinterlace it and it looks like poo poo, and there'll be extra lag as well.

edit: Oh, I guess the original HD60 is also affected. I should probably upgrade before my 5X shows up, although I guess triple buffer mode should work too.

DMorbid fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 3, 2021

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply