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

ZombieIsland posted:

What is the best Capture Card for streaming? I've been thinking about the Elgato, but I'm not very knowledgeable about Capture Cards.

Edit : Mainly games for PS3 and Xbox 360

Elgato indeed works well enough for streaming. You can stream directly through Elgato's software or you can connect it through OBS.

Edit: VVV
I completely forgot that VAC was part of my stream set up. If you're streaming solo, you don't have to worry about this. Otherwise, you'll need to get VAC, wire your microphone and Skype output to the same line-cable somehow.

Also, the play on a TV thing is a caveat with most, if not all HD capture devices because they all do H264 encoding before streaming the output to your capture software, so there isn't much you can do about it.

ChaosArgate fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 10, 2014

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 21:36

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:40

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

salttotart posted:

Well, it finally happened. After several wonderful years of use, my Hauppage HD PVR died. This is not the gaming edition, the original beast. A moment of silence...

With that out of the way, I need recommendations. I see all of the HD Capture Devices in the OP, but I have no idea which one is the best. I would like one that isn't as bulky as the HD PVR if possible. So, what is everyone using and like?

I see the suggestions above, but I do both streaming and recording. Is the Elgato good for both?

EDIT: I record both 360 and PS3. The Elgato says it works with PS3, but isn't the HDMI signal encrypted to stop proper recording? The wasn't a problem with my previous set-up since it went through component cables.

Elgato's a good option. It does record 360 and PS3 (and PC, if your PC can output through HDMI), although you're going to either have to use component or the special PS3 cable that comes with the device (it's recognized as component, so it's kind of the same) to record off the PS3 because the PS3 is HDCP encrypted so nothing will be able to record HDMI off that without stripping the HDCP.

As an aside, does anyone know what Youtube's 1080p bitrate is?

FakeEdit:

MEAT! posted:

From what I can tell from recent trends, your best bet is with either the hd pvr 2 gaming edition plus or the elgato HD. Both are pretty tiny.

Edit: The elgato comes with a special cable specifically for the PS3/PS4.

Don't forget the Hauppauge Rocket, which is their answer to Elgato's portable HD capture device! :v:

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 04:29

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

TheBrigand posted:

Okay, resized it to 16:9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydx0d5kUMn4

How does it look?

You mean 1280x720 in the description, right? That looks pretty good to me.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 04:41

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

VivaVizer posted:

According to Wikipedia, 4 mbps for non-DASH and even lower for DASH. I know when I used to download from Youtube, it was around 4.5 to 5 mbps.

Either way, it is too low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#endnote_media_type_table_note_2

Oh cool, I guessed it'd be around 4 mbps when I was playing with MeGUI for a 1080p encode last night. I guess I'll keep that preset as is then. :v:

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 18:02

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

Genocyber posted:

Does anyone have experience with using ezcap.tv capture device? I'm looking into that since I want to stream ps3 but can't really afford an hd capture device (and I don't have an hd TV so it'd be useless anyway).

How much are you willing to spend? Here's one that's around $40 and from a reputable brand.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036VO2BI/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_zMuatb002V7PX

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 00:29

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

MEAT! posted:

Jesus Christ. Ok, you can't stream in HD if you don't get an HD capture device. Think about it. The hauppauge usb-live is an SD capture device, so that's not going to help you. The EZCAP is loving garbage even if you only want to record in SD. If you want to do anything in HD but you aren't willing to spend 150-200 bucks on an HD capture device you're poo poo out of luck.

Actually, reading off that post it sounds more like he was trying to qualify his lack of desire to stream in HD.

Genocyber posted:

e: If I were to use that, what cables would I need to output the ps3 to both TV and laptop?

You would want a PS3 S-video cable for the best quality output for your stream and you would also want 3 composite splitter cables and a dual ended composite cable.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 15:17

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

Head Hit Keyboard posted:

So I have some DS footage, what's the best way to take screenshots and crop away the unneeded screens? Is there a decent/semi-automated/not painstaking way?

I used Media Player Classic/VLC to grab screenshots when I tried doing an sslp, but you can also use virtualdub. Use Irfanview's batch process tool to automatically crop and resize your screenshots. It will take seconds once you have it down.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 19:25

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

Sylphid posted:

I have a commentary video I did with another goon that I would really not be comfortable uploading and sharing if it wasn't for the last bit, but our reactions in the commentary while we were watching it made the whole thing worth it and I'd really like to keep the audio, but not video.

So, I was wondering if there was a way I could edit the video so the last bit of the video we watched was cut, but the commentary we did over it remained. What would I need to do that? Could that be done in MeGUI or would I need another program?

I would guess you can trim the video from start to just before this thing you don't want shown and then just fill the rest with black in AVISynth.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 04:37

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

your evil twin posted:

I'm planning on LPing a game that doesn't have any subtitles, and I'm thinking of actually adding some myself. Anyone got any recommendations for good fonts?

The game is a sci-fi game with a Soviet/Russian theme, though of course I don't want to do something really gimmicky that is hard to read.

As for actually creating subtitles... I use Sony Vegas to edit and render my videos (specifically Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10.0). I was surprised to discover that Vegas doesn't actually have some built in "subtitles" feature, rather you do it by creating lots of text boxes and positioning them at the bottom of the screen. Seems like it would be a bit of a chore... but checking the guides here and in various places it seems the alternative is to create subtitles in notepad, manually type in time codes for the start and stop of every subtitle, and turn the notepad into a subtitle file. (Alternatively, use Audaciter to create a subtitle file.)

And then I'd import that subtitle file into virtualdub, and then render the video using virtualdub... and then load THAT video into sony vegas to do my editing and to render it as an mp4 file. So... yeah I'm thinking just creating a whole bunch of text boxes in Vegas might not be such a chore after all. Just wondering if I'm missing something or if the subtitle advice is now very out-of-date.

What you can do in Vegas is make a preset for your subtitles where the text is already at the bottom of the screen with the font and size you want it at. I can't remember how to do that off the top of my head, but it makes subtitling a lot easier. As for subtitle fonts, just don't do anything obnoxious and you should be fine.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 01:51

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

Huh, when you mention that it used to be a video host, suddenly being restricted to 15 mb images sounds pretty awful.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 03:59

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

Premiere isn't too bad an option and it won't hurt your wallet too much since it's a monthly subscription fee of $20 to use it now instead of paying like $700 overall for it.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 20:04

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

Highwang posted:

For anyone that uses Adobe Premiere Pro, is there a certain bitrate zone where the quality benefit tapers off? I usually put my target zone at 8mbps but I'm wondering if that's overkill.

It depends on your target resolution, but you really should just use Debugmode Frameserver to frameserve your project to MeGUI for encoding. I find Premiere's encoder bloats filesizes for no particular reason compared to MeGUI or Vegas's encoder.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 01:54

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

It depends. Encoding is very CPU intensive, so if you were just web browsing, you'd be ok, but if you wanted to load up a game on Steam, you'd probably run into issues because there's not enough power for either the game nor the encoding process.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 05:22

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

Artix posted:

So I'm looking for something that can record off my PS3. I need to be able to record in HD, and I was looking through the wiki at some of the recording hardware. I'm leaning toward the HD PVR2, but I figured it was worth asking if anything was a better option. Thoughts?

The Elgato Game Capture HD works pretty similarly and is a lot smaller and doesn't need a power source! It's a little more expensive however. Hauppauge also makes a similar device, but it's even more expensive than Elgato's, so the HD PVR2 is the cheapest option.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 02:09

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

Arcsoft is awful, but they've phased it out in favor of their own software that, according to Admiral H. Curtiss, is terribly designed. Elgato's main selling point is simplicity; it's lightweight, easy to use and it looks fantastic.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 02:20

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

JordanKai posted:

Hey TSF, I need some video help.

This is a screenshot of footage I recorded from Super Mario Sunshine, which is of course a Gamecube game. Being that I am a dirty European the only resolutions I can record Gamecube games in are 480i(Gamecube) or 576i(Wii). 480p is simply not an option available to me.

I don't know a lot about video or broadcasting standards, but from what I understand this kind of heavy ghosting is caused by i-resolutions. So seeing as there is no way for me to prevent this before recording, I was wondering if there was a way to fix it in post. I tried looking around for anti-ghosting filters or resample disabling filters for AVIsynth and VirtualDub, but no dice.

Anyone know a solution to this problem?

If that's frame blending, it might be your de-interlacing. Try using YADIF on it.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2014 12:57

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

Alan Smithee posted:

Can anyone recommend a good capture card that is usable for both PS3/360? Budget wise within 200, I don't know if you even get significant quality or features above that

I'm new to capture cards so go easy on me.

The Elgato Game Capture is a popular one and hovers around the 150-180 range. There's also the Happauge HD PVR 2, which is a little cheaper but isn't as popular because the capture suite it comes with is apparently awful. If you don't care for an HD device, try the Happauge SD device or a Dazzle.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 04:37

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

BMS posted:

So are most of the complaints with the Hauppauge HD PVR2 capture suite mostly for those that try to stream with it, or is it just in general a pretty poo poo program, even for simple recording?

The only reason I ask is that I'm in the market for a good HD Capture device for the PS3 for a Lords of Shadow LP, was about to just buy a HD PVR2 from Amazon, but had the little lightbulb go off that told me to check the Tech Support Fort. So after reading a bit here, I'm stumped. I have NO experience with capture card devices whatsoever.

The Elgato is approx. $20 more expensive than the Hauppauge, BUT is it's capture software easier to use...so much that it'd be worth the extra ?

For that matter, from everything I've read, I'm assuming there is no program/device that allows for a 1080i/p recording from the PS3?

Apologize for the bland questions, as I mentioned I have absolutely no experience with recording with a capture device as of yet.

My friend has an HD PVR2 and it was a bitch and a half to set up, software included. Also, my friend's HD PVR2 doesn't work with Component or Composite for some reason. :20bux:

more will give you a device that not only has easier to use software, but also is easier to set up and works with those input types, along with HDMI. The Elgato also doesn't need an external power source, being powered entirely by USB if you were looking to save some power. Also, there aren't many games that display in 1080p on PS3, so you don't really need to worry about that. The Elgato comes with a cable you can plug right into your PS3 to go directly to the device, but it's essentially just a specialized Component cable.

...man I'm feeling like a big shill for Elgato after recommending it here so much.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 12:57

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

BMS posted:

Hey don't sweat it. I appreciate the hell out of it! Went and took a look at the Elgato website. I was curious as to whether or not it was delay free, and it is. Plus, it seems to be a much smaller device than the Hauppauge as well. Very cool. I had no idea this even existed until a few moments ago when I read through here.

Given all that I read from the website, plus the posts here in the TSF, I'm pretty much sold, unless there's some type of significant negative aspect to this. $179, while pricey (my budget anyways) seems like a good deal as long as it will last, is easy to use, and isn't cheaply made. Appreciate the recommendation!

I think all capture devices are delay free, although they won't be if you're trying to play through the recording software. There is most certainly a few seconds' delay if you're doing that because it has to encode the video so it's not massive. The delay-free part comes from using the passthrough to your TV so you can play your game as usual and record at the same time.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 15:50

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

Huh. Well you'll want a TV with HDMI for the HD PVR or Elgato. Avermedia seems to be lagfree if you wanna try that.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 22:00

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

AVIsource is for AVI files, ffmpegsource2 is for everything else. _{Import is for AVS files.}

# ¿ Mar 8, 2014 01:38

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

Artix posted:

Alright, so I've done a test recording and a few edits, and now I'm ready to encode. Is there a particular bitrate or quality setting to shoot for with 720p footage? Obviously I'm going to experiment up and down a little bit, but I was just wondering if there was a good place to start.

Youtube's bitrate for 720p playback is around 2000, so if you want to keep sizes low, aim for around there. If not, 3000-4000 will still look nice.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2014 03:28

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

Can Foobar2000 recognize .RAW files? If it can, you can most likely use its batch conversion tool on your stuff.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 10:43

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

gatz posted:

That didn't work for some reason. I'm not a programmer so I can't tell you why it's putting .raw after the first .raw and .wav.

Try editing your .cmd so that instead of %~f1.raw or %~f1.wav, it just says %~f1.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 18:37

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

TARDISman posted:

I recently picked up an Elgato GameCapture and I'm looking to stream along with a Skype conversation. Is there a simple way to go about doing this?

Use VAC and wire your microphone and system audio to a virtual line in cable.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 02:16

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

Are you running Game Capture HD at the same time? One thing I always have to remind myself is to have the usb cable plugged in and set Game Capture HD to PS3 mode so it's not looking for HDMI input.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 10:32

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

Alan Smithee posted:

Do you mean the software itself? Nothing comes through either way, neither on the monitor nor on the software side (which I tried doing on my macbook)

edit: So I went into the GC HD software, it gives me "no signal" by default but when I change input to PS3 it will show a black screen but theoretically it's getting something I guess?

This is when I have an HDMI going from the PS3 to the HDMI In port on the Elgado, and the usb going from the Elgado to my macbook, otherwise it defaults to no signal without the HDMI In to PS3

Ok, having it set to PS3 is good. The problem though, is that the PS3 can't output HDMI to a capture device because it has HDCP protection so you need to have it outputting component.

_{_{_{Also it's Elgato, not Elgado. It's right there on the capture device.}}}

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 12:01

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

You want this:

http://salp.wikia.com/wiki/Basics_on_editing_in_Adobe_Premiere_Pro

Particularly part 3. The default encoder is poo poo so the idea is either export to a lagarith encoded AVI and then re-encode in MeGUI or just frameserve directly to MeGUI with Debugmode Frameserver.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 21:14

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

slowbeef posted:

Didn't work, though Yadiv(Mode=3) + SelectOdd() made it look the closest to normal (but still really weird).

Projected filesize 666 GB? Yikes. Uh, I guess I have to look into this frameserver business!

http://salp.wikia.com/wiki/Basics_on_editing_in_Adobe_Premiere_Pro

Check out section 3.

Here's a link to the frameserver Cknoor mentioned in that guide.

http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 21:58

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

Loki_XLII posted:

It's not that I don't want to use it, It's just that I didn't realize it existed, and I've already downloaded Xsplit. If somebody can do a quick salespitch of OBS, I'd absolutely download it in a second, I just have no idea what I'm doing and don't really know the differences between the two.

And the documentation I found online wasn't super helpful. It seems straightforward enough, but I want to check here to make sure I'm not being an idiot before I find out the hard way.

Just use OBS, it's free, the majority of goons here use it and XSplit's security has been compromised before.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 02:41

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

Suspicious Dish posted:

Make sure your co-commentator can actually say the word "sync" on time. I've had a few that were like "3 2 1 Sync....... ..... .... sync!"

Is it seriously that hard? Come on man...

It might be Skype delay. It's still not too hard to line up properly.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 10:52

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

Loki_XLII posted:

Okay, without changing the aspect ratio, and just doing a window capture, how do I avoid black bars?

You could try resizing the OBS scene so that the bars are offscreen? Can you provide a picture of what it looks like?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 20:33

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

The best way to do it is to have everyone locally record their audio because call recording is kind of awful.I'm not too sure what can be done about the recorded audio, sadly.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 18:05

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

Instant Grat posted:

The thing is, most devices I've looked at only accept HDMI as input/provide it as output, so I was wondering if there were any decent ones that do component passthrough?

I think you want the HD PVR 1, yeah. Most of the ones on the market now only have HDMI passthrough.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 00:51

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

DarkHamsterlord posted:

I'm looking into the Elgato, but I want to confirm something before I make a decision.

Their website says it comes with a "Component Adapter," but doesn't give any more details on it. Am I correct in thinking it's a little cord that will allow me to plug in component cables and capture HD footage (including audio) from them? I want something with both HDMI and component support, and I want to make sure I won't get stuck without any way to record component input if I get this.

That is exactly right.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 20:07

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

So, anyone who's familiar with Debugmode Frameserver and Premiere, does anyone know why Premiere doesn't let me export again after exporting with DMFS? Normally, I can get around it by restarting Premiere, but now it's kinda stuck and refuses to bring up the export menu unless I move the DMFS plugin out from the directory.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 04:01

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

Highwang posted:

Anyone here good with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6? I kinda need some help with my LP.

The RE:Rev LP is pretty much done aside from editing, but my co-commentator and I want to do something dumb with webcams in the debrief. I don't exactly know how to pin an image to a moving object however, so can anyone detail or link a tutorial on the process for Premiere Pro?

My only alternative is to buy a new face, but I'm not YT famous yet.

You'd want to look into motion tweening and keyframing. I don't have the time right now to write up a guide, but I might in a few hours. Google those two things if you wanna give self-learning a go.

Edit: VVV Listen to the Judge. That is basically how you wanna do it.

ChaosArgate fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Apr 18, 2014

# ¿ Apr 18, 2014 00:38

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

If you have a capture device that uses HDMI input, you can always wire your PC through that.

# ¿ May 11, 2014 11:20

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

majormonotone posted:

Is there a good composite splitter? I want something that takes in composite video and allows me to output it to two screens. Preferably something powered.

When I used an SD capture device, I used cheap, $3 splitters from Radio Shack and that did the job pretty well. The cable from the game system would go into one end of the splitter, which itself is plugged into the capture device. The free end of the splitter cable then goes to your other screen.

Here's a crude ASCII diagram of my setup.

code:

 Screen<-<-\
           Splitter--->-->Capture Device
Console->->/

# ¿ May 22, 2014 04:17

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:40

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

Zinkraptor posted:

This seems like an obvious question, but I'm actually having a lot of trouble finding an answer for it. If I'm doing a console LP and I need to hear the game audio, how do I best make sure that it doesn't interfere with the recording? The two most obvious solutions seem to be to A)mute the game audio from the capture device and just allow the game audio to be recorded over my microphone (which would be very low quality) or B) overlap the game audio from the capture device and the game audio picked up from the microphone (which would likely cause other audio issues). Any suggestions? How do you guys handle this issue?

I usually keep my audio low enough so that I can hear it and it barely gets caught by the microphone, but you could also try listening through your game audio through headphones, if you can figure out a good way to do that. Overlapping might not be a bad idea and it would help sync up the audio, so give that a shot and see if there's any major issues with that idea.

# ¿ May 28, 2014 15:39

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

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