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  1. hiya, new to ffmpeg and have no idea what im doing but would like some help to convert tga files to x264..

    if someone could even provide a link to a site to read up a little further on some of the command line functions etc, but atm need some help to get things going on tga files converting to x264 so i can edit the video in tpse or powerdirector..
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  2. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Code:
    ffmpeg -i animation001.tga -acodec libfaac -ab 96k -vcodec libx264 -vpre  slow -crf 22 -threads 0 video.mp4
    And the tga files should be named like image001.tga image002.tga etc.
    See http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful-stuff/ffmpeg-x264-encoding-guide/ for some h264 settings.


    But why would you like h264 if you are going to edit it? It's not the best for any editing...
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  3. Originally Posted by Baldrick View Post
    Code:
    ffmpeg -i animation001.tga -acodec libfaac -ab 96k -vcodec libx264 -vpre  slow -crf 22 -threads 0 video.mp4
    And the tga files should be named like image001.tga image002.tga etc.
    See http://rob.opendot.cl/index.php/useful-stuff/ffmpeg-x264-encoding-guide/ for some h264 settings.
    But why would you like h264 if you are going to edit it? It's not the best for any editing...
    what should i be encoding it to if i want lossless quality but be able to edit it in powerdirector or any other of the standard video editors, ie pinnacle studio vegas videostudio etc etc.

    i want to eventually encode it to 1920 1080 60fps, and an even higher quality version for the pc to playback on. the image files are frame captures of game demos. ive been told ffmpeg is the only real way to go for no loss of quality output without problems that other standarded encoders give.

    how does ffmpeg recognise where the files are, the image files. what are the other commands that are in there..
    what commands should i get to know to encode in lossless quality but be able to be edited in the editors..

    i dont really know much about encoding and have only really used convertxtodvd for any of my standard non hd video. i have mostly used totalvideoredo to clip footage so i dont really know what would be ideal for no loss of quality encoding/editing. where do i go from here.. a lot of reading up on ffmpeg ive been told..
    Last edited by krohm; 24th May 2010 at 00:14.
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  4. this website is a big help, reading up further now
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  5. another option is vdub, which will automatically load sequential image files , and has support for .tga

    e.g.
    0001.tga
    0002.tga

    Then use video=>frame rate (enter fps), video=>fast recompress , video=>compression and select a compression. You can use uncompressed or a lossless compression format like lagarith , or huffyuv, and this will be accepted by most editors.
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  6. when i try the above listed command,

    ffmpeg -i shot-000000.png -acodec libfaac -ab 96k -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -crf 22 -threads 0 video.mp4

    it gives the error 'file for preset crf not found'.

    it doesnt have to be x264, i just want to encode that at the end, but i want to edit it first so i should be encoding to something else right? i have installed lagarith should i encode the png's to lagarith first, edit it , then reencode to x264...

    want to edit lossless then encode x264 at the end... what command line should i use here im really struggling with all this and im constantly putting it off for days cause of this command line stuff. 2010 and we are still required to use command line software to encode videos accurately. wtf
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  7. Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    when i try the above listed command,

    ffmpeg -i shot-000000.png -acodec libfaac -ab 96k -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -crf 22 -threads 0 video.mp4

    it gives the error 'file for preset crf not found'.

    it doesnt have to be x264, i just want to encode that at the end, but i want to edit it first so i should be encoding to something else right? i have installed lagarith should i encode the png's to lagarith first, edit it , then reencode to x264...

    want to edit lossless then encode x264 at the end... what command line should i use here im really struggling with all this and im constantly putting it off for days cause of this command line stuff. 2010 and we are still required to use command line software to encode videos accurately. wtf

    If you don't like using command line, then why are you forcing yourself to use ffmpeg ?

    ffmpeg doesn't support lagarith , you could use huffyuv, however

    Hint: It's much simpler to use vdub to append the files, encode to a lossless intermediate format to edit.
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  8. ive been advised against using vdub for sequencing these images. its images from a game demo im wanting to make into a movie, ffmpeg was what i was advised to use. vdub and ffmpeg i have no idea what to do.

    all this sht is fcked. so sick of all of these bs programs. its 2010 and no one has made simple to use gui to convert everything. wtf. but command line programs work. so the code is there just no one has done it? i have no idea about all this it just seems absolutely ridiculous.

    i just want easy to follow instructions to be able to convert tga files into a lossless video that i can edit and then reencode in the editing program. im not going to be using the program for 50 other things i want to use it to do this and never see it again. you would think this would not be hard but unfortunately it is. im sure 1000's of other people just give up when people start referring them to vdub and command line programs. if someone can maybe help me in irc or via email or something maybe step by step i can work through some of this shit.
    would really appreciate it otherwise it will never get done or ill be wasting hours upon hours trying to get this working.

    there should be instructional step by steps somewhere maybe, with ffmpeg on how to convert tga's into a lossless video. im doing my fcking head in on this sht, someone please help further.... fck!
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  9. Member AlanHK's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    ive been advised against using vdub for sequencing these images. its images from a game demo im wanting to make into a movie, ffmpeg was what i was advised to use. vdub and ffmpeg i have no idea what to do.
    Ask the guy who "advised" you to use ffmpeg how to do it.
    If he can't tell you, then he obviously has no idea what he's talking about.

    Use Vdub.

    And do your cursing offline rather than making a fool of yourself and offending people who are trying to help you.
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  10. Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    all this sht is fcked. so sick of all of these bs programs. its 2010 and no one has made simple to use gui to convert everything. wtf.
    Of course not. Covering all possible input and output formats is way too much work. Even if somebody did spend all the time and money to cover all formats, somebody else would come out the next day with a new format that isn't supported. And somebody else the next day, and the next...

    Just use VirtualDub. It does exactly what you want: TGA sequence to losslessly compressed AVI.

    1) File -> Open Video File (select first TGA, rest will be appended if sequentially numbered)
    2) Video -> Compression... select codec and configure. HuffYUV or Lagarith.
    3) Video -> Save as AVI. Done.

    x264 at CRF 22 is far from lossless and will be hard to edit.
    Last edited by jagabo; 21st Jun 2010 at 08:07.
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  11. Just curious, what where the reasons against using vdub?

    Another option is to use avisynth with imagesource() to string together your images than feed that into your encoder of choice. But Vdub is by far the easiest, and no command lines to use.
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  12. just venting and speaking for the 1000's of people who agree and want a gui program to convert everything. im going through a similar issue with eac3to trying to convert dts to wav's.
    i wasnt addressing anyone so they shouldnt be offended,. its just my opinion im sure many people share.

    not sure why they recommended not using virtual dub.

    just tried that and got a video which played when loading it into an editor. it was all stuttered and didnt look smooth at all, looked terrible. i set compression to fast recompress, codec to lagarith and set framerate to 60.
    no idea what to do here. thats why im wanting to go the ffmpeg route i just have a feeling if it would work straight away. simple conversion of all tga's to a lossless video. i know thats what im instructing vdub to do its just not doing it correctly. or im doing something wrong or something. no smooth video in the output.
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  13. lagarith isn't meant to be played back in realtime; most losslessly compressed files aren't meant to be played back. huffyuv will playback faster on older systems , because it's less compressed (larger filesizes, less cpu usage)

    what is your frame size for the tga files?

    what are you computer specs and hdd setup?

    if you want to prove that vdub is doing it correctly or incorrectly, encode to something lossy like xvid , just for a test. Then play that back in a media player.

    any decent editor should be able to load .tga files directly as an image sequence. You shouldn't even have to do any of this.
    Last edited by poisondeathray; 21st Jun 2010 at 12:04.
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  14. its in super slow mode on playback
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  15. what is slow? lagarith? if it's 1920x1080p60 , you're going to be very slow unless you have high computer specs

    what was the capture fps set at? was it 60p or something higher? for example, if you captured at 120fps, but play at 60fps, it will be 1/2 speed. I'm sure you get the idea...
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  16. Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    its in super slow mode on playback
    That doesn't matter. It's not for playback. It's to give you intermediate files that are losslessy compressed and easily seekable for editing.
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  17. the res of the game i run is 1024 768 and i run the game at a frame rate of 462. i was advised to record the at 60 fps. i just tried 462 it didnt work.

    i have fairly high computer specs, core duo 3ghz, 4gig ram great gcard.
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  18. i thought it would give me a smooth video just like it is when im watching the demo. so i can edit that. thats what im wanting...
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  19. If you play at 1024x768, you should capture at that resolution, not something else.

    None of the lossless codecs are very easy to edit in realtime

    NLE's add additional overhead than a simple editor like VDUB, so playback is even slower

    1024x768p60 should be editable with a quad core and a fast multithreaded lossless codec like UT video codec or huffyuv. UT is the fastest, but a dual core might not be enough. Make sure you set up the thread decode count in the options (e.g. 4 for quad, 2 for dual, 8 for HT i7, etc...).
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  20. but if i run the game at 460 frames it will look slow and choppy if i capture at 60 right?

    so i should change from lagarith to UT video codec? or something else...
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  21. Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    but if i run the game at 460 frames it will look slow and choppy if i capture at 60 right?

    so i should change from lagarith to UT video codec? or something else...

    Try UT, because the decoding speed is way faster, like 5-10x faster, but it's less compressed (bigger filesize) and multithreaded better than lagarith

    If you capture at 60, assuming you have no frame drops, it won't look choppy because those are sampled evenly spaced in time (ie. every second of real game play is represented by 60 frames). If you have frame drops (e.g pc not fast enough, or you are HDD limited, or other bottleneck), it will stutter

    Note this is different than the example i gave above of capturing at 120 and playing back at 60. Because you have the same # of frames but are playing them at 1/2 the speed. If you capture at 60 and playback at 60, it will look normal speed (assuming no frame drops). If you capture at 120 , and select every 2nd frame (ie. discard every 2nd one), then you could playback at 60 and it will look normal speed (but there is no reason to capture 2x the number then throw away half...). Hope this isn't too confusing
    Last edited by poisondeathray; 21st Jun 2010 at 13:05.
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  22. shouldnt i just capture the ammount of frames per second i want the video to playback in. which would be 60 right...

    if i capture more frames then it would be smoother so i would want to capture as many as possible, which would be what the game is run in no?

    i think i understand. although maybe not

    no x64 for UT , so huffyuv?
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  23. Originally Posted by krohm View Post
    shouldnt i just capture the ammount of frames per second i want the video to playback in. which would be 60 right...

    if i capture more frames then it would be smoother so i would want to capture as many as possible, which would be what the game is run in no?

    i think i understand. although maybe not
    yes, you should use 60, because that's what your final goal is

    higher fps would be more smoother, but not of any use if you're planning on a 60fps video

    no x64 for UT , so huffyuv?
    yes , there is a x64 version of ut
    http://umezawa.dyndns.info/archive/utvideo/utvideo-7.1.1-x64.msi
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  24. Your monitor probably only displays 60 frames per second. You never seen anything faster than that on the screen. If your game is generating 460 frames per second you are only seeing about every 7th or 8th frame.
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  25. which version of ut codec should i select in vdub,..

    so how will the video look at 60fps as opposed to in game. will it still be smooth,?

    if i wanted more then 60 frames i could only view it on pc then not on any other format..

    my monitor runs at 154hz with those 462 fps so its smooth
    its a desired setting for the game at 1024 768, much testing
    Last edited by krohm; 21st Jun 2010 at 14:37.
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  26. In games, the minimum FPS is the most important. The max is useless, and the average almost useless. The min FPS determines how choppy or playable it is. When you are in a very intense scene, the frame rates will usually drop.

    While 462 is a nice multiple of 154, very rarely will you ever get an exact constant 462fps, unless you're playing something like a turn based game


    Just curious, what monitor do you have that can run at 154hz?
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  27. the fps never drops below 462. it is constant. it doesnt even drop on higher fps settings.

    sony trinitron g520. 21" crt. i run windows at 1600 1200 at 100hz and this game at 154hz at 1024 768 at 462 fps.

    which UT option do i select under compression?
    i selected yuv422 (ULY2)x86,
    Last edited by krohm; 21st Jun 2010 at 14:47.
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  28. What game are you playing? Can't be an FPS (I mean first person shooter this time, not frames per second )game . Although at that low res, I suppose it's possible depending what options you have turned on

    which UT option do i select under compression?
    You want RGB, frame divide count 2 for dual core (4 for quad, 8 for HT i7 etc...), optimize for decoding (predict left)
    Last edited by poisondeathray; 21st Jun 2010 at 14:47.
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  29. it is a fps, almost all options are turned on.

    RGB (ULRG)x86
    RGBA (ULRA)x86

    ?
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  30. it is a fps, almost all options are turned on.

    RGB (ULRG)x86
    RGBA (ULRA)x86

    ?
    RGB only , The "A" in RGBA is for alpha channel
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