ffmpeg tga to x264 command line ?

[krohm]

ive been changing fast recompress

frame rate, source rate adjustment to 60 and set the compression to UT RGB and just outputted the avi and it has given me slow clips for a little bit, then black, then what seemed to be a few milliseconds of smooth speed, then the rest black frames. that was the output avi.

[krohm]

i feel like im back at the start with the correct codec but still nowhere close to getting a lossless avi out of this
might have to try again tomorrow or something its after 4am

[poisondeathray]

if ive captured 60 fps i dont need to set the fps in virtualdub?

yeah you do. it's an image sequence, so you have to set the fps. This is true for every program that handles image sequences, even NLE's, compositors, ffmpeg, avisynth etc...

ive been changing source rate adjustment to 60?
with process all frames on.
and fast recompress?


this is correct right?

yes

wouldnt i just want a direct stream copy? and not to change the frames per second cause ive been capturing 60fps of tgas?

you can't direct stream copy, because you have TGA files. You can't wrap TGA into .AVI container

some of the frames seem to be black frames?

Check the corresponding .tga files in an image viewer ; i.e. is the source black? or is it a decoding problem ? I suspect it's recorded like that (maybe you system couldn't keep up ?)

Can you scrub in vdub and see the black frames?

i just tried this with RGB compression, gave me slow clips for a little bit, then black, then what seemed to be a few milliseconds of smooth speed, then the rest black frames. that was the output avi.

You can get more speed by using YV12 colorspace 4:2:0 sampling, but there is quality loss. If your final format is x264, it will be 4:2:0 chroma sampling anyway so you will have to incur that loss at some point anyway. The problem is that if your editor works in RGB (Most do) , you will incur an extra colorspace conversion

i feel like im back at the start with the correct codec but still nowhere close to getting a lossless avi out of this
might have to try again tomorrow or something its after 4am

Check to see if your source tga files are ok, I suspect they are corrupt

[krohm]

in vdub it freezes on 94, black frames

[krohm]

some are corrupt then heaps arent, why wouldnt it capture them all

the command line gives tga, you just set the output directory the demo_capture_fps to 60 and set the time to record

[poisondeathray]

what program/app are you using to capture ?

are you capturing on a different physical HDD ? if not, you may be transfer limited

have you tried fraps ? new versions have a lossless RGB mode , and the .avi can open directly in vdub or other NLE's

[krohm]

ive used fraps before but it never gave a smooth output. havent used it recently

the game itself has a command line to capture at 60fps tga files.

when i select to start the capture the game just moves along really slowly as if its capturing until i press stop;.

but yeah in game it appears to be capturing the frames as it plays along slowly. but yeah doesnt seem to capture them all, and the avi output plays back small ammounts but its all labored and jerky

[poisondeathray]

what game title? maybe you can visit their forum for better feedback

it could be any of those reasons (system not up to par, storage I/O limited)

each 1024x768 tga will take up about 2.25MB. 60fps means ~135MB/s , so unless you have a SSD's or some HDDs in RAID0, you will have frame drops which could explain your bad frames. Unless you have a separate storage setup, I suspect you are storage I/O limited for both fraps and this in game capture

[krohm]

just tried fraps it gave me 60 fps avi output straight away. it seemed jerky as fck though, not smooth at all.
its bmp frame capturing
tried to increase it to 462 just to see, recorded at 95 and output was again jerky and not smooth

[poisondeathray]

just tried fraps it gave me 60 fps avi output straight away. it seemed jerky as fck though, not smooth at all.

jerky when playing or during playback?

were there dropped frames?

how do you have your storage/ HDDs setup?

sounds to me like you need to upgrade your rig or capture with less intensive settings

[krohm]

with the tga command line 60fps it takes minutes to capture seconds.. and doesnt seem to capture them all and the playback is non existent at this point

with fraps the playback of the avi and demo capturing seems to be 60fps but still jerky as sht, not smooth at all
you seem to be able to get 90 frames but its still really poor quality. the frames drop to 77, seem to be able to record 77 stable. and these are 1gig 30 second clips...
how different would these be to doing it with virtual dub 60fps? same type of output? is it my pc bottlenecking the frame recording?

if i wanted the same quality as viewing the demo in game i would have to record 462 frames and have like a 50gig file and need a beast of a computer to be able to record that high right?

[poisondeathray]

with the tga command line 60fps it takes minutes to capture seconds.. and doesnt seem to capture them all and the playback is non existent at this point

with fraps the playback of the avi and demo capturing seems to be 60fps but still jerky as sht, not smooth at all
you seem to be able to get 90 frames but its still really poor quality. the frames drop to 77, seem to be able to record 77 stable. and these are 1gig 30 second clips...
how different would these be to doing it with virtual dub 60fps? same type of output? is it my pc bottlenecking the frame recording?

if i wanted the same quality as viewing the demo in game i would have to record 462 frames and have like a 50gig file and need a beast of a computer to be able to record that high right?

Yes it seems like you have bottlenecks, either storage or cpu, both recording and playback

What do you mean by poor quality for the fraps? The fraps should be lossless quality, I suspect it's just that you can't handle the playback so it looks choppy. If you can capture 77fps and never dip below 60, that's sufficient for capture

If it was recorded properly and just a playback issue you can prove it. Do a simple test, encode fraps capture clip that to something you can handle - like xvid and play that back.

When you edit, it's not going to be fun with your current setup. You will have to render preview everything

[krohm]

i have multiple terrabyte drives. i got fraps and the command line to write the files to my non c: drive.

cpu is 3ghz duel processor. why is it not smooth sht quality at 77fps recording with fraps. and 1gig files! after i encode them they will look like lego blocks dancing around

[poisondeathray]

i have multiple terrabyte drives. i got fraps and the command line to write the files to my non c: drive.

were the HDD's setup in a RAID0 array or JBOD ?

if RAID0, that should eliminate any potential I/O bottlenecks , unless they are full capacity or fragged up

1GB per 30 sec clip for FRAPS only requires 33.3MB/s transfer speed, so that should be no problem

cpu is 3ghz duel processor. why is it not smooth sht quality at 77fps recording with fraps. and 1gig files! after i encode them they will look like lego blocks dancing around

was your game lego batman videogame or something sorry bad joke

something is wrong with your fraps then. Maybe try the non-lossess mode

I don't know why the capture is corrupted, maybe you have a bad memory stick?

[krohm]

the hdd's are not setup in any raid configuration.

the 77 constant fps for fraps isnt too bad. it is still jerky and is definately far from smooth. but these are 1 gig files for 30 seconds! 10 mins worth and its 20gig! if i ever wanted to convert it the quality would get butchered...

[poisondeathray]

if i ever wanted to convert it the quality would get butchered...

You're using RGB mode (4:4:4) in intraframe mode . Most viewing formats are YV12 (4:2:0) and use interframe long GOP compression. They subsample the chroma and use better compression. It won't "butcher the quality" if you use a decent bitrate and encoder settings with x264. 1GB for 30sec is about 273Mb/s video bitrate. I am willing to bet you can easily get ~8-10x compression. The colors detail won't be as crisp, but it will be hardly noticable at playback especially if this is a shooter game. You can only see the difference if you pixel peep on individual frames.

Now is each frame ok? i.e. can you step through a single frame in vdub and is it lossless, or pixellated like lego blocks? or was your lego comment referring to playback cadence only?

You can set fraps to capture at 60. Not dropping frames is more crucial than recording corrupted .tga files

[krohm]

the capture command still isnt capturing properly so i havent been able to load the tga's into vdub and output anything effectively.

fraps captures at 77 or 60 lossless but it still doesnt look the best. the outputs are 1gig for 30 seconds, so what a 10 min clip 20 gig could be reduced to 200mb without that much of a quality decrease?

the 77 was fairly different to the 60 fps even. and ild want to capture at 60 fps to output to a viewing format right.. the 60 doesnt look that good. decreased quality for the viewing format conversion i imagine would make it even worse.

if i was capturing the tga's and loading in vdub lossless then conversion would it be smoother/better than fraps...

[poisondeathray]

fraps captures at 77 or 60 lossless but it still doesnt look the best.

is each frame perfectly lossless and you have playback issues? or is each frame quality not lossless? when you say it doesn't look the best are you referring to playback smoothness? i.e. step through a single frame in vdub, does it look ok?

so what a 10 min clip 20 gig could be reduced to 200mb without that much of a quality decrease?

no, about 20GB=>2GB is a 10x reduction, not 200MB which is a 100x . If your gameplay was more like sitting & sniper footage with very little movement, you could get better compression. That's how the long GOP formats work, they code the differences between frames. If you have lots of explosions and movement, it will require more bitrate for a certain level of quality

[krohm]

i mean the playback of the fraps output file isnt that great at 60fps. 77 is ok. but still what your saying is any type of good quality is going to be a massive file for 10 mins and still wont be that great or smooth if lots of explosions and movement etc. so essentially you are unable to get a good conversion going....

[krohm]

i gotta sleep its past 7 in the morning. thanks heaps for your constant assistance pdr, you always seem to be in my posts trying to help me understand/work a lot of this vid editing stuff out. all new to me and is all very complicated and difficult when you dont want quality loss.

if frame capturing and inserting into vdub isnt going to produce any better results then fraps 60 fps capturing im not going to waste my time with it.

ill maybe keep fraps and see if i can encode some edited up clips see how it turns out but from what your saying essentially if there is a lot of explosions movements any type of conversion is going to produce unsmooth results. considering i think the 77fps 1gig 30 second clips are unsmooth the 60fps 10 minute 2gig or less clips are going to be even worse i dont think its worth it at this point. like i said ill try fraps out see how it goes. but unless vdub is better or there is some other way of doing this i think im going to abandon this one... any feedback further assistance thoughts etc ill check this thread tomorrow,, cheers again..

[poisondeathray]

i mean the playback of the fraps output file isnt that great at 60fps. 77 is ok. but still what your saying is any type of good quality is going to be a massive file for 10 mins and still wont be that great or smooth if lots of explosions and movement etc. so essentially you are unable to get a good conversion going....

I think you are misunderstanding me.

My comments on the explosions etc.. are for Long GOP formats. You are capturing in I-frame only format. Everyframe is a keyframe.

Maybe your setup can't handle fraps playback for lossless full res at 60fps. Try 1/2 resolution or lower fps and see if that helps

A higher fps will only be smoother for playback if your setup can handle it. 77fps will be jerkier than 60fps if your setup cant even handle 60fps in the first place, because there will be even more dropped frames. I hope that makes sense.

if frame capturing and inserting into vdub isnt going to produce any better results then fraps 60 fps capturing im not going to waste my time with it.

it should be worse, because image readers are usually slower than reading a video. Also the data rates are much higher if my math above was correct - ~135MB/s which will exceed a HDD transfer I/O rate

[jagabo]

my monitor runs at 154hz with those 462 fps so its smooth
its a desired setting for the game at 1024 768, much testing

Then you're only seeing one out of every three frames.

You should look at capturing at 30.8 fps (154/5) for smooth playback. Maybe 38.5 (154/4). Of course they won't be smooth for anyone else because most people run 60 Hz displays. And if you plan on uploading to Youtube or something they'll reduce the frame rate to 30 fps or less.

[poisondeathray]

Also, maybe instead of playing a constant 462fps, you could play a constant 154fps, that way more resources could be allocated to capturing instead of gameplay. I'm not sure if you can set it up that way. Maybe you wouldn't drop frames if you did that. Maybe your tga captures would work?

I've never seen a game play at a constant fps, unless there was a cap or the graphics were weak and you always have the max fps. There are always bumps

[jagabo]

Yes, there's no point in rendering frames faster than they are displayed. No matter how fast the frames are rendered you will only see 154 different frames per second on a 154 Hz display. Unless you turn off vertical sync, in which case you will only part of each frame with severe tearing.

[El Heggunte]

I think I have 2 cents to give.

FRAPS, or any other screen capture application, will ALWAYS reduce the playback speed of a video game to some extent. Besides, if one can tolerate, or accept, a DVD or BD movie at 29.97fps, I don't understand what is the problem in capturing a PC game at 29.97fps...

And as playing a game + capturing + compressing IS very resource-intensive, you shouldn't forget to turn-off everything that might steal CPU-cycles from the task you're interested in. Disable anti-virus, firewalls, internet connection, unneeded services ("help and support", printing spooler, automatic updates, insecurity central, system restore), stupid tray icons, etc etc etc, and t-r-y a-g-a-i-n.

[krohm]

Yes, there's no point in rendering frames faster than they are displayed. No matter how fast the frames are rendered you will only see 154 different frames per second on a 154 Hz display. Unless you turn off vertical sync, in which case you will only part of each frame with severe tearing.

vertical sync is of course off. there is no tearing with 154hz at 462fps and there is no dropping of frames at all.

[krohm]

im on windows 7 i dont run anti virus software or firewalls or have anything in my system tray or anything. i will try and playback the game at 154 fps or 308 or something and see if this helps the 60 fps capture in fraps..

but as opposed to trying to capture the tgas with the command line, what kind of result will fraps produce at 60fps as opposed to command line tga 60fps grabbing then processing in vdub.. should i have been trying fraps from the get go or should i perservere with command line/vdub processing....

[krohm]

i think pdr kind of answered that above in terms of quality and size output etc. i will try variations of fps in game, 154 308 etc and see if that alters the fraps capture at 60fps. as i said above though the fraps does capture 77 constant fps with no dropping, even in the action and its still rather jerky so maybe the fps of the game is affecting it. ill try some different game playbacks and try some diff recording see how i go

[jagabo]

Yes, there's no point in rendering frames faster than they are displayed. No matter how fast the frames are rendered you will only see 154 different frames per second on a 154 Hz display. Unless you turn off vertical sync, in which case you will only part of each frame with severe tearing.

vertical sync is of course off. there is no tearing with 154hz at 462fps and there is no dropping of frames at all.

Perhaps you'd like to explain how a monitor that only has the ability to display 154 images per second is displaying 462 images per second.

By the way, if you're still using Lagarith, be sure you enable the multithreading option.

[El Heggunte]

"Jerky 60fps" might mean FRAPS is "capturing the wrong frames"... ???
<CONSPIRACY>
Maybe the game itself was hard-coded to skrew FRAPS's performance
</CONSPIRACY>

"Excepting myself, everybody is guilty until proven otherwise."