Video Conversions for Uploading

[David Bethel]

Greetings,

I create walkthru animations with uncompressed CG TGA files ( resized in VirtualDub ) in an AVI contianer uploaded to YouTube. Max 20GB

Q : Is there real any advantage to converting the AVI into another format / codedec prior to uploading to YouTube ( or any video site for that matter ) ?

It is my understanding that they are compressing / converting to their own format regardless.

I would think it would only degrade the final product.

TIA -David

[sneaker]

As you said: Youtube always converts anyways.

Only pros for converting:
- faster upload
- (possibly) faster conversion on the youtube side

Of course then the question is what is faster? That you have to test yourself.


Some services other than Youtube may allow upload without re-encoding in specific cases.

[David Bethel]

Seeing how I am not very good with avisynth and everything else is done in single VirtuaDub session ( open the 1st TGA file, load saved settings, saveas AVI ), maybe it's better to stay with what I have.

As far as upload speed, it's not a high priority for me. Smoothness and sharp images are more about what I'm after.

Thanks! -David

[SameSelf]

You stated you are uploading uncompressed TGA files as AVI. That is the gold standard for those who can afford the bandwidth. My only question is what are you resizing to? Hopefully youtube is hosting your 4K uploads.

[tugshank]

not sure if you'll encounter this, but i once tried uploading a measly 50 mb mp4 which would never finish uploading. weird right?

anyway, remedy was encoding:
- in mkv (h264+aac) - highest quality you want
- small gop size of 15 and
- -movflags faststart (ffmpeg)

[David Bethel]

I'm going from 1536x864 to 1280x720

I'm on Verison FIOS 85MB

YouTube hasn't balked at anything that I've tried to upload so far. The longest is still under 2 minutes

Thanks! -David

[poisondeathray]

I remember your autocad walkthough animations thread from a few years ago

I checked out your recent upload on YT, and I would recommend that you increase your antialiasing settings . For animations, "sharper" is not necessarily better . The aliasing causes flickering which is very distracting - arguably it's "less smooth" . Proper AA will help your quality more than anything else including what format / compression to upload . It actually helps with compression (flickering edges impair temporal compression efficiency)

To get AA from oversampling techniques, it has to be at least 2x - so 1280x720 goal would require at least 2560x1440 render . (I know higher AA settings and dimensions become almost exponentially slower for 3d renders, but it's a trade off you have to consider)

You can try some postprocessing AA temporal filtering, but it's never as good as from the internal host application AA

[David Bethel]

I remember your autocad walkthough animations thread from a few years ago

Great memory ! I still refer to it when I forget all exact order of the processes.

I am still using the same setup on slightly better hardware. 1994 Accurender 1996 Autocad Win7 64 bit

I've converted most of my programs to work at 60 fps. So I'm trying to balance rendering times with quality. Currently these renderings take between 20 seconds and 1 minute per frame. The camera moving 0.25" per frame. It did help a lot smoothing out the animation. That and using as smooth as possible spline paths.

I have the antialiasing is set as high as it is allowed for my software. If I use a reflective material for the stainless steel ( which it needs ) , the rendering time at least doubles. Each path has between 800 and 2,000 frames. The 2,000 took 26 hrs to render. I'll look into the 2x higher renderings.

Does VitrualDub have an AA filter or is it the 2:1 reduction filter ?

Thanks! -David

[poisondeathray]

I remember your autocad walkthough animations thread from a few years ago

Great memory ! I still refer to it when I forget all exact order of the processes.

I am still using the same setup on slightly better hardware. 1994 Accurender 1996 Autocad Win7 64 bit

I've converted most of my programs to work at 60 fps. So I'm trying to balance rendering times with quality. Currently these renderings take between 20 seconds and 1 minute per frame. The camera moving 0.25" per frame. It did help a lot smoothing out the animation. That and using as smooth as possible spline paths.

I have the antialiasing is set as high as it is allowed for my software. If I use a reflective material for the stainless steel ( which it needs ) , the rendering time at least doubles. Each path has between 800 and 2,000 frames. The 2,000 took 26 hrs to render. I'll look into the 2x higher renderings.

Does VitrualDub have an AA filter or is it the 2:1 reduction filter ?

vdub aa filter ? I don't think so . You're looking at avisynth or vapoursynth . Bit of a learning curve. And you probably want some temporal AA / smoothing , not just single frame AA

Looking at it closer, there are other issues, such as objects missing in some frames (e.g. fridge handle), but present in the next frame. That contributes to the flicker. It might have to do with the internal AA settings. I'm sure newer CAD software would have more/better options for AA. 1996 is >20 years ago (!)

But here is a quick demo / comparison , cropped using avisynth filters . It will never be as good as host application AA, and prone to other side effects / issues, but can be used to improve slightly

[David Bethel]

It does look better. The door handle is a typical problem for me. It is 65 ft away and not very large with a very high contrast to door it is mounted on.

Some of the cad stuff has improved. But overall, it is much slower than older stuff. It now takes almost 2 minutes just to open AutoCAD on a mid range desktop machine. The bloat has gotten ridiculous. AutoCAD's internal rendering still leaves a lot to be desired.

I'll have to give avisynth another look see.

Thanks -David

[poisondeathray]

But hasn't GPU acceleration picked up in CAD ? Quadro / FirePro etc.. It's absolutely fantastic for other 3D areas , various 3D rendering engines, 3d motion graphics .

Or maybe can you export CAD models and use another application for final composite and render ? Like 3DSMax, Maya etc... 3D renderers (esp. 3rd party renderers) are very well developed for those, and you don't need the workstation class cards - even the desktop cards will do nicely

If you want to explore avisynth / filters for post production antialiasing CAD animations , I would actually start another thread on that topic. Likely you'll get a bunch of input and different variations and options and more help getting started. I'll post my script in that example above in that thread

[David Bethel]

The keyword there is 3D. AutoCAD's 3D models I use are surface models, not true 3D solids. They are more interested in pushing Revit down everyone's throat. ( it has the potential to make them a lot more money ). They have left AutoCAD to wither. ( There term is that something has matured )

There are a ton of 3D modelling tools out there. Just very few that can be easily customized or use a parametric interface. There are great if you are making 1 off pieces or pure design projects. Not too great in make production type units.