What codecs are good animated videos?

[Guernsey]

Let's say you are recording gameplay footage from Sega CD(or PlayStation) and it features some traditional animated cutscenes like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Divwuuc2oI

What should you do? And how can you make it HD for Youtube without quality loss?

[El Heggunte]

First of all, record the video with a FAST && LOSSLESS codec
(UT Video, HuffYUV, FRAPS, whatever).

Then you may resize to "HD" with Spline64, Jinc, or perhaps PointSize, which was designed to upscale "pixel art".

And by HD I mean "anything greater than 640 pixels of height", NOT "cropped to fit a widescreen"

without quality loss

Not possible. Resizing already means loss of quality, even though often it's possible to minimize it.
Besides, Youtube always reencodes everything for lower bandwidth consumption :–/

[davexnet]

Let's say you are recording gameplay footage from Sega CD(or PlayStation) and it features some traditional animated cutscenes like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Divwuuc2oI

What should you do? And how can you make it HD for Youtube without quality loss?

If you'd like an assessment of what might be possible,
upload a clip from your source

[Guernsey]

Here is the file, I uploaded to your site as opposed to Youtube this time.

[Selur]

Funny format. MediaInfo reports it as 640x480, but FFMS2 returns only 256x240.
Also isn't 60fps overkill ?
But it nicely shows what happens if you resize pixel art with normal resizers. (didn't really care about size and used crf18 and didn't touch the audio)

[Guernsey]

So what would be ideal for me when it comes to those animated cutscenes?

[Selur]

Regarding video format choice: Sorry, don't do ideal. Personally I would use H.265 with 10bit for everything and so a few test encodes and until I known the right crf/bitrate for my usual content.
Regarding resizer choice: that's your choice, I think one can clearly see the difference between point resize and other resizers. So it's a matter of what you want.

Cu Selur

[Guernsey]

I see. Can I get get the AVISynth or FFMPEG formula for those two at least?

[Selur]

Avisynth scripts I used are:

ClearAutoloadDirs()
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\LoadDll.dll")
LoadCPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\ffms2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\RgTools.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\mvtools2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\masktools2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\TIVTC.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\MedianBlur2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\Average.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\GRunT.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\nnedi3.dll")
LoadDLL("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\libfftw3f-3.dll")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\SMDegrain.avsi")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\Zs_RF_Shared.avsi")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\Srestore.avsi")
SetFilterMTMode("DEFAULT_MT_MODE", MT_MULTI_INSTANCE)
# loading source: C:\Users\Selur\Desktop\clips\Test video.avi
#  color sampling RGB32@8, matrix: pc601, scantyp: progressive, luminance scale: full
FFVideoSource("C:\Users\Selur\Desktop\clips\TESTVI~1.AVI",cachefile="E:\Temp\avi_865ec41bedf9fa027397c36dee7342f8_853323747_1_0.ffindex",fpsnum=60,colorspace="RGB32")
# current resolution: 256x240
# lowering frame rate using srestore
ConvertToYV24(interlaced=false, matrix="PC.601")
srestore(frate=7.500,omode=6)
# cropping
Crop(0,8,0,-8)# 256x232
# filtering
# scaling to 1280x928
nnedi3_rpow2(rfactor=8,cshift="GaussResize",fwidth=1280,fheight=928)
# adjust color to YV12
ConvertToYV12()
return last

and:

ClearAutoloadDirs()
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\LoadDll.dll")
LoadCPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\ffms2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\RgTools.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\mvtools2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\masktools2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\TIVTC.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\MedianBlur2.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\Average.dll")
LoadPlugin("I:\Hybrid\32bit\AVISYN~1\GRunT.dll")
LoadDLL("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\libfftw3f-3.dll")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\SMDegrain.avsi")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\Zs_RF_Shared.avsi")
Import("I:\Hybrid\32bit\avisynthPlugins\Srestore.avsi")
SetFilterMTMode("DEFAULT_MT_MODE", MT_MULTI_INSTANCE)
# loading source: C:\Users\Selur\Desktop\clips\Test video.avi
#  color sampling RGB32@8, matrix: pc601, scantyp: progressive, luminance scale: full
FFVideoSource("C:\Users\Selur\Desktop\clips\TESTVI~1.AVI",cachefile="E:\Temp\avi_865ec41bedf9fa027397c36dee7342f8_853323747_1_0.ffindex",fpsnum=60,colorspace="RGB32")
# current resolution: 256x240
# removing ghosting
ConvertToYV24(interlaced=false, matrix="PC.601")
srestore(frate=7.500,omode=6)
# cropping
Crop(0,8,0,-8)# 248x232
# filtering
# scaling to 1280x928
PointResize(1280,928)
# adjust color to YV12
ConvertToYV12()
return last

most of the dependencies are due to sRestore and the fact that I don't use the auto-load functionality of Avisynth.

Cu Selur

[El Heggunte]

Well, I have no idea of why Selur included PointResize() in his tests...

Maybe he thought PointSize() is just a glorified PointResize()...

Just a supposition, of course

[Selur]

I never tried PointSize(), haven't encoded pixel art content for ages and back when PointResize was the usual way to keep the pixelation,..

[Guernsey]

Thanks for the AVISynth. I guess will record as is but I will give those formulas a shot when I edit my videos. Thanks.