I've got a 20 inch crt 1600x1200
When i record half size with fraps, and virtual dub it, and push to YT the best I can get is 480.
Does anyone know of a step by step already typed up on the hoops I need to jump through to get to the 1080p
Printable View
I've got a 20 inch crt 1600x1200
When i record half size with fraps, and virtual dub it, and push to YT the best I can get is 480.
Does anyone know of a step by step already typed up on the hoops I need to jump through to get to the 1080p
hi toad,
i am not sure if i understood your question right... is it about youtube or how to make a HDTV-compatible video?
1080p is a standard for HDTV, and as such nearly as complicated as every other so-called standard. it describes a full-frame of 1920x1080 square pixels. so far for the standard http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
for PAL-compatibility the stream will be produced at 1080p25 (25 frames per second) and delivered at either 1080i50 (50 frames per second interleaved, worsened) or 1080p25 (better, but more unstable).
for NTSC-compatibility likewise 1080p30/1080i60.
for cinematic release and Blue-Rays often 1080p24 or 1080p48 are used (48 full-frames per second!).
there is no full convention about the compression so far. when MPEG-2 is used, the recommendation is ~25Mb/s bitrate (about 200MByte per minute), but then the vertical resolution needs to be 1088 (MPEG-2 uses 16x16px blocks for compression). some european TV-stations encode in MPEG-4, which requires less bandwidth (or gives better quality) and can use 12x12px as well as multiples of 8 (so lines can stay at 1080).
but i think, you are less interested in the odd TV-regulations. if you really want to make use of the new YouTube-offer...
YouTube does some kind of automatic decision on how to convert the upload and so you would need to upload a video of 1920x1080px with 24/25/30fps in MPEG-2.
however, if you have your footage recorded at less than either 1920px wide or 1080px high, it does not make sense to upscale that lower resolution to 1080p just for the opportunity of YouTube - the quality will always degrade! the upscaling will result in less sharpness and more artifacts and then, YouTube always recompresses the uploads to VC6 again - leading to even more artifacts.
as you have a 4:3 display at 1600x1200 resolution, naturally you won't be able to see any 1080p-video in full resolution ever on your monitor. you can of course switch to higher resolution, but that would not give better quality, as your monitor needs to downsize it for display. and the same goes for still most of your audience.
on the other hand, a 720p-HDTV delivers already an excellent image! considering the way of production in this case, it probably would be of even better picture-quality than what you could ever get at 1080p.
so i would do as follows to get a suitable record:
first, never let 'Fraps' downsize the picture to half-size! it is much better, if you already switch the resolution in-game, and record as such (with the old 'half-speed' trick). it doesn't matter how it looks on your monitor while recording, the result will be later sized well and pretty in the right aspect-ratio.
it would also be of great advantage then, if you go for 1280x960px in-game, so you just need to crop for the desired resolution later. if you have problems to record with 'Fraps' at that resolution, let the game replay at 'quarter-speed' and record with 'Fraps' at 6fps.
in 'VirtualDub', you can crop the footage to 1280x720px (or more, if you want to have 'cinemascope' http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif) and 'adjust' the framerate to 24fps. you will get a video, which has not been scaled at any point (and so it has the full sharpness and quality) and which is at standard resolution for 720p-HDTV. this will be the best quality you can get - better than any 1080p, which is not recorded at 1080p.
<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">edited:
i found the YouTube-helpsite which gives advice on producing and uploading HD-videos to YouTube.
i have changed some of the following accordingly...</span>
YouTube will show videos in HD (either resolution), if the upload allows it. however, they describe the '1080'-feature as experimental still which might not always work.
it is recommended to always keep the aspect-ratio of the footage - means, don't add black-borders yourself ('letterboxing') if it is not exactly the desired resolution! the YouTube-Player will add automatically what's needed.
preferrably the upload is encoded in MPEG-2 or H.264. since YouTube will always transcode the videos to FLV-VC6, the better solution would be MPEG-2 - but on the other hand H.264 needs a lot less bandwidth for same quality (may be important because YouTube has a limitation of upload-size). i guess, it comes down to the codecs available to you...
H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) describes a wide range (Nero, X.264, VC6) - not sure if Youtube accepts all codecs... 'Nero' should be good for it, if you have it installed]
the bitrate will probably be a compromise between quality and overall size (to stay in the allowed limits). which is another point in favor of 720p: you can get much better quality with 720p and higher bitrate than 1080 and reduced bitrate for size-limitation.
audio is recommended in MP3 or AAC ('BeLight' is a nice free interface to encode audio if you lack the needed codecs. you can find it at 'doom9.org'), at 44kHz/stereo.
they recommend as container 'MPEG-2' or 'MPEG-4' - which is a bit of not very exactly described. these are no containers, but formats...
MPEG-2 as a format needs the streams to be packed and headed as 'MPEG-2 PS (A+V)' to fit the industry norm - the extension for the container would be '.mpg' or '.mpeg' ('TMPEG-Express' still is very good for this, although a bit slow)
MPEG-4 is not a container as well. i guess they want you to encode with 'H.264', and export/save it as 'MPEG-4 AVC'-format as a '.mp4'-file. might need some try-outs, depending on the software you use.
the recommendations can be found at:
http://www.google.com/support/...l=3Den&answer=132460
obviously, 1080 is just intended for presenting content which has been produced in that resolution, so not to need to degrade it. if there is a choice on production (like you have), i would favor the 720p as the much better option. easier to achieve, less compromises during production, much more bandwidth (and therefor image-quality) available for YouTube and most of all: viewable on many more displays http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
[some personal comments on 1080p:
despite the higher resolution, 1080p does not necessarily result in an image perceived better.
the eye has a limited angular resolution, and one has to sit quite close to the display to notice the higher quality of 1080. in tests of usual environments (PC-work or TV-watching), the candidates nearly always have chosen 720p as 'better', if they sat at their used distances. the risk of having 'moirees' and banding on bad adjusted displays is a lot higher for 1080 as well.
so, 1080's advantages are actually more or less for playback over beamers or oversized displays... 'full HD' is quite a marketing-product and by far not reasoned by anything.
the introduction of 1080p as 'Full HD' had also a huge negative impact on cinematic projection. the resolution of 1080 is not comparable to 35mm-film (as wrongly stated by the ITU), the DCI suggested a resolution for cinemas at minimum 4K (2160px). but since 1080 was well supported by the industry and got established quite fast, it also is used in most digital cinemas. pretty much the same prank as done with the absurd 16:9-format]
Hey Thanks Deepo
I've been using Xvid and Lame3 in virtual dub.
And my Fraps recording has been at normal speeds.
So you think I need ot use one of the mpeg versions instead?
I know after YT gets ahold of my vids, they are quite grainy compared to my Xvid copies on my HD.
Again thanks for your time.
if you want to see, how mine are turning out, the link is in my sig.
hi toad,
i have visited your channel at YouTube and the videos looked ok to me, although only in 480px. there will always be a difference to the original on your computer, due to the recompressing on YouTube and such.
but you can try to get one of the 'HD'-resolutions to work. however, i guess you need to upload the video in another format then. for a basic try, i would suggest the following (sorry, if it is too detailed - most will be known to you, but it is for me to keep track and not forget something):
1. recording
- don't record 'live', but take a recording of the session and record from the track.
- set 'Fraps' to 'Full Size' and a custom framerate of '12' (depends on the 'Fraps'-version - if not available, please tell me your version-number)
- set the game to 1280x960px resolution (either in 'conf.ini' or via the 'setup'-function). it will look worse on your computer, but the quality will be better on your final video.
- set the game to replay the track in half-speed... when recording with 'Fraps', you will see the actual framerate in yellow - it should be at a more or less steady '12'. if the number is going up and down most of the time or is less than '12', we need to think of another setting, but it should work.
2. editing
- in 'VirtualDub' open your 'Fraps'-recorded video, in case you have several parts, open the first and import the others with 'File -> Append AVI segment...' in the right order. then set 'Audio -> Direct stream copy' and 'Video -> Full processing mode'.
- go to 'Video -> Filters' and chose the 'null transform', and then the 'Cropping...' button. Crop away 240 pixel from top and bottom as you like, after pressing ok, it should say '1280x720px' under 'Output'. press 'Ok' to leave the 'Filter'-settings (you can add more filters, of course)
- go to 'Video -> Frame Rate' and set 'Source rate adjustment -> Change frame rate to (fps)' to '24'. this won't change anything, but just speed your video up to normal again. press 'Ok' to leave 'Frame rate'.
- go to 'Video -> Compression' and chose 'Huffyuv 2.1.1'. if you don't have this entry in the list of codecs, you can download and install the free 'Huffyuv'-codec at the original site (http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley...g/huffyuv.html).
[comment: 'VirtualDub' only handles 'avi'-format. for encoding to any 'MPEG'-format, you will need another program. so you create an intermediate video from 'VirtualDub' which preferrably is encoded lossless with 'Huffyuv' - it will be quite a huge file, but it is worth it. there are other possibilities, but this way you can be sure that framerate will be changed the right way and cropping is done safe and easy]
- then go 'File -> Save as AVI...' and give it a unique name. the saving will be very fast, since 'Huffyuv' doesn't do any compressing.
3. output for 'YouTube'
there are several possibilities to create an output suitable for 'YouTube'. for example, the later versions of 'Nero' include encoding-utilities. 'TMpegEnc' gives very high quality, but is slow and the full free version is not available anymore.
i would recommend the free 'AviDemux'-utility - which was originally meant as a substitute for 'AviSynth' for Linux-systems, but has evolved to a capable format-converter transcoding utility. however, it is not yet 100% stable... so it might be that it crashes on certain settings. still it is very much worth it, because it comes with all necessary (free) filters and codecs and you have full control on what it does. you can get it at
http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/download.html
if you chose the '2.5.2 ZIP'-version, you don't need to install it, but just unpack and start the 'avidemux2_qt4.exe'.
the following is the procedure using 'AviDemux' to create 'MPEG-4´/H.264':
3.1 output as 'MPEG-4/H.264'
- load the 'avi'-video created with 'VirtualDub' into 'AviDemux' with 'File -> Open'. you will see it in the program, probably in full-size...
- now you have to set the output-format first...
[you have several options for 'YouTube', which you can try... the encoding-time and quality might be different and perhaps 'AviDemux' can't handle them all equally good - the following is the most common]
- on the left, under 'Format' chose the option 'MP4'
- under 'Audio' chose 'MP3 (lame)', go to 'Configure' and set to the desired quality ('CBR', '2', '128' should do)
- under 'Video' chose 'MPEG-4 AVC (x264)', then go to 'Configure'
(depending on the length of your clip, and the limitations of 'YouTube', it needs testing to determine the best encoder-settings)
for a general start, you might chose 'General -> Constant Rate Factor (Single Pass)' and below set the slider to '22'. under 'Output' make sure, that 'Pixel Aspect Ratio' is set to 'As Input'.
- go to 'File -> Save -> Save Video' and chose a location for saving.
important: you need to fill in the filename AND as extension 'mp4'... example: 'test.mp4'.
click 'Save' and let it encode.
the resulting file will be average quality and of unpredictable size. you can watch the saved file, see if quality is sufficient and check the file-size if it fits 'YouTube'-limitations. if the file-size is not too big and could be increased, you can chose better settings in 'AviDemux':
- under 'Video/MPEG-4 AVC (x264)/Configure' chose 'Video Size (Two Pass)' and set the slider to the desired file-size. click 'Ok' and save under a different name (don't forget to add the extension '.mp4'). the encoding will take more time (2 passes), but the quality should be better.
this way you get an 'MPEG-4', encoded with H.264 - probably the best possible quality and according to 'YouTube's accepted uploads. 'YouTube' will only transcode the video (without loss in quality) to wrap it into 'FLV'.
still it might be not accepted for whatever reason... in which case you can try to produce an 'MPEG-2'-compliant file:
3.2 output as 'MPEG-2'
it is all the same, just change
- under 'Format' set it to 'MPEG-PS (A+V)'
- under 'Audio' to 'MP3', default settings should do
- under 'Video' set to 'DVD (lavc)' [note: the option 'DVD (mpeg2enc)'], click 'Configure' and set 'Encoding Mode -> Two Pass (Video Size)', then set the 'Target video size' to a similar or higher of the one you had gathered with method 3.1. check 'Aspect ratio' to be '16:9' and 'Interlacing' at 'Progressive'.
- 'File -> Save -> Save Video' and add the extension 'filename.mpg' here!
you will get a DVD-compliant MPEG-2 file... the quality will be less than with method 3.1, but it might be accepted better by 'YouTube'. nevertheless, method 3.1 is probably first choice to try.
if you decide to produce a video in 4:3 aspect ratio, you have to change some settimgs accordingly, but what i saw from your 'YouTube'-channel, you prefer 16:9 anyways.
i have never tried to upload a video in hi-res to 'YouTube', so i can't tell if it works (perhaps others have done already and can be more helpful) - but the above ways result in videos according to the standards and aslo to the recommendations of 'YouTube' and give you also all possibilities to alter custom settings to increase quality. in which case you have to spend some time for trying-out, of course http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
so, good luck and please tell, if you succeeded over the 'Tube'!
deepo
I'm so glad I asked.
Your a wealth of knowledge.
I'll spend some time tomorrow fiddling with it.
I was going to today, but the wife played hooky from work, and kept me busy.
Thanks
well, i'm glad if i was of any help.
but better wait, before you trust my procedure... it might be the wrong way.
i thought, i better test what i suggested and made a very short clip myself. i compressed it in several ways and then uploaded it to 'Youtube' - but although it works for playback on my frontend, the display at 'YouTube' is quite disappointing.
after the upload it was 'treated' by the 'Tube' as usual, and appeared even in 720p then. however, the first half of the clip was terribly distorted, the second alright.
i think it is caused by a lack of keyframes and/or a wrong interpretation of colourspace with resulting compression artifacts.
i have then tried a different approach with less steps, and wanted to upload it - just they are performing maintenance right now...
i will post as soon as i could upload again and, depending on how it will look like, comment on the procedure and possible flaws.
hi toad,
i finally got a proper 720p-display...
i took a small clip at 1152x864 ingame-resolution - my 'Fraps'-version didn't allow any higher, but it was not bad for testing unusual aspect-ratios.
i left the 'VirtualDub'-steps, but cropped and upspeeded the footage in the regarding applications. the clip was at 24fps and 1152x720px before compressing it with 'FLV1' (and 'FLV'-container), resp. 'x264' (and 'MP4'-container). the first was accepted quite fast, the second needed 2 tries.
however, both are displayed in the correct ratio and at 720p... both lack some finer adjustments (a bit dark right now), but at least they show how 720p looks like.
i have added some short comments which apps i used, and you can watch the clips here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Sc...#p/a/u/1/qxcUULRRGNg
Oh my version of Fraps is 2.9.4 build 7037
That race track looks interesting.
the race-track is a new one which we just raced two weeks ago - a very pretty tight course! join the server if you find some time... would be nice to see blitzpigs on the fast lane again http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
your 'Fraps'-version should allow you to record in full-size for most resolutions - mine switches to half-size if set higher than 1152x864. when aiming for good quality video at high resolutions, imo the worst to do is up- or downsizing during capture or in early editing steps (downscaling as a last step can give a very nice antialiasing effect, but for that it needs editing at extremely high resolutions before).
the short clips have a bit stutter because my system was not really good enough for recording in that quality. also they would have needed some filtering and adjusting, of course.
however, i just wanted to test, which uploads get accepted by 'YouTube' and if the transcoding done by 'YouTube' degrades quality. so far they seem to have changed the way how video gets embedded... obviously the uploads don't suffer from recoding to 'Flash' as before, but probably just get wrapped into a flash-container!
but i assume, that one has to stay close within the limits of their recommendations. which was not quite as easy as it seemed. there are several tools which can be used to change the format of a video - but less i found which allow a straight production without intermediate steps.
this is what i gathered and how i did it (slightly different to what i posted before)...
<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">general notes</span> (can anyone tell me, why this forum just offers colors which none is good to see in any way?)
to be recognised as high-definition (720p) content by 'YouTube', the video-resolution has to be of maximum 1280x720px... it can be smaller, but at least one of the sides should be as such to indicate HD.
in case that the video doesn't use full width (for example 4:3) or height (for example widescreen), there should be no black borders added (letterboxing) which is what for example 'Nero' does - the 'YouTube'-player will fill the black frame automatically!
for game-footage one should strictly avoid using editors which only handle TV-formats (as PAL or NTSC) - most times these editors use different (non-square) pixel definitions which can lead to distortion and lots of care is needed to have 'YouTube' recognise the proper resolution afterwards (many videos in 'YouTube' can be seen to be displayed stretched for this reason).
<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">formats/codecs</span>
1. MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) in 'mp4'-container
in my opinion, the best format/compression for HD-content. nevertheless, the available codecs are not many and need individual settings for compatibility.
'NeroAVC' is probably the best at the moment, but works only with 'NeroVision'/'NeroReencode'... which both are highly limited for custom settings. the presets for these programs aim for blueray- and hardware-compatibility, and one has to take unneeded restrictions for the output.
'Quicktime' is ok, but the most painful to compress - and the worst for replaying. 'VP6' is great, but commercial and expensive.
what is left is the open-source project 'x264'... the codec is excellent, but lacks any comprehensive support and documentation. well, there is but spread over several forums and even the developers have split-up http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif anyways, i used this one and once i got it to work it delivered great results.
2. Sorenson Spark (FLV1) in 'flv'-container
very compatible codec, but needs quite some more bitrate to achieve quality comparable to 'H.264'. the 'Sorenson'-codec is commercial, but fits the older 'H.263'-standard, so there are several libraries which can be used instead (later more). if done properly, the content will be accepted very fast by 'YouTube'.
3. MPEG-2 in 'mpg'-container
in my opinion not suitable for HD-content. although 'MPEG-2' is used for DVDs in HD, it is hard to get programs to encode in it (most still insist on PAL-/NTSC-standards), and the needed bitrate is anyway ridiculously high - which might work for BlueRay, but is a waste for 'YouTube'.
<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">programs</span>
good old 'VirtualDub' still is most excellent for 'avi'-video encoding, but doesn't work for 'mp4' or 'flv'. however, on base of the even older and powerful 'AviSynth' there are other opportunities.
1. 'MeGUI' for MPEG-4 AVC (x264) encoding
a nice tool developed by 'Neuron' of 'doom9.org' as an interface for the 'x264'-codec. as said before, there is no detailed manual for it... a bit mysterious, if not familiar with encoding. also, it is continuously under development and the releases are not always bug-free (so i had to replace the 'x264.exe' of the last release with another one). if needed, i can some links which i found useful.
encoding is very fast and great results, probably best quality i could get.
2. 'AviDemux' for 'FLV1' encoding
'AviDemux' handles a lot of formats and conversions, but is not always stable. it also needs the user to chose the right combination of codec and format by himself. the good thing is, that it comes with it's own libraries, so one doesn't need any more codec-installations. theoretically it can encode MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (ASP/AVC), and create proper 'avi', 'mpg', 'flv', 'mp4'. although likes to crash and is a bit slow. i therefor used it only for 'flv'.
<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">process</span>
i still think, '1080p' is a bit overdone for 'YouTube' in many ways. besides the not-too-easy capture of footage from the game, it is extrenely hard to achieve a final quality which requires such resolution at all. not to mention, that at least quite a new 24"-monitor is needed just to watch it.
anyways, i had already problems to record for 720p-output (where nothing is new in my system though http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif)
1. capturing with 'Fraps', v2.7.2
the idea was to keep the resolution unchanged during all editing and encoding, so the footage had to be minimum 720px high.
since my 'Fraps' was limited, i set the game to 1152x864px resolution. this way i wouldn't be able to use all possible width, but i could easily crop to 720px later. the track was played back at half-speed and 'Fraps' set to record at 12fps. this worked surprisingly well (only few small stutters, which should not happen on better systems), but needs lots of disk-space of course.
2. editing/filtering with 'VirtualDub'
i left this one out, but surely one can use 'VDub' for using it's nice filters. however, the frame-rate adjustment and cropping can also be done with both other programs.
either way, the frame-rate had to be changed to 24fps ('adjusted', not 'converted') and the footage was cropped at top and bottom to 720px.
if working with 'VirtualDub', the edited footage needs to be handed over to one of the other programs for encoding. best is to use the integrated 'AviSynth'-Frameserver, by which there is no intermediate file needed. this is not quite eay to setup, so probably it is better to export to a temporary video, which should then be compressed with 'Huffyuv'... where it is in this case best to set in 'Huffyuv' the 'RGB compression method: <-- Convert to YUY2' (exceptionally).
3. encoding with 'x264 in 'MeGUI'
i used the latest release of 'MeGUI', but replaced the included 'x264.exe' in the program folder with another release of the codec (i don't know if this is necessary on every system). it is furthermore much help to download a a set of profiles for easy setup.
i used the 'Standalone-HD-DVD' preset, and just changed the 'average Bitrate' to '9000kbit/s' - this should be a good average, as it will result in a video (without audio) of ~700MB per 10 minutes ('YouTube' allows maximum 10 minutes and/or 2GB).
encoding was done in 2-passes and quite fast (still it will need ~2 hours for 10 minutes video!)
[the use of 'AviDemux' to encode 'FLV1' is much easier but also worse quality, so i won't go for details.]
this is only the way which i tried so far... for sure there are others and better, but i couldn't think of a possibility which doesn't require paying for applications or codecs.
it would be nice to know of alternatives or some experiences how to optimise workflow, or quality-tips and most, to watch the outcome in 'YouTube' http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
Well as I mess about and research I notice a chap over at Rise of Flight talking about this sort of thing also.
He mentioned a HD plugin for Windows Movie Maker.
http://riseofflight.com/Forum/...c.php?p=86266#p86266
I went about searching Google and found it today.
It works easy enough, but YT keeps failing on the upload.
I'm going to corner him about it as well.