New Fraps user

[ulillillia]

2.41 GB? Did you set the compression? To do that, go to the "video" menu then choose "compression". Choose the compression codec you want (they're listed alphabetically). When you choose a codec, you should note the restrictions (these aren't always reliable for the width and height restrictions - use a multiple of 16 on both axes for best results (352 and 240 are both multiples of 16 so you have no problems there). You can also configure the codec by clicking the "configure" button. I don't know if the quality has to match but I doubt it as long as the codec remains the same. Let me know if you run into any problems.

 

[hell_storm2004]

No i didn't i will do it today and try out.

By the way... we really hijacked the OP's thread!

 

[dalmvern]

Nah you didnt hijack it, as I said im new to this stuff so I have very little input, but im going to read through everything you guys have been posting. I am actually really glad both of you are discussing this stuff!

And by the way hell, im in a 2001 Chevy Silverado Z71.

 

[hell_storm2004]

And by the way hell, im in a 2001 Chevy Silverado Z71.

Cool! I would love to own one of those!

 

[dalmvern]

Yeah, it has been good to me. My dad bought it new in 2001 after I bought a Camaro, but when I went to college in New York, a car like a Camaro didnt make sense so I asked my dad to trade cars with me and he agreed. Now I have 230,000 miles on it and it still runs like a champ.

As of yet I still havent downloaded and copied Super 2011, I had a busy weekend this weekend that started with my company's building being set ablaze, but I will check it out. As I said I have been using H.264 to compress my videos, but im keeping the originals so I can play around with them some more.

I went ahead and deleted half of the videos that I took because when I built my computer I was not planning on video editing so i skimped on storage. When I get paid at the end of this week I will probably order a new HDD from Newegg, probably another 1 TB and that will be strictly my video editing drive. Ulil, I know you were saying how the hard drive is important for video editing, which of these drives do you think is best?

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145304

I know the Seagate is SATA III 6.0 Gb/s, but I also know that an HDD can barely saturate a SATA II connection so im not worried about that at all.

 

[ulillillia]

If you're going with uncompressed or lossless compressed video, then write speed and capacity is important to consider. If you're planning on real time recording with high quality lossy H.264, then write speed or capacity doesn't matter much, the CPU does.

SATA III is compatible with SATA II and SATA I, if I recall. If you don't have a SATA III-compatible motherboard, you just won't be able to take advantage of SATA III's features.

The first hard drive you have listed is the exact one I have dedicated for videos and so far, I haven't had any problems with it. It reads and writes at about 130 MB per second through tests I've done at the beginning of this hard drive (it'll get slower as the drive gets more and more filled). This was done in the form of memory dumps which is pretty close to what uncompressed video recording is. A memory dump is basically loading a large amount of data (several dozen MB to a few hundred MB) into RAM then writing this all to the hard drive several times, noting how long it takes to save. This is without a RAID setup. If you get 2 of these and set them up for RAID 0, you could practically double the already high write speed. I've never used RAID in any form so I can't really answer much on that front.

To determine the speed you'll need, it's only a matter of knowing what video size and frame rate you'll be recording at - it's just multiplying... large numbers. The formula is quite easy: "VideoWidth*VideoHeight*FrameRate*3". For 1920x1080 video at 29.97 fps, you'll need a sustained data rate of 186,437,376 bytes per second. If the hard drive can't keep up, null frames are inserted which may cause slightly jerky video. This is where lossless video compression comes in which typically halves that, but that comes at a cost as it increases the workload on the CPU.

The others I don't have experience with. Given the reviews, I would stay away from that third one. The second one doesn't look too bad. The first one (the one I have), is only SATA II. The second is SATA III. So basically, it's a toss up between the first 2.

 

[dalmvern]

Yeah like I said, im not worried on whether it is SATA III or not, my mobo is compatible and I am running a SATA III SSD, but it will be connected with a SATA cable to a SATA II port...if I do happen to get a SATA III HDD, I will probably hook it to my other SATA III port, but there will really be no benefit because I dont think any of these drives will saturate the 300 Gb/s transfer rate of even SATA II.

Also, I do not plan on doing any kind of RAID setup so that is basically out of the questions as well, though it is good to know that it would almost double the speed.

 

[ulillillia]

SATA II is 3 Gb/s (3 gigabits per second, or 375 MB/s). That's the supposed theoretical limit of the interface. The first hard drive you've listed still works fine with SATA I's speeds (1.5 Gb/s or 187.5 MB/s). I don't know if RAID affects these speed limits though. If I remember, there's a jumper on the hard drive that controls whether it'll be in SATA I, SATA II, or SATA III mode.

Either way, if you have any questions about Virtual Dub, there's a good chance I'll be able to answer them. When I finish making the scenery for world 2 in my game, likely by the end of this week, I'll likely record a video on how I use and set up VD to record my games with, if that helps any. I wouldn't know if it'll be of any use to you, as a more flexible alternative than Fraps.

 

[dalmvern]

Yeah I know the SATA speeds are set and RAID wont affect that, but I didnt know that using RAID 0 would double the read/write speeds of the drives that are in RAID (im just assuming 2 identical drives in the RAID). To be honest, I dont know much about RAID and it kinda scares me so like I said, I wont be doing it.

Definitely if you record that video I would love to see it, just so I have some alternatives. Now that I have been playing with it for a while, actually recording the video is not a problem, its just going to be editing/encoding the videos that I need to figure out now.

 

[ulillillia]

This Wikipedia article explains the basics of RAID setups. RAID isn't entirely bad, it depends on what level you're using. RAID 0 is more risky (if one drive fails, you'll lose your data), but it roughly doubles the data rate. RAID 1 is the opposite (if one drive fails, you won't lose your data) and is the most secure from what I can tell. The other 5 levels are hard to understand.

As to the video showing how I record with VD, that'll be a while. Once I get another Disgaea 2 video recorded, I may make a video explaining how I go about processing it - merging my vocal track with the game's original audio, cropping, and other such things. It'll be quite a while before I return to Disgaea 2 though. The Disgaea 2 case, however, is more related to your needs. Unlike recording a computer game, I'm recording a console game via TV tuner and processing this output accordingly. The actual processing of the recorded videos, however, is essentially the same.

 

[dalmvern]

Great, well as I am a pretty quick learner, I am sure that by the time you get your video finished I will have a pretty good workflow using Fraps/VD/Super or whatever I end up using it, but I would definitely like to see other methods of doing it.

 

[ulillillia]

I've got the video now explaining how I use Virtual Dub for screen capture. Perhaps you could somehow adapt this for games?

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxGj7ll7xg

This narrated video explains not only how to capture video with Virtual Dub, but also edit (to a limited extent) and encode videos. Hopefully you'll find this of great use.

 

[hell_storm2004]

Ok... Good that you are back. I just had a question. I installed XVid Codec, chose the compression as to use XVid and my AVI video turned out to be 127MB!

I chose "Single Pass" i think.

 

[ulillillia]

Did you configure the settings for the codec? The video I posted shows the configuring of the codec. File size itself doesn't matter. It's the video's complexity, video resolution, and total frames that determines the file size in the end. Single pass is lower quality than 2-pass, but it's significantly slower, to the point that it's not worth doing. XviD is well-known. I strongly recommend not using the bit rate value. Instead, use the quantizer method. I used quality 3 for my archival videos, 6 to 8 for the YouTube equivalent. Videos are big so you can expect large file sizes. Storing image data, especially thousands of such images, is not particularly efficient, especially when compared to audio.

 

[hell_storm2004]

Oooops... Missed the video link. Will take a look and try again. I will give 2-Pass a try. I would let it run. Coz my PC is downloading all night long. So i do have spare time.

 

[nikorr]

I tried out VD last night and couldnt exactly figure out what to do with it. Then I downloaded H.264 and was able to easily use it. I have converted about 1/4 of my videos to .mp4...drops a 2 min video from 4 GB to 440 MB...totally worth it.

Now you were talking about stitching the clipped videos together...what program do you use for that?

Hi there,

U can use HandBrake to convert .mp4 videos to smaller size. http/handbrake.fr/


440MB is big waste of space, as u need only 35 - 50MB/2min files to have a great quality. Just select b

 

[kaitheus]

Hi there,

U can use HandBrake to convert .mp4 videos to smaller size. http/handbrake.fr/


440MB is big waste of space, as u need only 35 - 50MB/2min files to have a great quality. Just select b

I agree 100%, I also use Fraps with a number of editors/encoders as nikorr has been helping me lately with Handbrake, I'd take his advice. It came in really handy for me when I created a new video for upload to youtube, the quality just came out insane lol not to mention the file size in the end was almost less then 200MBs after starting from 9.0GBs *Fraps AVI's*.

Here's that video for reference to give you an idea of how well handbrake works. Note that I took this from 3 AVI's to WMV then to MP4, then uploaded it to youtube, which is notorious for ruining good quality video's lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiDUwFlVWWc