Runs on multiple media? (and DVD Questions)

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-08-16 11:24:36 pm

2007-08-16 09:27:31 am

Long live SF64!

I've been working on a segmented PC run which I've been recording to VHS.

However, much to my enjoyment, I recently acquired a DVD recorder. I have less than 20 minutes of the roughly 1 hour 15 minute long run remaining.

My question is, may I record the remaining segments onto DVD for better quality or continue with the VHS tapes for consistency? Redoing the entire run on DVD isn't a feasible option for me, so I was wondering if I could switch media mid-run.

Is there a precedent for runs on multiple media? I would consider someone increasing their display or capture settings on a PC run to be a similar situation in terms of end-result consistency and I imagine that has been done previously.

Thread title:

Sir VG

2007-08-16 11:02:24 am

Fucking Weeaboo

There's no reason to reject a run based upon the fact that part is on VHS and part on DVD. As long as the continuity is there, and that none of the segments on either media is crappy, go for it.

Carcinogen

2007-08-16 04:12:17 pm

You COULD record the VHS segments onto DVD to save Nate a little trouble =P

nate

2007-08-16 04:40:57 pm

very, very hard to say.

i'm leaning toward yes (use dvd for the last segments) though. and yes if you want to capture the vhs stuff yourself to dvd that would save me some time and yourself some postage. vhs tapes are heavy, much like spacelab, which comes from the same time period.

Psonar

2007-08-16 07:28:13 pm

Long live SF64!

My tape contains the segments out of order and with gaps. Should I record the entire tape to DVD as is with a single title, or should record each segment to DVD separately thereby creating separate titles? The tape is SP quality and the DVD will be SP quality. I have tested the VHS to DVD recording and I'm confident that it's not losing any significant quality.

I'd love to save you the work, nate, but I'm not too worried about shipping - I'd be happy enough to get a run up that I'd send them both if it helped.

nate

Edit history:

nate: 2007-08-16 07:48:28 pm

2007-08-16 07:46:35 pm

recording method doesn't matter because if you really want to be helpful you can cut out the segments using dgindex like this anyway.

however note that if you record one per chapter you must only have one chapter open at a time in dgindex to avoid possible audio desync (rather than opening the whole run at once, which is more efficient).

Psonar

2007-08-16 08:16:04 pm

Long live SF64!

I've never read the DVD portion of the recording guide, so I'll need to get to that pronto before I make a fool of myself. (I'm likely too late for that already)

My DVD recorder automatically creates chapters every 6 minutes - unless I turn that feature off. Also, when I press "stop recording" the DVD recorder finishes writing that "Title." If I record something else, it is stored as a new title, which shows up on the disc as a new .vob file. So I could turn auto chapter off and then have each segment in it's own .vob across 2 DVDs. Would that be convenient?

If the answer is already in the kb or recording guide, then I'll see it soon and am sorry for asking redundant questions.

nate

Edit history:

nate: 2007-08-16 09:45:24 pm

2007-08-16 09:45:14 pm

ok, what you are calling a "title" i was calling a "chapter". for you chapters are irrelevant. titles are all that matter. also replace all the info in the anri-chan docs where it talks about "chapters" with "titles" in your case. (sometimes chapter = title but not for you)

Psonar

2007-08-16 11:44:34 pm

Long live SF64!

Ok, thanks.

Now, I've tried using anri-chan twice to get some video on my computer. This is the video properties as quoted from an info page in WinDVD:

Stream:
Type: Interlaced MPEG2
Bitrate: 9.800 Mbps
Framerate: 29.970 Hz
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect ratio: 4x3

(The video length is 36 minutes - it was basically a recording session with lots of restarts of the same segment.)

All seems well except the resolution leaves me wondering whether it's d1 or d4. The resolution the the game was rendering at (in the game's video settings) was 1024x768. I also wasn't sure how to interpret F.

When I chose d4 f2 3D (HQ) I got 320x240 video at 15 fps.

So then I tried d4 f1 3D (HQ) and got 320x240 video at 30 fps. The 30 fps seems correct, but 320x240 is smaller than I would expect.

Should I be using D1 to get a larger video resolution? Is my DVD in an irregular resolution? There are about 6 different quality settings to choose from, including 2 that are higher quality than SP - since it's segmented, should I go for the HQ 1 hr. setting?

For the d4 f1 video I also appended a statID and the video has very noticeable audio lag. Is this an undesired by-product of the statID?

I'll gladly upload one of the clips if needed. I'm just trying to be sure I've got the right settings rather than using guess and check.

Ok, thanks.

Now, I've tried using anri-chan twice to get some video on my computer. This is the video properties as quoted from an info page in WinDVD:

Stream:
        Type: Interlaced MPEG2
        Bitrate: 9.800 Mbps
        Framerate: 29.970 Hz
        Resolution: 720x480
        Aspect ratio: 4x3

(The video length is 36 minutes - it was basically a recording session with lots of restarts of the same segment.)

All seems well except the resolution leaves me wondering whether it's d1 or d4. The resolution the the game was rendering at (in the game's video settings) was 1024x768. I also wasn't sure how to interpret F.

When I chose d4 f2 3D (HQ) I got 320x240 video at 15 fps.

So then I tried d4 f1 3D (HQ) and got 320x240 video at 30 fps. The 30 fps seems correct, but 320x240 is smaller than I would expect.

Should I be using D1 to get a larger video resolution? Is my DVD in an irregular resolution? There are about 6 different quality settings to choose from, including 2 that are higher quality than SP - since it's segmented, should I go for the HQ 1 hr. setting?

For the d4 f1 video I also appended a statID and the video has very noticeable audio lag. Is this an undesired by-product of the statID?

I'll gladly upload one of the clips if needed. I'm just trying to be sure I've got the [i]right[/i] settings rather than using guess and check.

nate

2007-08-17 12:59:39 am

yeah, this is sort of a special case (pc), so upload a vob or part of a vob and i'll have a look.

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-08-17 01:46:45 am

2007-08-17 01:06:06 am

Long live SF64!

I'm currently uploading a 2 minute HQ video I made using d1 f1 settings which is at 640x480 resolution to filefront. How do I get part of a .vob to make the upload size smaller?

2 Min HQ Video

Edit:
Found a vob chopper on Doom9.org ...
http://www.doom9.org/software2.htm#vobtools
...uploading a vob sample now

ballofsnow

2007-08-17 02:29:35 am

Something funky going on.

The mp4 is definitely D1 F1, but it looks like it hasn't been deinterlaced..

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-08-17 02:39:10 am

2007-08-17 02:33:49 am

Long live SF64!

Here's a sample vob that's about 2 minutes of video. Hopefully that's what you need.

Edit:

Quote:

Something funky going on.

The mp4 is definitely D1 F1, but it looks like it hasn't been deinterlaced..

Hmm, well here's what the batch file looks like...

bmn

2007-08-17 02:43:39 am

The settings show Progressive source. If you get that question (you should, I think), answer no to enable deinterlacing.

Psonar

2007-08-17 03:35:33 am

Long live SF64!

Ok, awesome, I tried d1 f1 interlaced and it started to do 60 fps like it should, so I switched it to f2 for 30 fps. I'll post the resulting mp4 when it finishes in like an hour.

ballofsnow

2007-08-17 03:39:44 am

Quote:

so I switched it to f2 for 30 fps.

Umm, why?

Psonar

2007-08-17 04:16:25 am

Long live SF64!

Because the DVD is 30 fps to begin with... wouldn't 60 fps be adding empty data to the video?

ballofsnow

2007-08-17 04:23:29 am

No... that's not how it works.

The DVD is 30 interlaced frames per second. Each frame has two fields so there is a potential of 30 * 2 unique "pictures" per second.

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-08-17 06:00:22 pm

2007-08-17 04:54:04 am

Long live SF64!

Aaahhhh.....

I have been enlightened...

Grin

That de-interlacing stuff takes some time... I thought I was already on the second pass, and now I've got another hour or more to wait. No complaints though, anri-chan is a beautiful thing.

Edit:
The d1 f2 video is online. The filefront streaming version doesn't work, so hopefully the file is ok. It looks pretty on my computer. I'm working on a d1 f1 version. Would d1 f1 be the best way to encode it in the end once the segments are ready to submit to SDA? I'll also try yet another one with the StatID to see if there's still that audio lag I encountered previously.

ballofsnow

2007-08-17 09:54:39 pm

It's pretty much a requirement to use full framerate on HQ/IQ if available.

StatID desync??

Psonar

2007-08-18 03:39:51 am

Long live SF64!

Ok, here's my latest insane quality version of the video:

http://files.filefront.com/STVEF1+Seg10+5+IQmp4/;8339962;;/fileinfo.html

Does this video seem to have been done correctly? In other words, is it SDA quality? If there seems to be little difference between IQ and HQ, what is the deciding factor on whether or not IQ is necessary? I know the source material must be d1 f1, which is what I entered into anri-chan for the above video. Is PC to DVD d1 f1 by default as long as the PC is rendering the game at >30 fps?

ballofsnow

Edit history:

ballofsnow: 2007-08-18 03:53:26 am

2007-08-18 03:53:03 am

Quote:

Does this video seem to have been done correctly? In other words, is it SDA quality?

Yes. Doesn't that 60 fps look nice and smooth? Wink

Quote:

If there seems to be little difference between IQ and HQ, what is the deciding factor on whether or not IQ is necessary?

IQ is needed when even HQ doesn't look good. This tends to happen on D1/F1 video. Encode HQ first, and if it looks really smudgy (since there's not enough bitrate to keep detail) then encode IQ.

Quote:

Is PC to DVD d1 f1 by default as long as the PC is rendering the game at >30 fps?

Pretty much.