60 FPS Streaming with SD Content (older consoles/240p)?

Edit history:

mugenmidget: 2011-03-02 11:45:59 am

2011-03-02 11:18:07 am

Hi there, love the SDA site and the fact that the some of the runs here are encoded at 60 fps for older games, much more enjoyable to watch game clips here than on YouTube. I was wondering if anyone had success streaming at 60 fps through Ustream/Justin.TV or some other flash streaming site? Applying a "bob" deinterlacing filter works great in post-processing for most capture cards, is there any way to do something similar live?

Most of my cheap capture cards (Hauppauge PVR 150, Dazzle DVC 100, Adaptec Gamebridge) process the non-interlaced signal as interlaced, with frames alternating on the even and odd lines. As mentioned, the bob deinterlacing filter fixes this, but I can't figure out a good way to do something similar live. One method I've tried in the past is screen capturing VirtualDub with the right filters through Xsplit for 60 FPS. This can work sporadically but the results are nowhere near solid even on my best rig.

Is there something that wouldn't be as resource intensive? It seems like there'd be no way to do it elegantly in software but I'd like to be proven wrong. Perhaps passing VLC to JTV might work, but the bob deinterlacing filter there seems to fail on the captured video stream (probably not meant for streaming content). Failing that, are there any capture cards that can receive the non-interlaced SD signal and capture at 60 FPS without post-processing? If you also have some other recommendations as for places to ask this kind of question, I'd appreciate that as well. And any other tidbits related to streaming older games at 60 FPS is more than welcome!

Sorry for the bother, let me know of your experiences and advice if you've tried messing with it before. Thanks in advance and best wishes. Smiley

Thread title:

Hi there, love the SDA site and the fact that the some of the runs here are encoded at 60 fps for older games, much more enjoyable to watch game clips here than on YouTube.  I was wondering if anyone had success streaming at 60 fps through Ustream/Justin.TV or some other flash streaming site?  Applying a "bob" deinterlacing filter works great in post-processing for most capture cards, is there any way to do something similar live?

Most of my cheap capture cards (Hauppauge PVR 150, Dazzle DVC 100, Adaptec Gamebridge) process the non-interlaced signal as interlaced, with frames alternating on the even and odd lines.  As mentioned, the bob deinterlacing filter fixes this, but I can't figure out a good way to do something similar live.  One method I've tried in the past is screen capturing VirtualDub with the right filters through Xsplit for 60 FPS.  This can work sporadically but the results are nowhere near solid even on my best rig.

Is there something that wouldn't be as resource intensive?  It seems like there'd be no way to do it elegantly in software but I'd like to be proven wrong.  Perhaps passing VLC to JTV might work, but the bob deinterlacing filter there seems to fail on the captured video stream (probably not meant for streaming content).  Failing that, are there any capture cards that can receive the non-interlaced SD signal and capture at 60 FPS without post-processing?   If you also have some other recommendations as for places to ask this kind of question, I'd appreciate that as well.  And any other tidbits related to streaming older games at 60 FPS is more than welcome!

Sorry for the bother, let me know of your experiences and advice if you've tried messing with it before.  Thanks in advance and best wishes. :)

RaijinXBlade

Edit history:

RaijinXBlade: 2011-03-02 02:19:01 pm

2011-03-02 02:17:07 pm

Devastation

Pretty sure this should be in tech support.
Tbh, I doubt there are any ways to sucessfully do this. One thing you can do is blend field deinterlace and that's good enough for streaming. Heck, majority are just fine with 30 fps (myself included, and I'm pretty picky). The only legit way that comes to mind is to buy a Blackmagic Intensity Pro since it can capture up to 720p and 1080i afaik.

Edit: 3D games run at 30fps and 2D are at 60fps so if you plan to stream 3D games, then you have no worries.

mugenmidget

Edit history:

mugenmidget: 2011-03-02 03:33:21 pm

2011-03-02 03:27:40 pm

Ah, thank you for the advice. The PC in the room I currently stream from seems to suffer on a 640 x 480 signal if processed through FME, but I'll try the blend field deinterlacing with a different rig and see how that performs. It's definitely a lot better than losing the frames completely, too many things are invisible the way I currently do it (30 FPS at 320x240), so thank you for the suggestion. Smiley

If anyone has additional thoughts, please let me know!

EDIT: In another thread about the Blackmagic Intensity Pro on this forum, someone mentions that it doesn't support 240p content - http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/blackmagic_intensity_pro_update.html

I'm thinking it might handle the feed from composite but it might be treated like 480i the same as the other devices I've used. If anyone has more experience with the Blackmagic Intensity Pro and how it handles legacy content, let me know. It does seem a bit more powerful than what I'd require for my purposes, and if it can't capture 60 fps at 320x240 through composite or S-Video then I might as well forget it as an option (although I could do RGB > Component with it, but some of my systems aren't RGB ready).

Thanks again, let me know what you can about the Blackmagic card or any other device that you think would work.

Ah, thank you for the advice.  The PC in the room I currently stream from seems to suffer on a 640 x 480 signal if processed through FME, but I'll try the blend field deinterlacing with a different rig and see how that performs.  It's definitely a lot better than losing the frames completely, too many things are invisible the way I currently do it (30 FPS at 320x240), so thank you for the suggestion. :)

If anyone has additional thoughts, please let me know!

EDIT: In another thread about the Blackmagic Intensity Pro on this forum, someone mentions that it doesn't support 240p content - http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/blackmagic_intensity_pro_update.html

I'm thinking it might handle the feed from composite but it might be treated like 480i the same as the other devices I've used.  If anyone has more experience with the Blackmagic Intensity Pro and how it handles legacy content, let me know.  It does seem a bit more powerful than what I'd require for my purposes, and if it can't capture 60 fps at 320x240 through composite or S-Video then I might as well forget it as an option (although I could do RGB > Component with it, but some of my systems aren't RGB ready).

Thanks again, let me know what you can about the Blackmagic card or any other device that you think would work.

mikwuyma

2011-03-02 06:54:11 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Quote:

3D games run at 30fps

Um no? A lot of 3D games do run at 30 fps (especially from the ps1/n64 generation), but there are a bunch that run at 60 fps like God of War games, Bayonetta, Super Monkey Ball, Super Mario Galaxy games, and Super Smash Bros. Melee just to name a few. I think the difference between 2D and 3D 60 fps games is that 3D games generally display flashing and blinking effects when streamed at 30 fps (correct me if I'm wrong).

bmn

Edit history:

bmn: 2011-03-02 10:35:36 pm

2011-03-02 10:28:28 pm

2D games are more likely to have blinking, usually in order to fake translucency or flashing effects the console is incapable of doing itself, Mike. The only thing you're likely to see with an F1 3D game streamed at F2 is a choppier picture.

The BMIP doesn't capture 240p content at all through Composite (tested with original Playstation - 480i BIOS works, 240p gameplay doesn't). I haven't tested with S-Video as I don't have a breakout cable for it.

Also lots of 2D games run at lower framerates. The "2D games are F1, 3D games are F2" idea is everything to do with the game developer and how they make the game itself - 3D games usually work the system harder, so you're more likely to see lower maximum framerates. A number of developers today have the view that most gamers won't notice the difference between F1 and F2, and so don't bother with making the game efficient enough to run at F1.

mugenmidget

Edit history:

mugenmidget: 2011-03-03 01:30:01 am

2011-03-03 01:29:42 am

Cool, thanks for the heads up about the BMIP, bmn. And I wasn't familiar with F1 and F2 as terms for field dominance, interesting stuff (had to read about them here: http://lurkertech.com/lg/fields/ ).

Since it sounds like the BMIP won't do the trick, I'd be interested if anyone has ever encountered a card that can handle the signals.

There's some talk about capture cards with an NES at this nesdev thread, but no solid evidence of a card that can capture the signal properly live without post-processing. But if anyone has experience with the cards mentioned in the thread (http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?p=69698 ), I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks again for all the help!

bmn

2011-03-03 02:30:05 am

Sorry, by F1/F2 I meant the SDA lingo, where F1 is 59.94 or 50 fps and F2 is 29.97 or 25fps.

RaijinXBlade

2011-03-03 06:25:08 pm

Devastation

Yeah my bad if I said anything incorrectly. I actually meant to say most 3D games are 30fps. Also find it very inconvenient that BMIP can't do 240p =\

Anyways I have a Dazzle DVC 100 and I have tested a blended fields stream once and it worked fine. If I remember right, the input and output both have to be 640x480 for the deinterlacing option to be selected but again, I'm not entirely sure as I only go with 30fps now and since it's just a stream, it really isn't important for it to be more than 30 imo and I really doubt the viewers will care either. If you REALLY want 60fps, I don't really know of a way, heh. Like I said before, it's probably not possible at all.

Aftermath

Edit history:

Aftermath: 2011-03-03 08:45:23 pm

Aftermath: 2011-03-03 08:44:42 pm

2011-03-03 08:42:28 pm

Quits halfway

Ustream will support a 60fps stream. I haven't streamed anything from a 480i signal at 60fps, but any streams I try to do in 480p or 720p end up at 60fps, so I do know that it works. Vdub deinterlacing with Yadif + Xsplit to carry it to FME is probably going to be your best bet, although I don't know what kind of computer you'd need to do that. I really wish Vdub had streaming capabilities : /

The AverMedia HD DVR won't let you do 240p 60fps either, afaik. And really, I can't think of any card that does. I used to have one that only supported 320x240, but it was still 30fps.

mugenmidget

2011-03-07 01:56:54 pm

Thanks again for all the help guys, I really appreciate it. I tried just Xsplit with field blending and you were spot on RaijinXBlade, the viewers seemed to follow everything just fine and there were no complaints about stream quality. I would like to mess with VirtualDub some more, but the rig I'm currently using for streaming is too slow to do a screen capture from VDub without major performance problems. I'll definitely play with it some more, but for the time being 30 fps with Xsplit's deinterlacing will be enough. But of course, if anyone has anything to add feel free to chime in. Many thanks and best wishes.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2012-12-04 08:26:46 am

2012-12-04 08:11:39 am

All the things

Necro'ing this thread since more people have recently become interested in this.

For most people the only way to get 60 fps source content is to use emulators, which is not an option for those doing attempts or otherwise playing on console. There's always the option to use a hardware scaler, but the cost is much too prohibitive for the average user, and frankly there should be better software options.

Things I've investigated so far:

-Using XSplit's in-built deinterlacer. It seems like it discards every other frame, so only gives the illusion of deinterlaced content and 60 fps recordings will just show every frame twice.
-Using AmaRecTV's deinterlacing options. I really don't know what each option is supposed to affect, but none of them appear to work for its Live broadcast, at least.
-Using VLC to deinterlace the captured content and then pulling in its DirectX window to XSplit (or broadcasting it locally). This should work in theory, except the program is not set up to apply deinterlacing directly to capture feeds, even rebroadcast ones. This is disappointing, but there may yet be a workaround for it.
-Using DScaler. This one works great with "Old Game" preset. The only problem is that it doesn't play correctly with Direct3D so you can't grab the image accurately in XSplit.

DScaler can be used if you don't mind using Screen Capture, but the same can be said of VDub. I don't like using Screen Capture if I can help it since it uses additional resources and tends to bog down XSplit.

EDIT: This also may get more views if it were moved to Tech Discussions.

Necro'ing this thread since more people have recently become interested in this.

For most people the only way to get 60 fps source content is to use emulators, which is not an option for those doing attempts or otherwise playing on console. There's always the option to use a hardware scaler, but the cost is much too prohibitive for the average user, and frankly there should be better software options.

Things I've investigated so far:

-Using XSplit's in-built deinterlacer. It seems like it discards every other frame, so only gives the illusion of deinterlaced content and 60 fps recordings will just show every frame twice.
-Using AmaRecTV's deinterlacing options. I really don't know what each option is supposed to affect, but none of them appear to work for its Live broadcast, at least.
-Using VLC to deinterlace the captured content and then pulling in its DirectX window to XSplit (or broadcasting it locally). This should work in theory, except the program is not set up to apply deinterlacing directly to capture feeds, even rebroadcast ones. This is disappointing, but there may yet be a workaround for it.
-Using DScaler. This one works great with "Old Game" preset. The only problem is that it doesn't play correctly with Direct3D so you can't grab the image accurately in XSplit.

DScaler can be used if you don't mind using Screen Capture, but the same can be said of VDub. I don't like using Screen Capture if I can help it since it uses additional resources and tends to bog down XSplit.

EDIT: This also may get more views if it were moved to Tech Discussions.

Josh the Funkdoc

2012-12-04 09:13:33 am

spread the dirt to the populace

I'm guessing OBS would have the same issues with DScaler then? I set it up and don't see any way to use it there either. That might be worth asking about on their forums...

Thank you very much for trying all of this!

mugenmidget

2012-12-04 09:24:12 am

Yeah, thanks everyone, glad people are still looking into this. I started screen capturing AmaRecTV with XSplit for my streams and it appears to work pretty well, so I'm content for now, but I'm always interested to hear better options!

And yes, feel free to move this to Tech Discussions.

honorableJay

2012-12-04 04:22:32 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

The only way I've seen to stream in 60fps is to capture the preview window in AmarecTv while the deinterlacer is running. It won't affect anything you record by running the deinterlacer for the preview window, and it's fast enough that only someone like Heidman would notice the lag (a few frames from my own experience). Just make sure you have enough CPU horsepower to handle live 60fps encoding or you'll lag Amarec and the stream pretty badly.

Omnigamer

2012-12-04 04:32:56 pm

All the things

After playing around with it a bit more, a number of DScaler's options produce darn good progressive content and don't produce a half-height Direct3D stream. The catch is that it's very taxing on the CPU. I have a beast of a machine and most cores were at 50% during a local recording. It also has occasional hiccups. I'll try it out a bit tonight during Timecop and see what my stream viewers think of it before committing to one of them.

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2012-12-04 07:16:16 pm

2012-12-04 07:04:22 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Anybody else have a problem running DScaler with Win7? I keep getting this error: ErrorBox File:C:\Source\deinterlace\DScalerBuild4115\DScaler\DScaler\Providers.cpp line: 488 Message: Can't load Hardware Driver, possibly caused by corrupt installation. Reboot and try again.

I've rebooted and reinstalled numerous times but still can't get rid of the message. I was hoping to mess with DScaler to see what kind of video I could get out of it but this error stuffs me everytime I load, with or without compatibility modes. Btw, Win7 Pro x64.

***Edit***
Nevermind, solved the issue. Apparently I was running 4.1.18 instead of 4.2.2. Installed the newest version and everything is peachy.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2012-12-05 07:50:58 am

2012-12-04 11:01:39 pm

All the things

Preliminary results say that DScaler works fine for the purpose. However, several problems:

-It's really buggy. See above. Also, I think FunkDoc had an issue. When I first used it I couldn't change the crossbar.
-It's very resource-intensive. Many computers may not be able to handle it while simultaneously streaming/recording.
-You can grab its Direct3D output, but it still has to be cropped and/or stretched, depending on which deinterlacing setting you use. Just an extra hassle.

If you can live with/get past those issues, the setup works fine.

I posted a question to VLC's forum, but I'm not expecting to get a good answer back from them (a similar thread received the response "that package format can't be deinterlaced"). Until then, it seems like the next best option is to Screen Capture AmaRec's preview window. Issues with that:

-You need at least the source input's space available on your screen.
-The deinterlacing/postprocessing does not carry over its "Live" feature. So screen cap is the only real option.
-It's still AmaRec, and has intermittent problems/bugs.

So I guess coming up with a solution that works for you will depend on your own needs and preferences. Either way, chances are you'll need a moderately powerful machine and connection to support it.

EDIT: VDub should probably work as well if you want to go the screen capture route, but I haven't played around with its deinterlacing filters yet.

Preliminary results say that DScaler works fine for the purpose. However, several problems:

-It's really buggy. See above. Also, I think FunkDoc had an issue. When I first used it I couldn't change the crossbar.
-It's very resource-intensive. Many computers may not be able to handle it while simultaneously streaming/recording.
-You can grab its Direct3D output, but it still has to be cropped and/or stretched, depending on which deinterlacing setting you use. Just an extra hassle.

If you can live with/get past those issues, the setup works fine.

I posted a question to VLC's forum, but I'm not expecting to get a good answer back from them (a similar thread received the response "that package format can't be deinterlaced"). Until then, it seems like the next best option is to Screen Capture AmaRec's preview window. Issues with that:

-You need at least the source input's space available on your screen.
-The deinterlacing/postprocessing does not carry over its "Live" feature. So screen cap is the only real option.
-It's still AmaRec, and has intermittent problems/bugs.

So I guess coming up with a solution that works for you will depend on your own needs and preferences. Either way, chances are you'll need a moderately powerful machine and connection to support it.

EDIT: VDub should probably work as well if you want to go the screen capture route, but I haven't played around with its deinterlacing filters yet.

zastbat

2012-12-04 11:42:34 pm

Lord Of The Beards

Quote:

-It's really buggy. See above. Also, I think FunkDoc had an issue. When I first used it I couldn't change the crossbar.

I received a BSOD when i tried to switch to svideo if i could get around that i'm pretty sure i would like it

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2012-12-05 03:35:08 pm

2012-12-05 03:33:01 pm

Quote from Omnigamer:

-Using AmaRecTV's deinterlacing options. I really don't know what each option is supposed to affect, but none of them appear to work for its Live broadcast, at least.

I think you may have to set filter processing to on. Of course this will also change your recorded video as well. Also, I find that some options don't change until you have restarted AmaRec. Though honestly, The program should be sending filtered output to the live feature with or without this setting.

Another thing that is kind of interesting, I was looking at the AmaRec homepage, and apparently they used to have a separate option for deinterlacing for the live feature.

Though the latest version of Amarec does not let you specify what kind of deinterlacing you want for live output.

As for What each deinterlacing option for Amarec Does, I found this is the readme:

Quote:

(1) Action Mode(This is the same as former Deinterlacing, and required spec are low)
(2) RPG Mode(However, high quality Deinterlacing, required spec are high)
(3) Retro Mode(This is Deinterlacing for the old game consoles of 240 lines, and the required spec are low)

I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between Action and RPG is, but Retro seems to just separate the fields and line-double.

[quote="Omnigamer"]-Using AmaRecTV's deinterlacing options. I really don't know what each option is supposed to affect, but none of them appear to work for its Live broadcast, at least.[/quote]
I think you may have to set filter processing to on. Of course this will also change your recorded video as well. Also, I find that some options don't change until you have restarted AmaRec. Though honestly, The program should be sending filtered output to the live feature with or without this setting.

Another thing that is kind of interesting, I was looking at the AmaRec homepage, and apparently they used to have a separate option for deinterlacing for the live feature.
[img]http://www.amarectv.com/english/amarectv_e_files/image036.gif[/img]
Though the latest version of Amarec does not let you specify what kind of deinterlacing you want for live output.

As for What each deinterlacing option for Amarec Does, I found this is the readme:
[quote]    (1) Action Mode(This is the same as former Deinterlacing, and required spec are low) 
    (2) RPG Mode(However, high quality Deinterlacing, required spec are high) 
    (3) Retro Mode(This is Deinterlacing for the old game consoles of 240 lines, and the required spec are low) [/quote]
I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between Action and RPG is, but Retro seems to just separate the fields and line-double.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2012-12-05 04:40:18 pm

2012-12-05 04:32:48 pm

All the things

After trying to dig through their blog for the past hour, I couldn't find the version with those options for Live. The most recent version available is 2.20c, which does not have those options. In their blog they advertise versions 2.20d and e, but the only changes to those are the deinterlacing core (files available here). The blog mentions something about a version 2.30, but as far as I can tell it is not available yet. So as best as I can tell, that is either a really old version or a really new version. Either way, the settings that I used before did not produce correctly deinterlaced footage through Live. I will try out the new core and see if anything changes though.

Edit: Using the provided deinterlacing core just causes it to crash. Tried for both 2.20c and 2.10b

aers

2012-12-05 06:24:06 pm

It's not 2.30, see here:

It's an old version.

If you're wondering about the change to the live out in the picture, he's added support for 4 independent live filters - so you could run two AmaRec instances hitting two different capture cards and have them on seperate AmaRec lives, among other things.

You can get a beta version of 2.3 from this blog post, as well as see the full changelog: http://amalabo.blog35.fc2.com/blog-entry-214.html

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2012-12-05 11:56:07 pm

Tranquilite: 2012-12-05 11:54:26 pm

Tranquilite: 2012-12-05 11:53:44 pm

Tranquilite: 2012-12-05 11:38:52 pm

2012-12-05 11:17:00 pm

I think the reason why AmaRec's Live feature isn't working at 60fps is not because of the deinterlacing. I have a capture card that sends 60fps 720x240 video, and AmaRec Live is sending fake 60fps video which is just 30fps with duplicate frames. Looks like you will just have to screen cap the video preview for now.
I'm using the AmaRecTV Ver2.30 Build:Nov 23 2012 right now, but I suspect the same thing happens with the previous version.

EDIT: I switched back to 2.20c, and I get proper 60fps output now. I have no idea why the deinterlacing doesn't propagate to the live output. The linedoubling works though. Maybe I will dig out my easycap and see if I can get it to deinterlace.

EDIT2: Deinterlaced AmaRec Live output is working at 60fps just fine for me on version 2.20c with my easycap. I am capturing my SNES over composite with the "retro" deinterlacing setting. I have no idea why things aren't working for you Omni.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2012-12-06 08:54:25 am

Omnigamer: 2012-12-06 08:53:17 am

Omnigamer: 2012-12-06 12:19:11 am

2012-12-06 12:18:49 am

All the things

Tranquilite: I tested it again and it seems to be a version difference between 2.10b and 2.20c. Anything with 2.10b is just frame doubled; 2.20c seems to handle it fine. I can't speak for 2.30.

Either way, it is an important note that 2.10b can't handle it since that's the one that's still available on the english page. People would have to dig through the japanese page to get to 2.20c, which I don't think many will do or know to do. 2.30 beta is buried even deeper, but from what Tranquilite is saying that one seems to also have issues.

Tranquilite

2012-12-07 12:51:22 am

Well for anybody who doesn't want to wade through the Japanese site, you can get 2.20c here.
I hope the final release of 2.30 has proper 60fps output, because it's not exactly easy to send a bug report to a Japanese developer...

honorableJay

2012-12-11 09:23:30 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

After watching Funkdoc get 60fps streaming to work, what's the official ruling? Just how exactly did he do it? I know that he had to enable the deinterlacer for the preview window in Amarec, and he had to set the Live function to output 60fps, AND he had to set OBS to run with 60fps, but other than that, was there anything else he had to do?

The main reason I'm asking this is because Funkdoc said he uses a hardware deinterlacer. Does that mean he outputs from the console to the deinterlacer, then into his capture card? If that's the case, does his capture card allow up to 60fps capture? That right there could hinder the efforts of other people to get 60fps through Amarec+OBS. The Dazzle DVC100 that I'm using currently only accepts up to a 29.97 framerate from the source. I haven't been able to test Amarec 2.20c, but does enabling the deinterlacer for the preview window also enable it for the Live output too?