AmaRecTV is creating 24~ hour long videos

2013-08-05 10:19:49 am

I was doing some ILs and used AmaRec's recording feature. When I got the run, I stopped the recording and went to play it (.avi), but not only would it not play, the video length was 24~ hours long, when I was recording for maybe 30 minutes. Has anyone ever had a similar problem and/or suggest any reasons as to why this is happening. I'm using AmaRecTV 2.31. Thanks.

Thread title:

blizzz

2013-08-05 10:55:36 am

Did you set up the proper codec in Amarec, for example Lagarith? Also, which player did you use to open the file.

Phazon

2013-08-06 04:23:08 am

I'm using the default codec (AMV2MT) and opening the files in VLC.

Sir VG

2013-08-06 05:12:33 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Quote from Phazon:

I'm using the default codec (AMV2MT) and opening the files in VLC.

Try a different codec, like Lagarith, Huffy, or even H.264 Lossless and see if that helps. I'm betting on codec issue.

Phazon

2013-08-07 11:09:54 am

None of those codecs are available to me in AmaRecTV, but of the ones that are available, many wouldn't let me record giving an error of either "ICOpen" or "ICCompressGetFormatSize" (I'm not sure what this means) and the ones that would allow me to record all create unplayable .avi files. None are 24~ hour length now, they all have no length and simply don't play. The codecs that allowed me to record were: AMM2, AMV3, VP60 and VP61. I'm not sure if that is relevant though.

blizzz

Edit history:

blizzz: 2013-08-07 11:13:57 am

2013-08-07 11:12:19 am

You have to install the codecs you want to use.... http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html

Also keep in mind that VLC uses its own codecs and might be incompatible with the ones you install for other programs.

Phazon

2013-08-07 02:51:15 pm

Thanks for the link, but VLC isn't compatible with LAGS according to this: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.php?cat=video

I downloaded DivX9.1.2, however, which is compatible with VLC and there was no error on AmaRecTV, yet the .avi still wouldn't play. I can't understand why that is.

Phazon

2013-08-07 03:33:05 pm

I tried uploading the .avi (that was created with the LAGS codec) to Youtube, just to see if it'd work, but I couldn't upload it. Is Youtube compatible with LAGS? I've tried installing H.264 as it is also compatible with VLC (I tried H.264 before the DivX codec), but to no avail. This might be a silly question, but am I right in assuming that I want an encoder, not a decoder? I thought so, but I tried decoders anyway, since I can't find any encoders, and they didn't add the codec to the list in AmaRecTV. I also tried the .AVI Player available from the same site that I downloaded LAGS from, but it has some issues playing these files as well, so I'm pretty lost right now.

ahuynh

2013-08-07 05:16:57 pm

Install the Lagarith codec. When you use AmarecTV, record in that codec. The video file will be very high quality. However, the files will be big and not suitable for regular playback. Instead, you want to convert it. Use Anrichan or yua for that because it is easy to use and the end files will be good enough for regular playback(and for SDA if you want to submit something).

yoshifan

2013-08-08 05:18:39 pm

About playing videos:

I found that Media Player Classic (also known as MPC-HC) could play Lagarith videos recorded by AmarecTV.

However, I've had issues with gradual audio desync in MPC, and it seems that MPC likes to compress the video picture as it plays the video, so it won't show you the full detail of the actual video file. But you can still use MPC to basically test your Lagarith video's framerate, audio level, etc. before you encode the video to another format with Yua or Anri-chan (Yua is newer and should be easier to use).

By the way, I'd like to mention that I actually use three different media players: VLC, Media Player Classic, and Google Chrome. If you drag a video file from Windows Explorer into Chrome, it'll play the video, sometimes better than VLC or MPC can. Maybe it'll help you sometimes, too. (For me, the videos I've recorded with Amarec and then encoded with Yua stutter in VLC, and have gradual audio desync in MPC, but seem to play perfectly in Chrome.)

As far as codecs and stuff:

You want an encoder if you're creating/writing a video (like in AmaRecTV). You want a decoder if you're playing/reading a video.

I don't know if you can actually get "H.264" to appear on the AmaRecTV codec list, but you can get x264 for Windows here (latest version should work). Install that, then you should see x264 on the codec list.

I don't claim to be an expert on this terminology, but I believe the difference is that H.264 is a format, and x264 is a codec. A codec is a piece of software that encodes video; in x264's case, it happens to encode to the H.264 format, which is why they made the name similar. Hope that makes sense (and is actually correct >_> ).

Not sure how much you know about this, but the reason why there are several different codecs to choose from (Lagarith, x264, Huffyuv, etc.) is that they have different capabilities as far as the size of the video they output, how taxing they are for your CPU while recording, how well they can compress (less reduction of quality and more reduction of filesize) if it's not a lossless recording, and so on. So there's some experimenting you can do if you want to see what works best for your needs and your computer.

For me, I find that Lagarith is a nice lossless encoder that's (1) not very taxing on the CPU and (2) doesn't output super unreasonable filesizes (but it's hard to avoid very large filesizes with lossless video). If you're willing to lose some quality to get a recording filesize and format that's easier to deal with, possibly even skipping the Yua encoding step in the process, you might try x264 on "veryfast" settings. You can also try other x264 presets such as medium, fast, faster, superfast, or ultrafast. Faster settings are easier on the CPU (so you'll have a lesser chance of dropped frames), but have worse compression (you might get worse quality and/or higher filesize).

I haven't tried (or don't remember my experiences with) Huffyuv, or x264 with lossless settings. So I can't comment on those, but they're worth a try too.

About playing videos:

I found that Media Player Classic (also known as MPC-HC) could play Lagarith videos recorded by AmarecTV.

However, I've had issues with gradual audio desync in MPC, and it seems that MPC likes to compress the video picture as it plays the video, so it won't show you the full detail of the actual video file.  But you can still use MPC to basically test your Lagarith video's framerate, audio level, etc. before you encode the video to another format with [url=https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/yua_beta_3.html]Yua[/url] or [url=https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/anrichan_3.3__june_5_2011.html]Anri-chan[/url] (Yua is newer and should be easier to use).

By the way, I'd like to mention that I actually use three different media players: VLC, Media Player Classic, and Google Chrome.  If you drag a video file from Windows Explorer into Chrome, it'll play the video, sometimes better than VLC or MPC can.  Maybe it'll help you sometimes, too.  (For me, the videos I've recorded with Amarec and then encoded with Yua stutter in VLC, and have gradual audio desync in MPC, but seem to play perfectly in Chrome.)

As far as codecs and stuff:

You want an encoder if you're creating/writing a video (like in AmaRecTV).  You want a decoder if you're playing/reading a video.

I don't know if you can actually get "H.264" to appear on the AmaRecTV codec list, but you can get x264 for Windows [url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/files/x264vfw/]here[/url] (latest version should work).  Install that, then you should see x264 on the codec list.

I don't claim to be an expert on this terminology, but I believe the difference is that H.264 is a format, and x264 is a codec.  A codec is a piece of software that encodes video; in x264's case, it happens to encode to the H.264 format, which is why they made the name similar.  Hope that makes sense (and is actually correct >_> ).

Not sure how much you know about this, but the reason why there are several different codecs to choose from (Lagarith, x264, Huffyuv, etc.) is that they have different capabilities as far as the size of the video they output, how taxing they are for your CPU while recording, how well they can compress (less reduction of quality and more reduction of filesize) if it's not a lossless recording, and so on.  So there's some experimenting you can do if you want to see what works best for your needs and your computer.

For me, I find that Lagarith is a nice lossless encoder that's (1) not very taxing on the CPU and (2) doesn't output super unreasonable filesizes (but it's hard to avoid very large filesizes with lossless video).  If you're willing to lose some quality to get a recording filesize and format that's easier to deal with, possibly even skipping the Yua encoding step in the process, you might try x264 on "veryfast" settings.  You can also try other x264 presets such as medium, fast, faster, superfast, or ultrafast.  Faster settings are easier on the CPU (so you'll have a lesser chance of dropped frames), but have worse compression (you might get worse quality and/or higher filesize).

I haven't tried (or don't remember my experiences with) Huffyuv, or x264 with lossless settings.  So I can't comment on those, but they're worth a try too.

honorableJay

2013-08-08 07:48:27 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Yoshi is half right when it comes to a codec: A codec is supposed to stand for compressor-decompressor, i.e. software that can encode video into a specific format and also decode that type of file back to normal video for the user to watch. So, while H.264 is indeed a format, x264 should be able to not only compress video into the H.264 format, but decode H.264 videos.

While this is true for some codec's, not all follow these rules. For instance: The Fraps codec can encode it's own video format, but only if Fraps is the program doing the recording. At the same time, any Fraps videos can be decoded with the Fraps codec from nearly any video program.

As for the codecs mentioned, here's a bit of a comparison:

Lagarith: Lossless codec, meaning the decoded video is mathematically the same as the original video it recorded. Files sizes are generally large to very large depending on the resolution and framerate of the source material. Very low CPU resources required, medium to very high data transfer rates required to write video to your hard drive.

Huffyuv: Another lossless codec. Compared to Lagarith, it uses slightly less CPU resources, but filesizes are anywhere from 1-5% larger. Again, medium to very high data transfer rates are required to write to the hard drive.

x264: Lossy codec, meaning that repeated information between video frames is removed, and other optimizations are used to further shrink the file size down. Due to these optimizations, the video will never truly match the original source material. File size is generally small (comparatively anyway) to other codecs. CPU usage is high to very high, and a multi-core CPU is required to play and record at the same time. Low to medium data transfer rates are required to write to your hard drive.

Fraps: Lossy codec, but the video quality is still very close to a lossless codec. Low to medium CPU resources required since there is minor compression done to the video as it's being recorded. Depending on the resolution and framerate, Fraps recorded videos can be 1/2 to 1/10 the size of standard Lagarith files. Medium to very high data transfer rates required to write to the hard drive (again depending on framerate and resolution).

Yoshi is half right when it comes to a codec: A codec is supposed to stand for compressor-decompressor, i.e. software that can encode video into a specific format and also decode that type of file back to normal video for the user to watch. So, while H.264 is indeed a format, x264 should be able to not only compress video into the H.264 format, but decode H.264 videos.

While this is true for some codec's, not all follow these rules. For instance: The Fraps codec can encode it's own video format, but only if Fraps is the program doing the recording. At the same time, any Fraps videos can be decoded with the Fraps codec from nearly any video program.

As for the codecs mentioned, here's a bit of a comparison:

Lagarith: Lossless codec, meaning the decoded video is mathematically the same as the original video it recorded. Files sizes are generally large to very large depending on the resolution and framerate of the source material. Very low CPU resources required, medium to very high data transfer rates required to write video to your hard drive.

Huffyuv: Another lossless codec. Compared to Lagarith, it uses slightly less CPU resources, but filesizes are anywhere from 1-5% larger. Again, medium to very high data transfer rates are required to write to the hard drive.

x264: Lossy codec, meaning that repeated information between video frames is removed, and other optimizations are used to further shrink the file size down. Due to these optimizations, the video will never truly match the original source material. File size is generally small (comparatively anyway) to other codecs. CPU usage is high to very high, and a multi-core CPU is required to play and record at the same time. Low to medium data transfer rates are required to write to your hard drive.

Fraps: Lossy codec, but the video quality is still very close to a lossless codec. Low to medium CPU resources required since there is minor compression done to the video as it's being recorded. Depending on the resolution and framerate, Fraps recorded videos can be 1/2 to 1/10 the size of standard Lagarith files. Medium to very high data transfer rates required to write to the hard drive (again depending on framerate and resolution).

Phazon

2013-08-09 01:29:59 am

Thank you very much guys. I decided to stick with LAGS, as I wanted a lossless codec and I tried converting in Yua, which worked perfectly. I can now play the videos in VLC. Also, it was very helpful (not to mention interesting) to learn about codecs, since I really knew very little about them, so thank you for that also :).