Question concerning Camcorders

2006-03-04 03:12:57 am

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

I've read the submission FAQ, and I know you guys won't accept camcorded videos and webcam streams. I'm not about to ask you to change your mind, I agree with you. However, I just bought a Mini DV cam that is capable of dubbing directly from an AV output. I've tested it, and it works great. However the highest quality I can get is 320x240 in an ASF format. The resolution is no different than most of the "normal quality" runs that you host on the site, and the audio is very clear. Would you consider allowing me to do a run in this format? Or do you have any suggestions/ questions?

Thanks guys.

Thread title:

Sir VG

2006-03-04 03:21:39 am

Fucking Weeaboo

ASF is a crappy format. It's streaming video but with the poor resolution and all that, plus I'm sure Mac and Linux users would be out of luck.

It's like WMV. Microsoft formats SUCK.

nate

2006-03-04 04:17:51 am

sorry, you'll have to acquire the proper equipment like anyone else. slippery slope and all that. however, you should be able to run cables into the camera and record to the mini dv tape, then capture digitally using something equivalent to imovie. quality should be excellent if done right, with full framerate being no problem.

ShinObiWan

2006-03-05 11:30:31 pm

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

Apparently I can get much higher quality video on a direct-dub if I use the right software in conjunction with Firewire. I've found a good software (Premiere, Vegas 6.0), and I've ordered a Firewire card. Thanks for recommendation on WinDV, I think that will help immensely. I guess I'll keep my findings on the camera's capability posted. Any other advice on video capture would be greatly appreciated.

ShinObiWan

2006-03-09 04:31:47 am

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

I've done it. Using my MiniDV with Firewire, I'm now able to capture good quality 720 X 480 avi files, fully compressed in DivX (about 6 MB a minute).

If you guys want, I'll be more than happy to send you a sample file for quality check. I really want to submit some speedruns, but I honestly don't think I need a $250 DVD recorder to do it.

Thanks for all your patience in concerning my n00b-ness.

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-03-09 07:02:18 am

2006-03-09 07:01:41 am

With a camcorder? Go ahead and post that sample file here, I want to see it.

ShinObiWan

2006-03-09 10:34:21 am

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

Aight, I posted a sample on archive.org, here...

http://www.archive.org/details/GaidenMission1Norm

I put the video together with Vegas 6.0 and VirtualDub to encode it. The original video for this was captured off an actual DV tape. Tomorrow I get a longer Firewire cable...so I think I will try a direct pass-through to my PC, to try and improve the quality some more.

Questions, comments, observations are appreciated as always.

ballofsnow

Edit history:

ballofsnow: 2006-03-09 11:21:34 pm

2006-03-09 11:21:01 pm

The colour looks washed out. Other than that it's a good capture.

Obviously you are new to video processing. To make it look better you'll need to resize to 640x480, deinterlace, and use a higher bitrate. FAQ

Also, I don't think it's a good idea to use archive.org to host your temporary sample files. There's filefront and rapidshare for that.

Radix

2006-03-09 11:28:42 pm

I'm addicted to games

Quote:

deinterlace

Yep, the video is obviously interlaced.
But even if not, 780 kbps is way too small of a bitrate for a 640x480 video. They should be 2000 for high quality and 4000 for insane. Then resize to 320x240 and do 500 for normal. But that's all covered in the FAQ.

ballofsnow

2006-03-09 11:32:23 pm

I just loaded your video into virtualdubmod. If you can't find a way to get rid of the washed out colour, you could try using the brightness/contrast filter in virtualdub. Set the brightness down a little bit, and the contrast up and it'll look pretty good.

Radix

2006-03-10 12:19:47 am

I'm addicted to games

Except that's a bad idea... the color should be fixed before it's digitized.

ballofsnow

2006-03-10 12:35:01 am

I know.. just saying if he can't.

Cygnus

Edit history:

Cygnus: 2006-03-10 01:08:43 am

2006-03-10 01:08:32 am

Ben Goldberg

How would you record on to a camcorder? I have one, but I don't see any video inputs.

Radix

2006-03-10 01:17:46 am

I'm addicted to games

A camcorder that has video inputs? Tongue

Cygnus

Edit history:

Cygnus: 2006-03-10 01:23:55 am

2006-03-10 01:22:50 am

Ben Goldberg

Ya, exactly. How would you record a speed run using a camcorder? Or did I miss something?

VorpalEdge

2006-03-10 01:26:51 am

welcome to the machine

His camcorder has video inputs. Yours apparently doesn't.

ShinObiWan

2006-03-10 02:47:49 am

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with the color, the original uncompressed file looks great. Radix, thanks for the help. I've jacked the bitrate up and de-interlaced it. And you're right, I'm a complete n00b at encoding video. But I'm learning. So, from the original capture, which looks good, I've put the bitrate up to 3000, adjusted size to 640X480, and de-interlaced it. I'm encoding audio as MP3 at 128 kbps (16-bit stereo). Does that sound good?

Re-encoding now, thanks for puttin up with me. I'll likely end up re-submitting it if turns out well.

ballofsnow

2006-03-10 03:51:16 am

Go with 2000 instead. HQ should be 2000, IQ should be 4000.

ShinObiWan

2006-03-10 09:24:11 am

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

Ok guys, I think we might have a winner. The submitted file, via Filefront, is a 640X480 Insane quality, all the trimmings, yadda. I think it looks great. Hit me back with comments. Hopefully it doesn't take 3 hours to download...

http://hosted.filefront.com/ShinObiWan

Again, thanks for all your help in my little experiment.

Radix, I guess the question that remains is, would you accept a run in this quality?

ShinObiWan

2006-03-19 07:41:29 pm

Nothin beats the classics....NES / SNES for life

I assume the reason I haven't gotten a reply in a week, is simply due to the time it takes to d/l the file. Understandably so. It's still up there, but I submitted a 320x240 version, 512 bitrate, normal quality, etc. It's 40 MB.

However, the IQ file has been downloaded 12 times, I just don't know who by.

Let me know if you think this would work for speedruns.

btw....I suck at Gaiden..