The Mac OS X Thread

HDL

Edit history:

HDL: 2014-12-12 10:11:17 am

HDL: 2014-12-12 10:10:54 am

2014-12-12 10:10:23 am

I don't have disk write issues (internal SSD). The FPS issue is with Syphon Recorder itself, and you'll see it regardless of which compression method you choose. I only mentioned disk type because anyone with a slow HDD wouldn't be able to help with the test at all.

ProRes is good but the pixel format isn't perfect. It's RGBA in which the RGB channels are very lightly compressed (indistinguishable to the eye, but still there).

Shuyinsama

Edit history:

Shuyinsama: 2014-12-29 03:31:57 am

Shuyinsama: 2014-12-29 03:31:02 am

2014-12-29 03:30:24 am

Awesome thread for Speedrunning on OSX Smiley

I have been getting issues with Llanfair on Yosemite where Llanfair just crashes when splitting which sucks haha.

So my question here: How much people would like to see a native Splitting tool like LiveSplit for example for OSX?
I ask because I have been thinking about this for a long time now and I haven't had the time to start a project as big as that. But 2015 is coming up and I want to start a bigger project that will last me a while and will allow me to brush up my programming skills.
So basically what I want to know is it worth the time to start this project, or should I start something else?
I have been developing apps for iOS for 4 years now but the last big iOS project was at the end of 2013 and 2014 had a lack of projects in that department.
So I am willing to start the journey to create a Splitting tool for OSX that will be open source too but I haven't seen to many OSX Speedrunners around so yeah.

Also I have been recording with OBS for a while now (not actual streaming yet) and the video's come out pretty decent for me on a 5K 27" iMac model with general HDD.
So far I am happy that OBS became multiplatform, haven't tried long streaming yet so no comment from me on that.

many thanks

Awesome thread for Speedrunning on OSX :)

I have been getting issues with Llanfair on Yosemite where Llanfair just crashes when splitting which sucks haha.

So my question here: How much people would like to see a native Splitting tool like LiveSplit for example for OSX?
I ask because I have been thinking about this for a long time now and I haven't had the time to start a project as big as that. But 2015 is coming up and I want to start a bigger project that will last me a while and will allow me to brush up my programming skills.
So basically what I want to know is it worth the time to start this project, or should I start something else?
I have been developing apps for iOS for 4 years now but the last big iOS project was at the end of 2013 and 2014 had a lack of projects in that department.
So I am willing to start the journey to create a Splitting tool for OSX that will be open source too but I haven't seen to many OSX Speedrunners around so yeah.

Also I have been recording with OBS for a while now (not actual streaming yet) and the video's come out pretty decent for me on a 5K 27" iMac model with general HDD.
So far I am happy that OBS became multiplatform, haven't tried long streaming yet so no comment from me on that.

many thanks

presjpolk

2014-12-29 10:47:41 am

HELLO!

If you do make yet another timer please open the sources. Smiley

Shuyinsama

2014-12-29 11:39:11 am

I have decided to go with the project so I've set up the basic stuff

No coding has been done of course I am currently in the Design phase but here you go:

https://github.com/Shuyinsama/Splitr

DJS

2014-12-29 12:34:42 pm

torch slug since 2006

Yes please, make a nice timer! (My fork of Splits is pretty much dead btw, I have no interest in continuing on it)

Shuyinsama

2014-12-29 01:33:10 pm

Haha I'm gonna do the best I can.

While designing and testing some stuff I am also trying to layout a plan of action.
Next to the core functionality (Timing, splitting, open, save, import) what are some functions that need to be laid our early or need my attention.
I assume it's rather interesting to compare and see some "results/Analytics" but how much does it weigh for the community.

I don't know if this is the correct topic to discuss these things, I'm hoping to get some good feedback through SDA cause this here is one - if not THE - largest Speedrunning community out there.

dunnius

Edit history:

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:49:21 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:47:47 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:45:26 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:44:15 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:42:13 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:41:30 pm

dunnius: 2014-12-29 09:40:20 pm

2014-12-29 09:39:49 pm

Intruding N313 and F014

Quote from presjpolk:

If you do make yet another timer please open the sources. Smiley

Don't forget about Time Split Tracker, which you still have the code to start porting. It shouldn't take long to do that since the core does not have to ported; only the display has to be redone, which is not that much code since I put as much as possible into the core (mostly list management for the dynamic controls). I probably should make sure you have the latest code though. I wanted to get the basic port done before opening the source because I want the port to look like the Windows version. But if others want to work on it because it would be less work not duplicating the effort for the core, I would be fine with that. I made an old Mac version, but have stopped working on it since I don't have interest in trying to figure out Objective C.

Shuyinsama

2014-12-29 11:03:52 pm

That could be very interesting Dunnius! I'd love to compare my code to others to see if there are some better design choices. For now I am looking at starting from scratch cause I feel like it gives me more control but that would be awesome yes.

HDL

2014-12-30 07:33:47 am

Quote from Shuyinsama:

Also I have been recording with OBS for a while now (not actual streaming yet) and the video's come out pretty decent for me on a 5K 27" iMac model with general HDD.
So far I am happy that OBS became multiplatform, haven't tried long streaming yet so no comment from me on that.

In case you hadn't seen my prior posts, OBS (and most other apps) produce inaccurate recordings of your screen. It's especially true of streaming software which is notably bad for local recordings (although most people wouldn't notice) This is actually not specific to OS X but a widespread problem on every platform. Usually there's a combination of inaccurate pixel capture, frame rate, and/or colors.

OS X currently has 3 accurate capture options but they all have frame rate issues. I've been trying to work with the devs to fix that but they are quite slow or seem uninterested.

Anyway, a native timer would be very welcome. Smiley

Also I would highly recommend CocoaSplit over OBS, as it is in a much more developed state and has many more features.

[quote="Shuyinsama"]Also I have been recording with OBS for a while now (not actual streaming yet) and the video's come out pretty decent for me on a 5K 27" iMac model with general HDD.
So far I am happy that OBS became multiplatform, haven't tried long streaming yet so no comment from me on that.[/quote]

In case you hadn't seen my prior posts, OBS (and most other apps) produce inaccurate recordings of your screen.  It's especially true of streaming software which is notably bad for local recordings (although most people wouldn't notice)  This is actually not specific to OS X but a widespread problem on every platform.  Usually there's a combination of inaccurate pixel capture, frame rate, and/or colors.

OS X currently has 3 accurate capture options but they all have frame rate issues.  I've been trying to work with the devs to fix that but they are quite slow or seem uninterested.

Anyway, a native timer would be very welcome.  :)

Also I would highly recommend CocoaSplit over OBS, as it is in a much more developed state and has many more features.

Shuyinsama

2014-12-30 11:57:36 am

Ahh I read that wrong I thought some had a lot of frame issues (skips etc) with OBS recording...

Also I did not know that

presjpolk

2014-12-30 12:39:19 pm

HELLO!

Quote from dunnius:

Quote from presjpolk:

If you do make yet another timer please open the sources. Smiley

Don't forget about Time Split Tracker, which you still have the code to start porting. It shouldn't take long to do that since the core does not have to ported; only the display has to be redone, which is not that much code since I put as much as possible into the core (mostly list management for the dynamic controls). I probably should make sure you have the latest code though. I wanted to get the basic port done before opening the source because I want the port to look like the Windows version. But if others want to work on it because it would be less work not duplicating the effort for the core, I would be fine with that. I made an old Mac version, but have stopped working on it since I don't have interest in trying to figure out Objective C.

I haven't forgotten. I just... well, I just don't have the time with my new job honestly. Sorry man.

sparkletone

Edit history:

sparkletone: 2015-01-20 07:39:47 am

sparkletone: 2015-01-20 07:38:35 am

2015-01-20 07:37:37 am

Thanks for this thread. I've lurked SDA on and off for quite some time but have only very lightly dabbled in speedrunning because I didn't know how to stream stuff (and even if no one's watching, having the stream there is a big part of psychologically motivating myself to do this sort of thing). I wanted to do the LttP master sword race that SRL is doing this weekend, and I'd poked at OBS' current mac version but found it ... not so great (rather understandable given the stage the cross platform rewrite is at). Finding CocoaSplit and some guidance here helped me figure out something that works for what I need and results in a stream/recordings that are just fine for my amateur purposes.

I've been teaching myself Swift in the last week or two and making a timer app might not be a bad idea for a learning project... But I'm pretty sure I'd just end up contributing to the landfill of half-finished ones, unfortunately. Though since Swift and other stuff can be used in the same project fairly easily, maybe porting Time Split Tracker might be worth looking into? Llanfair is working all right for me though for now (on yosemite).

Thanks for this thread. I've lurked SDA on and off for quite some time but have only very lightly dabbled in speedrunning because I didn't know how to stream stuff (and even if no one's watching, having the stream there is a big part of psychologically motivating myself to do this sort of thing). I wanted to do the LttP master sword race that SRL is doing this weekend, and I'd poked at OBS' current mac version but found it ... not so great (rather understandable given the stage the cross platform rewrite is at). Finding CocoaSplit and some guidance here helped me figure out something that works for what I need and results in a stream/recordings that are just fine for my amateur purposes.

I've been teaching myself Swift in the last week or two and making a timer app might not be a bad idea for a learning project... But I'm pretty sure I'd just end up contributing to the landfill of half-finished ones, unfortunately. Though since Swift and other stuff can be used in the same project fairly easily, maybe porting Time Split Tracker might be worth looking into? Llanfair is working all right for me though for now (on yosemite).

HDL

2015-01-20 11:26:38 am

Any kind of porting or support for OS X is good.

Audio Hijack 3 was finally released after being in beta for so long: http://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2015/01/20/audio-hijack-3-has-arrived/

I highly recommend y'all get this. It has less latency than previous versions and has a much more flexible flow so you have overall more control over stuff.

CMiller

2015-01-20 05:35:22 pm

Does anybody know of any free or reasonably priced tools to encode 7.1 surround sound AAC under OS X? Quicktime 7.1 AAC encoding is limited to a wonky sony format nobody uses.

HDL

2015-01-20 06:04:27 pm

ffmpeg is the most robust video/audio encoding software so it might have the options you want. A quick search shows that it didn't have 7.1 support before but those posts are 3 years old. They may have added support since then, so perhaps look into that.

nate

2015-01-21 07:32:21 pm

ffmpeg is definitely capable of it now since iirc i added surround support to yua a while back.

HDL

2015-01-23 05:56:30 pm

Confirmations are nice. Smiley

So you guys know I'm a big proponent of Audio Hijack + Soundflower. I recently came across a similar audio utility that doesn't conflict with Soundflower and in fact can be used in conjunction with it, Sound Siphon: http://staticz.com/soundsiphon/

It has a $30 price tag but you'd only need to buy it if you want per application capture without a bandpass effect. If you combine it with Audio Hijack you can still get per application capture without the bandpass.

Since Audio Hijack 3 was publicly released the info I wrote on the KB is a bit outdated. I'll try to get around to updating it with setting stuff up in the new version.

sparkletone

2015-01-29 11:10:07 pm

A problem I ran into on Sunday and have been tinkering with since to no avail: Adding a timer to my stream causes a significant loss in FPS to the point where I'd say it's unwatchable. Without the timer I seem to be able to keep things at 30fps or near enough.

I'm guessing the attempt to encode something that changes so quickly has something to do with it (also my computer doesn't have the beefiest processor). Maybe it's something in my stream settings, but I'm not sure. It happens whether I use OBS or CocoaSplit though by default they seem to have relatively similar compression settings and stuff, and it seems to happen regardless of what timer app I use (tried llanfair and then some random freebie ones just to see if it was llanfair/java's fault). I'm willing to live without having a timer on screen since I'm not doing serious runs or anything, but thought I'd see if you all had any ideas?

dunnius

2015-01-30 02:18:32 am

Intruding N313 and F014

Hmm, you are probably right about the refresh rate messing with the encode. I think my Time Split Tracker program has a slower refresh rate than the others, mostly to help keep the CPU running low, so this could work for you. I think this has the latest version of the Mac version that I ported a couple years ago: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/timerstopwatch_program_262.html#timerstopwatch_program_262 If this works, then there is a need to get this ported.

I also can easily modify the program (though Windows version only since there is no recent Mac port) to customize the refresh rate to help with this further. (Although you can also run the windows version WINE if you have it, which is what I have been doing for many years. The last page on the timer thread has link to the latest version of the windows version) This feature isn't something I thought about. You are the first to have this happen.

HDL

2015-02-03 07:20:37 am

That timer FPS thing is a big reason I stopped streaming them a long time ago. The refresh rate is definitely unoptimized, even when keeping their windows small.

sparkletone

2015-02-03 10:31:45 am

Thanks, dunnius. I'll look into that when I've got a chance. Either CocoaSpilt or OBS (I forget which) seemed like it let you set the FPS a given source was refreshed at on a per source basis, but that didn't seem to make much difference (but maybe I wasn't configuring it right). I don't really need super precise timing for my purposes, so something that at least gets minutes/seconds on stream would be plenty. Will see if using that timer works better.

dunnius

2015-02-04 01:07:56 am

Intruding N313 and F014

I checked my code, and the screen updates every 0.075 seconds, or 13.33 fps, which is reasonable considering that for reading the timer real time, only the tenths place is needed. I'll add a customization for that in the windows version since it is super easy, although the default value should work fine, unless 0.0667 (15 fps) would work better for matching the frequency with the streaming software.

HDL

2015-03-04 08:17:01 am

Hey guys, thought I would share this: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l5gftpa89tdphlz/AACJZ6IcPXE9guN18HI2WHIea?dl=0

I'll occasionally be uploading compiled binaries of CocoaSplit to this folder so that people can have all the latest changes. Often times these changes are significant, but releases of CS are infrequent so you usually have to wait a long time to benefit from them. Since I can compile from source I'll be sharing builds every now and then. You can refer to the commits on the GitHub page to see recent changes.

Note: Auto update detection is disabled to prevent an annoying message from always appearing on startup.

HDL

2015-04-05 10:32:27 am

Hey guys, awesome update. ffmpeg now has 60 FPS support for screen recording on OS X. For the uninitiated, there's practically no better software to record with than ffmpeg, making it ideal for speed runs and SDA especially.

Since the update is currently only available via Git and hasn't been released publicly yet, I uploaded a build myself along with ffplay and ffprobe. Stick these in your /usr/local/bin folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zimj0vb5badekc9/AAAbc2OHQR86NYLCFZbQQR8ta?dl=0

Here's an example of how you'd use this for screen recording with AVFoundation. First, you want to view a list of your video and audio devices:

Code:

ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

Each device in this list has a number assigned to it. Choose "Capture screen" to record your desktop when inputting the -video_device_index option (see below). Do the same for whatever audio device you like. To record a lossless video, use a command like the following:

Code:

ffmpeg -f avfoundation -pix_fmt 0rgb -framerate 60 -video_device_index 3 -audio_device_index 4 -i "" -r 60 -c:v libx264rgb -crf 0 -vf crop=640:480:391:177 -c:a pcm_f32le -ar 48000 ~/Desktop/Lossless.avi

This will record a lossless video with an RGB pixel format (native computer graphics) and is only viewable by media players that support RGB formats. You can use ffplay for that or the beta builds of VLC 3. The "-vf crop=640:480:391:177" filter tells it to only make the video 640x480 instead of the entire screen, with the point of origin at 391 and 177. Alternatively you can use "huffyuv" as the video codec instead of "libx264rgb - crf 0." Since I usually encode videos using x264 I prefer minimizing format and codec conversions.

There is a known A/V sync problem, though. Currently the video lags behind audio, but it can be fixed after the fact with the -itsoffset option or by recording audio separately and then appending it to the recording. I'm currently looking into the optimal way to do this until the bug is fixed.

Hey guys, awesome update.  ffmpeg now has 60 FPS support for screen recording on OS X.  For the uninitiated, there's practically no better software to record with than ffmpeg, making it ideal for speed runs and SDA especially.

Since the update is currently only available via Git and hasn't been released publicly yet, I uploaded a build myself along with ffplay and ffprobe.  Stick these in your /usr/local/bin folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zimj0vb5badekc9/AAAbc2OHQR86NYLCFZbQQR8ta?dl=0

Here's an example of how you'd use this for screen recording with AVFoundation.  First, you want to view a list of your video and audio devices:

[code]ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""[/code]

Each device in this list has a number assigned to it.  Choose "Capture screen" to record your desktop when inputting the -video_device_index option (see below).  Do the same for whatever audio device you like.  To record a lossless video, use a command like the following:

[code]ffmpeg -f avfoundation -pix_fmt 0rgb -framerate 60 -video_device_index 3 -audio_device_index 4 -i "" -r 60 -c:v libx264rgb -crf 0 -vf crop=640:480:391:177 -c:a pcm_f32le -ar 48000 ~/Desktop/Lossless.avi[/code]

This will record a lossless video with an RGB pixel format (native computer graphics) and is only viewable by media players that support RGB formats.  You can use ffplay for that or the beta builds of VLC 3.  The "-vf crop=640:480:391:177" filter tells it to only make the video 640x480 instead of the entire screen, with the point of origin at 391 and 177.  Alternatively you can use "huffyuv" as the video codec instead of "libx264rgb - crf 0."  Since I usually encode videos using x264 I prefer minimizing format and codec conversions.

There is a known A/V sync problem, though.  Currently the video lags behind audio, but it can be fixed after the fact with the -itsoffset option or by recording audio separately and then appending it to the recording.  I'm currently looking into the optimal way to do this until the bug is fixed.

presjpolk

2015-04-06 08:53:56 am

HELLO!

How does this compare with Kumari?