We aim for the best compromise of the following values. Even if it means days of more work for the encoder, it does not matter.

• Quality: As near perfect as possible.
• Size: As small as possible.
• Information: The video content must label the movie as tool-assisted, to prevent misconceptions from occurring. A pointer to the TASVideos website is provided because it is currently the best source of TAS-related information in the Internet.
• Copyright: The video content must label the player by name, and the TASVideos website as the source. This information should be presented so prominently that it cannot be clipped out from the movie by video editing without extraordinary effort.
• Pleasantness: Annoy the audience as little as possible. Provide a game video as undisturbed as possible.

OGM is technically allowed, but socially discouraged because its support is not widespread. Between OGM and MKV, the latter is a better choice.

AVI is discouraged as well since it lacks proper support for b-frames (or H.264, for that matter), chapters, soft subtitles, and Vorbis/AAC audio. This container also has more overhead, making videos larger than they need to be.

The codec should be freely available for nearly all operating systems, or compatible with freely available alternatives. Techsmith is not acceptable.

See below for compression settings.

Video compression

If you're using MP4, use AAC encoding (the end result will be streamable if both of these are met).

If you're using AVI, the only option is LAME MP3 encoder. Other codecs are not compatible with AVI or have worse quality/size ratio.

Audio compression

The EmulatorResources/MakingAVI page contains links to tutorials on how convert various emulator movie file formats to a publishable AVI.

• No frames are skipped.
• No frames are duplicated.

This generally means 60 fps (frames per second) for NTSC games and 50 fps for PAL. Lower values won't do.

When you use the recording feature built into the emulator itself, the framerate is usually automatically assigned so you do not need to worry about it.

• For NES and SNES, the resolution must be 256x224 or 256x240 (or 512x448 in the case of the SNES HiRes mode).
• For GBA, the resolution must be 240x160.
• For GB/SGB/CGB, the resolution must be 160x144.
• For Genesis, the resolution must be 320x240.
• For N64, the resolution can be 320x240 or greater (see below).

For console platforms use an aspect ratio of 4:3 (1.333).
Handhelds don't need AR correction, because their resolution is always fixed to match the display matrix pixel-for-pixel without any kind of stretching involved. Thus, any AR that doesn't match the native resolution will distort the image.

In the case of N64, and 3D games on PSX and Saturn, these extra quality requirements must be met:

• The anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and other settings must be at highest possible quality. Neither the edges nor the interiors of polygons must appear jagged.

Logo

Movie information

  Title in hh:mm:ss.ss
  by PlayerName
  Rerecord count: number

  This is a tool-assisted recording.
  For details, visit http://TASVideos.org/

1. Does not indicate that the movie is tool-assisted
2. Misrepresents the URL of the site or does not present it at all (it is not supposed to be an advertisement; see logo above)
3. Indicates the aforementioned, but the text is written in an illegible font or style, or overlaps with interesting content, or is gone before the game even begins
4. Encoding (or recording, in case of 3D games) quality is sub-par with existing publications (too high bitrate, too low bitrate, or too low perceived quality)
5. The logo emphasises the encoder over any other information, or contains a distracting animation, or is too long
6. The movie does not include the full ending of the game
7. Bad audio-video sync, or drift (e.g. audio lags incrementally behind the video)

• Use the best motion detection settings you can afford. Uneven multi-hexagon search with range=16 is the standard. Even longer range might be useful in games that have very fast motion.
• Use 15 or 16 at "reference frames".
• Use multi-pass encoding. It nearly always improves the quality-to-size ratio.
• Use maximum subpixel refinement setting if your game uses subpixel motion (N64 uses always, SNES sometimes, NES never). If it doesn't, you don't need to use the maximum setting.
• Good average bitrates vary between 140-450 kbit/s, depending on the video content.
• Do not set the "keyint" value too high, as it will greatly reduce seekability (default is 250, values higher than 600 are discouraged, 300 is recommended).
• Do not use "noise reduction". Emulators do not simulate antenna or tape signal degradation, so there's no point in trying to reduce it.
• Use bframes for MKV/MP4.
• Use deldup for MKV/MP4. [1]
• With AVI use the "decimate" video filter option in MEncoder (within reason. A maximum duplicate frame range of 10-30 frames is sufficient).

N64, most Sega Saturn and PlayStation games are rendered triangle-based, not pixel-based, so there are some extra strategies that are useful in the encoding of movies made on these platforms:

• Use the maximum anti-aliasing setting.
• Use the maximum full-screen anti-aliasing setting (FSAA).
• Use the maximum anisotropic filtering setting.
• Ensure that in your display card settings, there is no color-correction/skew curve active.
• Record the movie at a high resolution (such as 1280x960), then downscale it into 320x240 with a lanczos scaler before or when encoding it. Yes, it will drastically slow down the sampling, but the quality difference is worth it.

See examples on the possible outcomes here.

See also: EmulatorResources/MakingAVI

[1] adelikat: This one is still a bit controversial since it lacks compatibility with some older players. In particular, it requires the newest version of VLC which is not compatible with older versions of the Mac OS.