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Posted: 2/24/2006 8:10 AM
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Andy_Olivera
Joined: 3/1/2005
Posts: 46
It's hard to tell whether there's anything wrong without seeing the uncompressed resized image. Was the status bar screwed up after the resize, or did MPEG-2 do that? I'm guessing MPEG-2 because you didn't resize vertically. My guess is you have the field-order set wrong. BFF is the default, IIRC. Other than that the image looks good. The only jaggies I see are interlacing artifacts. PS. Compress those screenshots with PNG(24-bit). You'll save at least 50% without losing anything.
Posted: 2/25/2006 2:43 AM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
I've got a question for you. I recently made a DVD of all the MegaMan/Rockman 1-6 TASes here on the website and while the video has come out absolutely perfectly, the audio is frighteningly quiet. I need to turn up the volume on my speaker system considerably in order to hear any audio from my DVD. I burned the DVD using TMPGEnc DVD Author and inside the software the audio level was perfect. I just don't understand why it came out so quiet on the DVD. (I'm also trying to make a DVD of the Super Metroid 100% run that I have a version of and am trying to figure out how to interlace the frames so that when Samus is hit, or is going down an elevator, she doesn't disappear. :D )
Posted: 2/25/2006 4:30 AM
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LocalH
Joined: 10/3/2004
Posts: 138
Evilheart: Part of your problem is that the emulator is only outputting 224 lines, but your script (which looks to be based off mine that I posted on Doom9) is assuming that the emulator is outputting a 240 line video. Two ways to fix this - either set FCEU up to output 240 lines in NTSC mode (in the Video options, there are settings for first and last scanline in both NTSC and PAL - set the top scanline to 0 and the bottom one to 239), or change the fourth through sixth lines of your script to read as follows: 
PointResize(512,224) # omit this for softer vertical transitions
BilinearResize(650,224)
AddBorders(35,8,35,8)
The second method will hide any garbage that may exist on the top or bottom 8 lines. The field order shouldn't be that much of an issue - as far as I understand, NTSC DVD is primarily top-field first (it's NTSC DV that is BFF). jdurg: What type of audio did you use? AC3 (Dolby Digital) is notorious for having an incorrect audio level when not set up properly, due to things like "dialog normalization". Unfortunately, such audio issues are outside my current scope, but it's something that I am constantly trying to learn. As for interlacing the SM run properly, you might try using a variant of my NES Avisynth script, such as this (untested, but should be a good starting point): 
AVISource("nesoutput.avi")
AssumeFieldBased()
AssumeTFF()
PointResize(512,240) # omit this for softer vertical transitions
BilinearResize(650,240)
AddBorders(35,0,35,0)
Weave()
AssumeFPS(30000,1001,true)
If your generated AVI is 224 lines, then make the same modifications that I recommended to Evilheart. Unless there is some audio skew in the SNES emulator output like there is with FCEU, then this should work for you.
Sonic Retro
Posted: 2/25/2006 4:35 AM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
I was actually using uncompressed PCM audio in my files. I now see that in VirtualDub I can go and increase the audio volume so I'm going to give that a try. (As I've noticed now that the audio in TMPGEnc is also pretty low but I just never noticed it before). I'll go and download Avisynth to be able to try out that Script you have written. Hopefully it will be able to keep the flickering and avoid the "invisible Samus" issue. :)
Posted: 2/25/2006 4:43 AM
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LocalH
Joined: 10/3/2004
Posts: 138
It should. Although you might not be able to tell unless you use a player that bobs the video (most software DVD players will do this, and ffdshow will also allow you to do the same). But, when you burn the disc, barring any other problems, Samus should indeed flicker when she's supposed to (although, of course, if you view the video on an LCD display, the flickering is liable to turn into a 50% transparency). My golden test is how a standalone DVD player responds. If it plays good and proper there, then it will also look good on any device that handles interlaced video properly (such as software DVD players).
Sonic Retro
Posted: 2/25/2006 5:29 AM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
LocalH wrote:
It should. Although you might not be able to tell unless you use a player that bobs the video (most software DVD players will do this, and ffdshow will also allow you to do the same). But, when you burn the disc, barring any other problems, Samus should indeed flicker when she's supposed to (although, of course, if you view the video on an LCD display, the flickering is liable to turn into a 50% transparency). My golden test is how a standalone DVD player responds. If it plays good and proper there, then it will also look good on any device that handles interlaced video properly (such as software DVD players).
Well VirtualDub did handle the audio level problem, and your script worked great with Super Metroid! (Although I did have to make a few adjustments as the file size was gigantic. The four minute test I did took up WAAAAAAAY too much space so I had to lower the resolution to the "low resolution standard" DVD format of 352x240). My monitor is an LCD screen so I did only see the slightly transparent Samus and on some parts she completely disappeared, while in others she was just fine. Again, I'll have to test that on a real TV to see how it turns out.
Posted: 2/25/2006 6:04 AM
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LocalH
Joined: 10/3/2004
Posts: 138
Well, if you dropped to 352x240, then you've destroyed the interlacing that makes Samus actually blink. The large file sizes suck, yes, but that's par for the course when working with any type of digital video. The reason that "on some parts she completely disappeared" is exactly due to the use of 352x240. To be able to display 60fps material such as classic video games, you must use a 480 line mode. DVD does support 352x480 as far as I know, however, so you can try this: 
AVISource("nesoutput.avi")
AssumeFieldBased()
AssumeTFF()
BilinearResize(325,240)
AddBorders(13,0,14,0)
Weave()
AssumeFPS(30000,1001,true)
Or, if you needed to use the 224-line modifications, do this for line 4 and 5: 
BilinearResize(325,224)
AddBorders(13,8,14,8)
Try that out, encoding to 352x480 (if your software allows it), and hopefully the filesize isn't quite as big as before (given that you have half as much video data). The image may not look quite as sharp as the 720x480 results, but it should nonetheless preserve the interlacing that's required for accurate NES video.
Sonic Retro
Posted: 2/25/2006 5:44 PM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
Makes sense. I'll give that a try and let you know how it works out. The file size just concerned me because only about five minutes turned out to be HUGE in regards to file-size and I was concerned about whether or not the full 1-hour plus movie would fit on a DVD. :)
Posted: 2/25/2006 5:56 PM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
Okay, I tried the script and it wouldn't even load. VirtualDub does not like the setting of 325x240 as it claims it is and 'Unrecognized Exception'.
Posted: 2/26/2006 4:30 AM
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LocalH
Joined: 10/3/2004
Posts: 138
Are you complaining about the filesize of the interim AVI (if you're using one and not feeding an AVS straight to your encoder, should it allow you do to so), or the filesize of the encoded MPEG-2? If you're troubled by the interim disk space, I recommend using the CamStudio Lossless codec. When set to GZIP at level 9, it produces files that are quite small, but is slow. I use it for my emulator raws, before I manipulate them with Avisynth, and then I feed the AVS directly to TMPGEnc (my encoder of choice). As far as the final filesize on DVD, that depends on the encoding parameters, and to a point whether you use VBR or CBR. VBR usually takes longer to encode but will create smaller files than CBR at the same quality. Conversely, if you have both a VBR and CBR file of the same filesize, the VBR will have better quality (although if the bitrate is high enough then you probably won't notice a difference). Did you just mistype or did you really use 325x240 instead of 352x240? I don't see why it would crash either way (unless it was the encoder crapping out during compression).
Sonic Retro
Posted: 2/26/2006 4:33 AM
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Andy_Olivera
Joined: 3/1/2005
Posts: 46
The filter probably expects units in multiples of two. Also, what compression settings are you using. At the maximum bitrate(9.8Mb/s combined audio/video) there's room for just over an hour. The average on most professional discs seems to be between 5 - 6.5Mb. If you want to use PCM audio you'll need to decrease the video bitrate to 5Mb/s; that'll give you approx. 90 minutes on a (single layer) disc.
Posted: 2/26/2006 5:00 AM
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jdurg
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 40
Location: Oakdale, CT
LocalH wrote:
Are you complaining about the filesize of the interim AVI (if you're using one and not feeding an AVS straight to your encoder, should it allow you do to so), or the filesize of the encoded MPEG-2? If you're troubled by the interim disk space, I recommend using the CamStudio Lossless codec. When set to GZIP at level 9, it produces files that are quite small, but is slow. I use it for my emulator raws, before I manipulate them with Avisynth, and then I feed the AVS directly to TMPGEnc (my encoder of choice). As far as the final filesize on DVD, that depends on the encoding parameters, and to a point whether you use VBR or CBR. VBR usually takes longer to encode but will create smaller files than CBR at the same quality. Conversely, if you have both a VBR and CBR file of the same filesize, the VBR will have better quality (although if the bitrate is high enough then you probably won't notice a difference). Did you just mistype or did you really use 325x240 instead of 352x240? I don't see why it would crash either way (unless it was the encoder crapping out during compression).
Yeah, that was a mis-type. :-) I eventually got it to work out just as I had hoped and was able to get the video to work with Samus still visible. I had an old 40 GB hard drive laying around so I installed that in my PC and am using that for all of my video file work so I don't have to worry about file size any longer. :-) It's pretty neat being able to pull out a DVD of Super Metroid and watch it when I feel like it. Still, I think I'll spend more time watching these movies right on my PC as my PC monitor if pretty danged huge and they look great in the .avi format. Might just wind up putting all of the videos on DVDs as normal files. Save the "movie making" for my buds who are kind of technologically challenged and would just want to pop in a DVD to see the movies.
Posted: 12/13/2006 11:19 AM
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Evilheart
Joined: 8/26/2005
Posts: 7
Location: Westland, MI
I have to small questions hopeuflly someone can answer. 1. I ouput a video from FCEU and it comes out perfectly formatted. i use the script to convert the video to mpeg using Tmpeg and it comes out perfectly formatted. Im using DVD-Lab to author the dvd and for some reason unknown to me the video does not display correctly on the TV. The right side of the screen has a kind of "Bowing" effect and its not aligned properly. Anyone know why this could be? the fright side of the video is perfectly straight and paralell to the right side of a TV screen however the left is slanted and mimics a "Pincushion" effect on a monitor. 2. When i output an AVI from Snes9x the sound is always perfectly synced. When i use the script to convert the video to mpeg it desyncs the wav from the video. This does not occur when i convert AVI output from FCEU, any explainations on this? Once these small issues are corrected i am going to be releasing TAS's on DVD. They will be in ISO format ready to burn and they will be distributed via bittorrent. I will post all the links to the torrents once they are available. The first set of DVD's will be the Megaman Series and the contents are below. What i would like to do is send the .ISO to the organizers of this site and have them review it before i release it to the public and that way they can have me add special backgrounds or whatever they see fit to make it more unique for the site. If the organizers are interested in that plan please contact me. Megaman - Tool Assisted Speedrun - DVD Set DVD 1 Megaman 1 Rockman 2 Rockman 3 DVD 2 Megaman 4 Megaman 5 DVD 3 Megaman 6 Megaman 7 DVD 4 Megaman x Megaman x2 DVD 5 Megaman x3 Rockman World Megaman 2 - Gameboy DVD 6 Megaman Zero 3 Megaman Zero 4 DVD 7 Rockman&Forte - Rockman Rockman&Forte - Forte
Evilheart
Posted: 12/13/2006 12:00 PM
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Andy_Olivera
Joined: 3/1/2005
Posts: 46
For your first problem: does the picture have the same distortion when played on your PC, or if you rip it? If so, post a screenshot. Otherwise, nothing is coming to mind, at the moment(but I'm tired:-)). I'm assuming you're using the AVS you posted earlier. The desync with SNES9x is probably due to the line: 
AssumeFPS(last,1008307711,16777216,false)
The framerate above only applies to FCEU. SNES9x is straight 60fps(change the "false" to "true" and it'll work, though). Also, you don't need to run AssumeFPS twice(in any case); only after Weave to convert to 29.97(30000/1001). Oh, and you might as well have the emulator output 48KHz audio, rather than resampling it.
Posted: 12/14/2006 4:58 AM
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Evilheart
Joined: 8/26/2005
Posts: 7
Location: Westland, MI
Andy Olivera wrote:
For your first problem: does the picture have the same distortion when played on your PC, or if you rip it? If so, post a screenshot. Otherwise, nothing is coming to mind, at the moment(but I'm tired:-)). I'm assuming you're using the AVS you posted earlier. The desync with SNES9x is probably due to the line: 
AssumeFPS(last,1008307711,16777216,false)
The framerate above only applies to FCEU. SNES9x is straight 60fps(change the "false" to "true" and it'll work, though). Also, you don't need to run AssumeFPS twice(in any case); only after Weave to convert to 29.97(30000/1001). Oh, and you might as well have the emulator output 48KHz audio, rather than resampling it.
No it doesn't have the distortion when played on Software DVD player it only exhibits this problem on a DVD player attached to a TV. I will attempt a screenshot which can hopefully fix the problem. As far as the SNES9x sounds desync thank you. I was already outputting to 48khz audio :)
Evilheart
Posted: 12/18/2006 4:24 PM
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Evilheart
Joined: 8/26/2005
Posts: 7
Location: Westland, MI
Something very strange is that when i use video output from SNES9X it doesn't have the distortion problem on my TV. It only happens with video output from FCEU which is strange becuase im using the same script on both aside from the audio change.
Evilheart
Posted: 12/20/2006 9:24 AM
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Andy_Olivera
Joined: 3/1/2005
Posts: 46
Weird. If you can, extract a small section(a few seconds should be plenty) of the MPEG-2 stream from one that does and one that doesn't distort and post them because, honestly, I'm stumped...
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