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Posted: 11/18/2010 3:54 AM
Post subject: What scares you most about encoding?
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Idea that came to mind, since I am shocked that more TASers can't encode. I'd like to know why they are so afraid. What scares me most about encoding, you may ask? Getting the subtitles right.
Posted: 11/18/2010 3:55 AM
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sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Encoder wars. Ask two sufficiently experienced encoders for their opinion on something and you'll get three different answers. I maintain that where there's debate, do whatever works best for you while annoying viewers the least.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:00 AM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
For me, it's that kind of "bad surprise", after I upload one of my encodes to a streaming site such as YouTube. The sound may get off sync BECAUSE of YouTube without you know until someone tells you.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:03 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Mister Epic wrote:
For me, it's that kind of "bad surprise", after I upload one of my encodes to a streaming site such as YouTube. The sound may get off sync BECAUSE of YouTube without you know until someone tells you.
That has me worried too. Honestly, it was part of the reason I tried to supply the point based HD encodes via Archive.org whenever practical, so that other uploaders could upload that instead of the streaming media breaking SD encode. I don't think WebNations ever took notice, however. Whatever happened to him, anyway?
sgrunt wrote:
Encoder wars. Ask two sufficiently experienced encoders for their opinion on something and you'll get three different answers.
That's because there is a multitude of different ways to skin a cat video. It just happens that encoders also happen to take pleasure in skinning each other. It's probably the most popular TASVideos fetish, alongside ball-busting!
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:08 AM
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andymac
Experienced player (623)
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
Why don't I encode? Well, yeah sure, everyone makes the occasional encode for YT or whatever, but why I don't encode is because it's so complicated. If encoding consisted of "download program x and drag and drop a video onto it with set parameters y, ten hours later you have a good quality encode", then I'd do it. The tools to encode are pretty complicated, and I just can't be fucked learning when someone else can (and will!) make a high quality encode for me when it's necessary. As for YT and everyday use, I just make a base encode with a ridiculously high bitrate, and proceed to upload, it's the simplest thing ever.
Measure once. Cut twice.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:12 AM
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GabCM
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Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
andymac wrote:
Why don't I encode? Well, yeah sure, everyone makes the occasional encode for YT or whatever, but why I don't encode is because it's so complicated. If encoding consisted of "download program x and drag and drop a video onto it with set parameters y, ten hours later you have a good quality encode", then I'd do it. The tools to encode are pretty complicated, and I just can't be fucked learning when someone else can (and will!) make a high quality encode for me when it's necessary. As for YT and everyday use, I just make a base encode with a ridiculously high bitrate, and proceed to upload, it's the simplest thing ever.
You're right, it is complicated. I took a couple hours from my life to learn to encode, and I had support from other community and staff members (see my homepage for special thanks).
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:12 AM
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sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Mister Epic wrote:
I had support from other community and staff members
When in doubt about encoding, just ask us for support...
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:14 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
sgrunt wrote:
Mister Epic wrote:
I had support from other community and staff members
When in doubt about encoding, just ask us for support...
And then watch the cat skin then get skinned multiple times.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:15 AM
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sgrunt
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Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Flygon wrote:
And then watch the cat skin then get skinned multiple times.
We wouldn't be encoders otherwise.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:18 AM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
I'm reading about "cat skinning" and stuff... but what do you mean by such a thing?
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:19 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
It refers to the multiple ways of which you can strip the skin off an animal for the purposes of using the meat.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:21 AM
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GabCM
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Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Flygon wrote:
It refers to the multiple ways of which you can strip the skin off an animal for the purposes of using the meat.
Nice comparison you're doing there, but... I don't get it. *hides*
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:22 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
You don't want skin in your meat, do you?
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:22 AM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Flygon wrote:
You don't want skin in your meat, do you?
I like skin only on chicken, but yeah, I usually don't like skin on meat and fish.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:24 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Exactly. Hence the phrase, "There is more than one way to skin a cat".
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:25 AM
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GabCM
He/Him
Joined: 5/5/2009
Posts: 901
Location: QC, Canada
Flygon wrote:
Exactly. Hence the phrase, "There is more than one way to skin a cat".
In other words, "There is more than one way to encode a movie". Right? Or I still don't get it?
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:25 AM
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sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Yes.
Posted: 11/18/2010 4:30 AM
Post subject: Re: What scares you most about encoding?
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Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
Flygon wrote:
Idea that came to mind, since I am shocked that more TASers can't encode. I'd like to know why they are so afraid.
Yeah, as Andymac said, it seems too complicated. Just take a look at the encoding guide size. Logo insertion, subtitling and getting audio to sync (even when emulator dumps have perfect A/V sync) aren't trivial things (it took me a lot of time or very hacky stuff to figure that out). Not everybody has a script that can take in dump and some parameters and spew out ready encode after some hours of processing. Well, someone with portable coding experience (that is, not me) could code an application that could perform logo insertion, subtitle insertion, encoding and muxing, complete with previews (in user-friendly manner)... But that would likely be a lot of work...
Posted: 11/18/2010 5:47 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
OK, so a couple of things: In general, as people have said, encoding can be challenging. I am "good at computers" (or at least I successfully pretend to be for my job) and it took me quite a lot of trial and error and persistence to be able to do it. That said, I think there is a very high percentage of people here who are "good at computers" as well, especially compared to the general population. If one is motivated to put in the effort, it's really not that complicated. The thing I disliked the most about it was that it required incredible amounts of attention to detail combined with waiting around for hours. And if I did mess up that could take hours more. I mostly stopped encoding though not because of that but because it seemed there were plenty of other people doing it, which was not the case when I started. I still see this as the case today: it seems that people are even getting into petty bickering about duplicating work and stuff. If there is a real need for more encoders, I would be happy to step up and help out again. What I would really like though is a bit of direction. Perhaps there could be someone who delegates out various tasks?
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 11/18/2010 5:50 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
We have more encoders than TASers. The real question is "What scares you the most about TASing?"
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 11/18/2010 9:11 PM
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alden
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Yeah, that's what I thought. My answer would be that I don't have enough time. Forum posting at work is much easier than tasing at work :P
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Posted: 11/18/2010 10:06 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I've done a small amount of TASing of a comparatively simple game, and ultimately come to the conclusion that for the amount of time required to produce a finished TAS, I would rather do other things. Too many interests, too little time. Maybe back in college when my entertainment budget for a semester was about $100 I would have been more interested in TASing.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 11/21/2010 7:25 PM
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nfq
Player (94)
Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204
I don't know if there's anything scary about it... it's just that you need an IQ comparable to Albert Einstein in order to understand the encoding guidelines: http://tasvideos.org/EncodingGuide.html The complexity of it could be a little scary though. But even if you understand it, it still takes some time/work. If the encoding was easier and faster, using a more automated process, more people would be willing to encode. Just when I read the "requirements" in the guide, I notice I need like 10 different things... couldn't it all be done with one or two encoding software, like avidemux? Or something like Windows Movie Maker, heh... that's easy to work with. To add subtitles, I just click add text, so it's much easier than this: http://tasvideos.org/EncodingGuide/PreEncoding.html Edit: noticed that andymac and others already said pretty much the same thing. Edit2: another problem is that audio gets off sync for long movies when you capture with mupen64, which makes it impossible to make encodes for long movies.
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Posted: 11/21/2010 7:50 PM
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Scepheo
Player (146)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
Hm... I don't think it would be that hard to make a program that has a few (drop-down) boxes (like console and filename) and gives you a fancy batch file. I doubt we could do more than that but I must admit that I haven't actually looked at the licenses of the programs used.
Posted: 11/21/2010 11:20 PM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
I think pretty much the only reason that an automatic program hasn't been made is almost purely due to the subtitles. A human being has far better judgement of where the subtitles should go than a computer... in fact, this was suppose to be half the purpose of AviSynth in my mind. To make the process much much faster and leaner, with the subtitles step being a breeze. I am guessing people are still very afraid to due the older MEncoder method (Which is still in use by Linux encoders... they will kill me for saying this, but they're really in the minority...). All it is, is that you basically run multiple batch files and change a few simple options for each encode... the only systems I can see that really could go wrong with this are N64, PSx, DOS, and DS runs (The latter due to screen rotation and such). I admit it does seem daunting at first, encoding for me at first was a nightmare (Probably due to the completely different encoding methods of 2009 which seemed dead set on basically making Raiscan, adelikat, and Nach the only people that could encode). In fact, I have to send massive thanks to Aktan and Grunt for making the encoding landscape the way it is today!
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