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Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
I Apologize for my bad behavior to write about dos movies in a video game forum, but I don't have any other idea about were to try. I have an old fashioned dos game and I want to record a movie from that. Dos any program at all out on the market support that kind of recording, or does anyone have another Idea? Thanks for your help
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
DOSBox emulates DOS (and actually, all the PC peripherials) completely. You could try hacking a movie support to it. This is actually a very interesting idea.
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
Ok... But how do I make a movie in this program? It doesn't seem to support it, and I ain't a very experienced movie maker.
Former player
Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA
You can't yet. Bisqwit just said you would need to hack movie support into it...
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
OK... so I simply have to program it my self... It was a good idea, but I can't program so isn't there another way?...
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
The only thing that comes to mind is hooking it into a VCR, but I'm not sure what you need to do that.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
I would kill for high-quality Wolfenstein & Spear of Destiny runs. Commander Keen would be pretty neat too, along with the original Duke Nukem... -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 162
...Ok this post will probably get me banned from this site, but I have a really dumb idea for you to try, IntMurr. If you have a digital camcorder, you could record the movie using the camcorder over your shoulder or something. Then you could firewire that movie of a computer screen showing the game play onto your computer and convert that to .avi or something... The quality would be beyond poor but its an option.
Love, Ev
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Whoa, it's like, a movie of a movie of a movie or something!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
That would lead to terrible quality. There must be a better way.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 162
I dunno, Blublu. Would you really want to watch a DOS movie is excellent quality? I Think that would take away from the whole punishing experiences of DOS in general. ...Spoken by a mac user mind you.
Love, Ev
Joined: 4/11/2004
Posts: 155
Location: Fairfax, VA, USA
You could try Demo Workshop (non-free I'm afraid). I've seen "videos" made with it at the ADOM Guidebook. They were recording a character-based (non-graphical) game, but the product's homepage says it supports VGA graphics, too.
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
I've already tried that cam-corder way, and the quality is like you say beyond poor. I maybe can trie demo workshop, and if it isn't free I'll have to find out something to solve that... The camcorder is terrible, but it is an option .... But still searching for better Ideas... I'll try demo workshop as soon as i can.
Former player
Joined: 5/9/2004
Posts: 114
i'm not an expert or anything... but wouldn't some kind of direct frame capture thing like camtasia work? I mean, i have audio recorders that capture whatever goes to the speakers, surely there is something that can capture whatever goes to the monitor. it could run in the background while dosbox goes, or you could hotkey it somehow.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Here's a proof-of-concept movie at DOSBox recording. It's merely a live recording, not a re-recorded movie, but it shows that it's possible. http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/sc2-dosbox-demostration-bisqwit.avi.zip (1.2 MB) Edit: This movie is 640x400 and 70 fps. Playback of it might be heavy and laggy on slow machines... Edit 2: And thus I rescaled it to a lighter version... 320x200, 70 fps: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/sc2-dosbox-demostrations1-bisqwit.avi.zip (1.2 MB) (Yes, what you see is a pirate Star Control 2.) Here's how I did it. I created this patch for dosbox:
diff -NaHudr dosbox-0.62/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp dosbox-patched/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp
--- dosbox-0.62/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp	2004-09-29 22:14:10.000000000 +0300
+++ dosbox-patched/src/gui/sdlmain.cpp	2004-10-03 13:19:04.649021424 +0300
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+#define NESVIDEOS_LOGGING 1
+
 /*
  *  Copyright (C) 2002-2004  The DOSBox Team
  *
@@ -589,6 +591,31 @@
 	return false;
 }
 
+#if NESVIDEOS_LOGGING /*** VIDEO LOGGING ***/
+#include "avifun.hh"
+int LoggingEnabled=1;
+static class VideoLogging
+{
+    bool first;
+public:
+    VideoLogging(): first(true)
+    {
+        OpenAVI();
+    }
+    ~VideoLogging()
+    {
+        CloseAVI();
+    }
+    void operator() (const void*data, unsigned width,unsigned height)
+    {
+        if(!LoggingEnabled) return;
+        
+        SendFrame( (const unsigned char*)data, width, height, first);
+        first=false;
+    }
+} VideoLogging;
+#endif
+
 void GFX_EndUpdate(void) {
 	int ret;
 	if (!sdl.updating) return;
@@ -598,6 +625,9 @@
 		if (SDL_MUSTLOCK(sdl.surface)) {
 			SDL_UnlockSurface(sdl.surface);
 		}
+#ifdef NESVIDEOS_LOGGING
+        VideoLogging(sdl.surface->pixels, 640,400);
+#endif
 		SDL_Flip(sdl.surface);
 		break;
 #if defined(HAVE_DDRAW_H) && defined(WIN32)
This patch is identical in concept to the patch to Gens - it references the same files, and the same xpatch-lib.a must be linked in. Audio was logged using the built-in Ctrl-F6 hotkey.
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
Forgive me for my newbieness, but I can't figure out how to patch it... what program do I need or in what file shall I add this code? Is there any more changes I have to do?
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
IntMurr wrote:
Forgive me for my newbieness, but I can't figure out how to patch it... what program do I need or in what file shall I add this code? Is there any more changes I have to do?
Well first of all you'd have to be using an unix system (such as some Linux distribution)... The code in my post listed the changes to be done to the source code of DOSBox. After modifying the source code the program must be recompiled. (Offtopic: I love open source because this is possible! :))
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Uh yeah, you need some kind of C compiler, right?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
AHA!!
Well first of all you'd have to be using an unix system (such as some Linux distribution)...
OK... that's the problem... I have Linux, on another computer, but it doesn't work properly. You don't know how to do a similar thing in Windows? Shouldn't that work also, 'cause there is a version with windows open source also, aren't it?[/quote]
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
IntMurr wrote:
You don't know how to do a similar thing in Windows? Shouldn't that work also, 'cause there is a version with windows open source also, aren't it?
Yes, but the lib my patch refers to requires to be able to run MEncoder at background via a pipe. Well, maybe it's possible. But I don't have a Windows system here (and I rather want to stay away from them) so I am no use in testing that aspect.
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 7
Ok... Is the only thing to do if I want to try it in windows is to paste it in to sdlmain.cpp? And then compile it in the way that they explain on the homepage... Else I will try to make my LINUX going.... or something...
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 162
I'm just wondering, what games are you trying to record? ...as long as your trying to do DOS games... do you want to do KING'S QUEST (any number) or SPACE QUEST (any number)? Those would be fun to watch, and sadly I can't even play them on my mac....
Love, Ev
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
air__devil wrote:
Those would be fun to watch, and sadly I can't even play them on my mac....
Under DOSBox you can. DOSBox emulates everything those games require.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 162
Really? I will definitely check it out then. Thanks for the tip, Bisqwit!
Love, Ev
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
Since this seems to be the DOS discussion thread ... does anyone know how to run Privateer on a machine not running DOS natively?

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