Wait, now I use NeroVision, very good. Can use thumbnails from movie, or custom picture for buttons, (if you want text only for buttons to make it look professional, use a picture making program and type into it and then crop so that that's all there is, plus background color so it doesn't look wierd), picture effects for menu's, chapter insertion, chapter menu's and all that good stuff. The program itself is free, but you need to pay $25 to get a plugin that let's you do dvd instead of just vcd.
Also, about using avisynth, I've found that if you, well, let's say you want SMW DVD. Instead of downloading torrent and enlarging it and crap, just play the smv and make a direct avi whith huffyuv, and I've found that that has such a difference in quality that you don't to enlarge, the picture is so good, it still looks just as good blown up on T.V. screen.
This is a noob question but when you say "author" dvds, are you talking about converting the avi to dvd or editing the dvd file itself?
One more noob question: What program do you use to convert the avi file to dvd?
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Guybrush: "I'm selling these fine leather jackets."
Wally: "Really?"
Guybrush: "No. I 'm lying."
Wally: "In that case, I don't want one!"
Currently working on:
Nothing at the moment.
Also, about using avisynth, I've found that if you, well, let's say you want SMW DVD. Instead of downloading torrent and enlarging it and crap, just play the smv and make a direct avi whith huffyuv, and I've found that that has such a difference in quality that you don't to enlarge, the picture is so good, it still looks just as good blown up on T.V. screen.
That's pretty much what I do. I take direct emulator output and tweak it to fit a full 720x480 NTSC DVD frame. With NES/SNES video, I use a bilinear resize to 650x240 pixels, pad with black to 720x240, then weave those 60fps individual frames into 29.97fps DVD-compliant interlaced frames. With Genesis video, I do a bilinear resize to 640x240, pad to 720x240, then weave to 720x480. However, since many Genesis games use single-pixel dithering to create the illusion of more colors, and this blurs nicely on a stock Genesis, I'm considering doing a couple of resize cycles to soften the image horizontally - I just have to find a balance where the image isn't too blurry, but it isn't too sharp either.
I don't even do that. As soon as avi is recorded with snes or nes it is ready. I used to try to resize but it takes Virtualdub forever to save if you don't use direct streaming mode, and then you can't use filters, but the quality is the same. If you want to keep doing that, bicubic looks better than bilinear.
I used to try to resize but it takes Virtualdub forever to save if you don't use direct streaming mode, and then you can't use filters, but the quality is the same.
Let it, it doesn't take that long, maybe your computer is slow.
I don't even do that. As soon as avi is recorded with snes or nes it is ready. I used to try to resize but it takes Virtualdub forever to save if you don't use direct streaming mode, and then you can't use filters, but the quality is the same. If you want to keep doing that, bicubic looks better than bilinear.
Well, you can do it that way, but it's not anywhere close to the real hardware. NES and SNES video both use pixels that are wider than they are tall, and if you keep the video exactly at 256x224 or 256x240, then your aspect ratio will be off. You can see from my screenshot that it is already quite close to the aspect ratio of a real NES. It's still not exact (doing some recent testing, I've found that the left edge of my NES frame is in the right place, but a real NES extends out just a few more pixels on the right), but it's close enough for me to call it accurate.
And no, for my purposes, bicubic does not look better than bilinear, especially since "looks better" is subjective. Since console video output is analog, there are no distinct pixel boundaries - they tend to blend smoothyl into one another. In my testing, I've found that a bilinear resize gives output that is extremely close to captured RGB or S-Video (yes, I know the NES doesn't do RGB, but other systems do, and S-Video has high luma resolution).
I did it, but when it got done, the video was way fast and choppy and within ten seconds is way ahead of the picture.
[edit] No, that's wrong. I studied again closely, and found out that actually the picture is not ahead of the sound, it's just choppy, and I'm concerned if it's just my computer's too slow to play with such large screen size, and if it will look that way on the DVD. Anybody know?
The only real way to tell is to actually burn a DVD and play it on a set-top player. I've done so with a couple of test runs using my method, and when accounting for FCEU's audio skew, the audio and video stay perfectly synced, with perfect playback.
Yes. You simply weave the frames together as if they were fields, as I've said. This produces 29.97i output on a standard DVD player, which is a standard part of the spec.
You make a frame where the first frame occupies the odd lines and the second frame occupies the even lines. (Or the other way around). You get something your eye will be fooled into thinking is ~59.94 frames per second because of the way NTSC works.
It's not fooling your eyes - a standard NTSC video signal has 59.94 fields per second, two fields to a frame. But each field within a frame is from a different moment in time, and so you get 59.94 frames per second when dealing with older game console video. The only major difference between old noninterlaced signals and a normal interlaced signal is a single half-scanline at the bottom of the screen which causes the set to offset the next field by half the height of a scanline.
But yes, you're absolutely correct. Since an NES outputs 240 scanlines, two NES frames fit perfectly into an interlaced NTSC frame, with no vertical resizing whatsoever. All you have to do is resize horizontally to get the proper aspect ratio (somewhere between 650 and 658 pixels wide is close enough for government work), pad to 720 pixels wide, and then weave them together into frames to get 720x480x29.97 interlaced video which, when watched on a proper interlaced display (or on a PC using a bob deinterlacer), will result in perfectly smooth scrolling, and preservation of single-frame flickering.
Just out of curiosity, how did you calculate the horizontal resolution? By my calculations, to keep the 1.06:1 AR of the emulator output on an NTSC display(0.9:1 pixel AR) the proper resolution would be 569, padded to 720.
Well, I basically took NES video that had been run through a TBC and captured it, then measured within the 720 pixel frame (which I realize is not square pixel video, but since my destination is video I'm not really working in square pixels to begin with). I also realize that it's not a 100% accurate method, as the number of pixels used by the NES would depend on the capture window of my capture device, which I haven't measured. I'm almost certain that a real NES has pixels much wider than you're accounting for. Remember, I'm not trying to make it look like the emulator, I'm trying to make it look close to a real NES (but not exactly, as the NTSC artifacts are one method of discerning between a realtime speedrun and a TAS).
Edit: Here's a good thread that talks about the NES aspect ratio.
Okay. According to the article you're right: 646 is the closest width for duplicating the stretching effect(1.21:1). I was assuming square pixels coming from the NES.
BTW, is it just my imagination, or do the graphics look better proportionally when not stretched?
Okay. According to the article you're right: 646 is the closest width for duplicating the stretching effect(1.21:1). I was assuming square pixels coming from the NES.
BTW, is it just my imagination, or do the graphics look better proportionally when not stretched?
That's really just a matter of personal taste, if you ask me. You will have some games with graphics that look a little "thin" (like, for example, play Rare's Wheel of Fortune on an emulator using square pixels, then play it properly stretched, and notice the shape of the full-screen wheel). But, for the most part, it's whatever you're used to.
Im currently Using this script in Tmpeg to convert a Nes video captured from FCEU.
AVISource("nesoutput.avi")
AssumeFieldBased()
AssumeTFF()
PointResize(512,240) # omit this for softer vertical transitions
BilinearResize(650,240)
AddBorders(35,0,35,0)
AssumeFPS(last,1008307711,16777216,false)
Weave()
vf=AssumeFPS(last,30000,1001,true)
af=ResampleAudio(vf,48000)
AudioDub(vf,MergeChannels(GetChannel(af,1),GetChannel(af,1)))
I have posted two screen shots from the original avi and from the resulting mpeg. The mpeg video created is simply unacceptable to watch, somehow the conversion created artifacts, blurring and i guess you would call it "Mice Teeth" or liney video. Also if you notice megamans life bar in the mpeg video its obviously not converted correctly and im not sure why but i would guess resizing. Please tell me what im doing wrong and also lead me in the direction for better video. I just want the mpeg to be as close to the avi output as possible.
Mpeg Video
http://www.darkstartech.org/mega1mpeg.bmp
Avi Video
http://www.darkstartech.org/mega1avi.bmp
Mpeg Video
http://www.darkstartech.org/elecmanmpeg.bmp
Avi Video
http://www.darkstartech.org/elecmanavi.bmp
