Video

[mssv]

Hello alti community,
recently i got a new comp and bought playclaw and start to learn to make videos.

I call to you seeking for advice, i'm not very happy with the outcome quality of my video and saw some alti videos out there with much better iq.

My in game resolution is 1024*768 and i'm setting playclaw at full size high compression and 50fps. I'm using PowerDirector, and saving the videos as .m2ts (h.264 AVC if that matters) at a resolution of 1440*1080 and 50fps.

As you can see in my channel the outcome quality is quite poor, even at 1080p. http://www.youtube.com/user/hasmuerto

I would apreciate some help or tips so i can improve it, other games seems to work better but i also play them at higher resolutions, just alti at 1024*768 to get 100hz from my crt.


Thanks for your time and see you up in the skys!


Mssv

[Pieface]

Nice video! I especially liked the music (very peaceful).

When I'm recording I normally try to keep the processes my computer is handling to a minimum. This of course means closing all other applications. Unless you have a super powerful computer, I'd advise against shooting at 50p - better to shoot something lower like 30p if your computer's straining to handle it. Out of interest, why are you shooting 50p (are you in Europe?) Alti's standard fps is 60, but you can change that ingame by using the /testtargetFPS command. I'd recommend setting it to a multiple of your recording resolution: 60fps if you're shooting in 60 or 30p and 50fps if you're shooting in 50 or 25p.

Then we come to the codec you're recording in. Unless you're exporting directly from the screencasting software, I wouldn't recommend using H.264. While it's a great codec, it's very compressed and most computers can't handle both recording and handling heavy compression at once. For this reason, I normally take a less lossy approach such as recording in the Apple Intermediate Codec which is natively editable by Final Cut, which I use to edit. It's much easier on your computer to handle compression later on, and it also allows you to try multiple encodings using one saved movie file. When you do export, I wouldn't recommend encoding in .m2ts. This is a heavily compressed wrapper that AVCHD camcorders generally use. Better to go with a normal .mov or .mp4 H.264 file. Check Youtube's compression guidelines for more information on the best way to encode (these are for Mac programs but the same apply to whatever you're using):
http://www.google.com/support/youtub...?answer=165543

However, I think the main problem you're running into is not compression but the resolution you're recording in. You shouldn't be recording in a higher resolution than what you're playing in - if you play with 1024x768 resolution, record in that.

Hope that helped a bit, let me know how it goes.

[York]

oh so thats how you use mouse effectively. good **** bro!

[vintage]

Not to get off topic, or sound stupid, but didn't they got rid of the mouse/throttle line in the last patch?

[mssv]

Originally Posted by Pieface

Nice video! I especially liked the music (very peaceful).

When I'm recording I normally try to keep the processes my computer is handling to a minimum. This of course means closing all other applications. Unless you have a super powerful computer, I'd advise against shooting at 50p - better to shoot something lower like 30p if your computer's straining to handle it. Out of interest, why are you shooting 50p (are you in Europe?) Alti's standard fps is 60, but you can change that ingame by using the /testtargetFPS command. I'd recommend setting it to a multiple of your recording resolution: 60fps if you're shooting in 60 or 30p and 50fps if you're shooting in 50 or 25p.

Then we come to the codec you're recording in. Unless you're exporting directly from the screencasting software, I wouldn't recommend using H.264. While it's a great codec, it's very compressed and most computers can't handle both recording and handling heavy compression at once. For this reason, I normally take a less lossy approach such as recording in the Apple Intermediate Codec which is natively editable by Final Cut, which I use to edit. It's much easier on your computer to handle compression later on, and it also allows you to try multiple encodings using one saved movie file. When you do export, I wouldn't recommend encoding in .m2ts. This is a heavily compressed wrapper that AVCHD camcorders generally use. Better to go with a normal .mov or .mp4 H.264 file. Check Youtube's compression guidelines for more information on the best way to encode (these are for Mac programs but the same apply to whatever you're using):
http://www.google.com/support/youtub...?answer=165543

However, I think the main problem you're running into is not compression but the resolution you're recording in. You shouldn't be recording in a higher resolution than what you're playing in - if you play with 1024x768 resolution, record in that.

Hope that helped a bit, let me know how it goes.

Thanks for your reply! Wow that's a lot of knowledge to be learnt. I'll try with mpeg4 for starters.
I'm confused thou with the fps thingy, i thought that using high fps while recording would mean a smoother footage, that's why i was trying 50fps, i'll try lower settings and compare, maybe i can save some clunkiness while playing.

[mssv]

Originally Posted by vintage

Not to get off topic, or sound stupid, but didn't they got rid of the mouse/throttle line in the last patch?

I'm using full mouse throttle and there's a crosshair moving through the line, but, for some reason the crosshair is not being recorded, i think there was an option to set in playclaw, i'll be checking, thanks for pointing it out.

[vintage]

Oh okay, that makes sense. Thanks.

Looking forward to a longer video.

[Pieface]

Originally Posted by mssv

I'm confused thou with the fps thingy, i thought that using high fps while recording would mean a smoother footage, that's why i was trying 50fps, i'll try lower settings and compare, maybe i can save some clunkiness while playing.

As long as your computer can handle it, you're right that it will look smoother if you record at a higher fps. Your video seemed to be pretty smooth so I'd stick to 60fps if you're in North America or 50fps if you're somewhere else (the standards are generally different in Europe, for example). If you are shooting in 50fps make sure to also set your gameplay to 50fps so that the frame rates match up.

[tyr]

Human eye cannot make the difference when it's over 25 fps. I'm not saying there isn't one, but really it won't be noticeable.
Set it to 25/30 for best results (as an example, my 720p videos on youtube are recorded with 30 fps).
As for the recording codec, I recommend NOT using any form of compression, and run the raw tape through another software (such as VirtualDub) afterwards to compress it. If the recording software has to compress at the same time, it's not surprising that it's not perfectly smooth, as it has to do several jobs at the same time. The high quality livestreams for instance are run through at least two softwares (one to record and another to encode and send it where it needs to be sent).

[vintage]

Originally Posted by tyr

Human eye cannot make the difference when it's over 25 fps. I'm not saying there isn't one, but really it won't be noticeable.

Not quite...

I totally agree with everything else you wrote though.

[mssv]

Thx for the input guys, i'll be testing this weekend.

Btw Tyr i'm playing alti because of recoiless (the only setup i play), your guide and videos made me wait and lvl up biplane to get the perk setup and try it before stop playing the first time i tried alti, so thanks about that :-)

[tyr]

Heh, I'm glad you liked it.
Good luck for your videos. Ask here if you have any further questions.

[Tekn0]

Wait .. what? Wasn't the sniper line of doom removed from the mouse in favour of an orientation cone and just a crosshair?

Or is this the "throttle line"?

[Ribilla]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

Wait .. what? Wasn't the sniper line of doom removed from the mouse in favour of an orientation cone and just a crosshair?

Or is this the "throttle line"?

The line was only removed for mouse + KB. Using the mouse for throttle is much more difficult to control accurately and so the decision was made to keep the line, otherwise puremouse would be uselessly difficult.

[Tekn0]

Oh right, forgot about pure mouse users. You can get sick aim with that though. Nice video.