Docks video sampler and questionare.

[Frag Maniac]

OK, I'm psyched to bring you some Docks videos, as many have expressed an interest in them, but I need to know a few things before I make any others besides this sampler.

I forgot I had put my resolution back to 1280 x 960 after making the Monastery vids, so this first Docks vid was shot in high res. The plus is it renders a viewable 640 x 480 vid, the downside for some is that it may take about 5 min to DL if you're on dialup, just to view each clip. 5 min is just a rough guess, I'm really not sure how long it will be for dialup.This one is a little over 8 MB, and 23 sec long, I expect the rest will be close to the same.

Please sample the vid, and time the DL, before you submit your reply. I'd like to get a general concensus of how long it takes each of you to view it. Please keep in mind that the site I'm hosting them with, offers a selection of 320, 480, 640, and 800 viewing sizes. I don't know if that translates to different DL times for each selection or not, I would appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on that too. This vid at the recorded res should play fine on the 640 setting.

It is my hopes that you will try to cope with this resolution setting, as these are long awaited for some, and I think it would be a treat to be able to see them in large high res format.

This is the crane you start out on, and it shows a no damage descent from where the first megahealth is in the crane cabin. Please feel free to respond openly and honestly, as to whether it's Pain, or Pleasure, reguarding the DL.

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Docks-1st-starting-descent

[kalme]

I forgot I had put my resolution back to 1280 x 960 after making the Monastery vids, so this first Docks vid was shot in high res.
I described how to lower a clip's resolution in VirtualDub in the other thread... if you want to, of course.


This one is a little over 8 MB, and 23 sec long, I expect the rest will be close to the same.
Why don't you try to merge the different pieces? VirtualDub: load first chunk, set the slider to the end of the clip, File/Append Segment..., slider to the end, etc. But of course if you want to keep the high resolution, you get a file too big for putfile.


Please sample the vid, and time the DL, before you submit your reply. I'd like to get a general concensus of how long it takes each of you to view it.
Download took 35 seconds, but I'm not on dial-up :p.


Please keep in mind that the site I'm hosting them with, offers a selection of 320, 480, 640, and 800 viewing sizes. I don't know if that translates to different DL times for each selection
No. The vid is only scaled, the file is always the same.


This is the crane you start out on, and it shows a no damage descent from where the first megahealth is in the crane cabin.
Nice stakes! Looking forward to seeing the next parts!

[Frag Maniac]

...really can't improve upon them, which is OK, they're just how to vids, as long as the technique can be seen clearly enough, that's all I'm concerned about.

I came to the decision that I'm sticking with the hi res, as one of the main things I want viewers to see is the health/armor indicator. In these upcoming Docks vids I'm going to be stressing the point of carefull descending. Going to 2:1 high quality (which I tried) makes it too small to see, and I really don't want to change my HUD back and ruin the natural look of the scenes.

I also tried going to different bit rates, from 600 up to 1000, combining it with 2:1 HQ and various degrees of sharpen. I came to the conclusion to keep them under 10MB, I'd have to compromise the bit rate too much to add any filtering if I want to keep it at the viewing size it is. I did not see anything about bilinear in there though, as you mentioned, and the default bit rate is 780 not 1000.

In my experimenting with the codecs already available I found Divx was the only acceptable compression tool to stay within the required size, as I'm sure you know, but are there any others I could DL with the same compression rate that might produce cleaner results?

I also found that although too restrictive in file size, the Intel Indeo (R) Video R3.2 codec is amazingly fast in converting and the most astoundingly clear picture I've ever seen. The file size went up from the original 222MB to about 3 times that though! Nothing like using 2/3G just for a 23 sec vid huh?:D

Merging the clips I've decided against too, there's 4 good reasons for that.

1) Docks jumps and descents are intricate enough to take them as a piece by piece study. The 30 sec limit is just about right to show each individual jump and descent, as a separate discipline. Merging them would only cause those having trouble to go back and look at certain parts after they finish the 1st, 2nd, 3rd parts and so on.

2) Making small individual clips allows for faster DL times for those that want to see each segment, and how I do it. It also gets them thinking in terms of where I quicksave while playing, without a lot of explanation.

3) I want people to see my clips uncut, the only way I'd ever merge them anyway is with clearly defined beginnings and endings of each full jump, and descent. In other words, I'd most likely use effect fade ins, and such, which is just for show and not necessary, besides my not even knowing how to do it.:D

4) This is the obvious reason and one you mentioned, I'm restricted to 10MB file size on putfile, although I am very gratefull to them for having such a service, and you for showing it to me.;)

[kalme]

I also tried going to different bit rates, from 600 up to 1000, combining it with 2:1 HQ and various degrees of sharpen.
Sharpen is a bad idea if you're going to use low bitrates (I consider everything below 2-3 mbit low). Encoders do better with slightly blurred images. Some blur designedly at lower bitrates because it actually improves your viewing experience (sharp, high-contrast pictures produce more artefacts).


I did not see anything about bilinear in there though
This setting is located in the the resize-filter (where you can adjust your clip's resolution free), not in the 2:1 reduce filter.


In my experimenting with the codecs already available I found Divx was the only acceptable compression tool to stay within the required size, as I'm sure you know, but are there any others I could DL with the same compression rate that might produce cleaner results?
There are some others. For example, some people say XVid produces better results at the same bitrate, others like WMV or NeroDigital or RealVideo. But I think for the average user the differences are hard to notice at all, especially in full motion. And often you have to tweak the encoder settings a lot (and know what you're doing) to actually get better results. If you're interested in a codec comparison (some free, some not), head over to http://www.doom9.org and his excellent articles, for example:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-104-1.htm

Edit: One thing that comes to my mind -- instead of switching codecs, you could gain more if you made yourself familiar with the concept of multi-pass encoding. At the moment you use single-pass, meaning the codec just takes your video source and converts it into its own format. With multi-pass encoding, the encoder looks at the entire video clip first (collecting information about the kind of material), and then does the actual encoding afterwards. That way it can use the available bitrate much more effective and usually you will get improved results with a two-pass process. Some codecs even allow three, four or more passes, but the improvements get smaller every loop (sometimes even getting worse after a certain level). Taking more passes of course slows down the encoding process though.

[Varus77]

Very nice jump around the ladder... :)

And now something to your codec "skill".

This is what your vid shows in a detail shot:
http://img34.echo.cx/img34/7963/dbmaniacavi9na.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)
You used DivX 640x480 / 60fps / 8,59Mb

I resampled your vid to uncompressed - therefore I didn't get better quality - and then I used the moviemaker. I took a standard option for sampling: Video for LAN (1Mbit/sec) as an test. And this is what I got:
http://img34.echo.cx/img34/1902/dbmaniacwmv0lc.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)
WMV-codec 640x480 / 25fps (!) / 3,04Mb !!!!!
Remember please that I used your precompressed file !!! and this mean that the quality would be much more better if I would have the original file from FRAPS but the file size would be the same...

If you want see and learn something about coding with WMV and the possible results of different settings in a visual way than I advise you on a page about this stuff, done in formally days:
http://www.shuto.ch/users/adre/aGe/Varus/WMVcodec/index.htm

Remember please too that the MovieMaker is a video editor programm that you will find in your Windows accessory, maybe you have to update it...
It's a programm easy to handle for cuting, blending, titeling and to arrange sounds or musics and so on...

[kalme]

Good point! Didn't think of MovieMaker, you should definately try that and switch to WMV.

One word on the framerate (because Varus set an exclamation mark behind the 25 fps setting). Although I would recommend a fps setting of 25 or maybe 30 too, it's interesting to know that there is not that much of a picture quality difference between a 30 fps and a 60 fps file.

You could think that due to the fact that in the latter case the same available bitrate has to be used for twice the frames the quality should be lower (for example: 600 kbit/s and 30 fps = 20 kbit/frame, but 600 kbit/s and 60 fps = 10 kbit/frame). But that is not the case. These codecs store differences between frames instead of full pictures. If your video runs at 60 fps, there will be less motion differences between single frames than at 30 fps, and therefore less bits are needed to store these differences. Of course there IS a quality difference due to other conditions (I won't go into the details of I-, P- and B-frame sequences, and quality also suffers if you choose to set periodic keyframes on a frame basis instead of a time basis), but it's much less than one might think.

What's my point? There is none, go and try MovieMaker :D

[SYS]

...a voice from the darkness.....

Nice video, Frag! I've known this for a while, since a good starting in "Docks" is a very healthy thing, but I think it's a great visual help for many players! * thumbs up * I'm very curious about Your crane-jumpings with minimal damage. I finished "Docks" today morning, and I also found one or two safe spots...

I didn't wait for the video to start playing anyway, but I used what Kalme suggested: I downloaded the stuff from the direct-link, what You can find in the source of the page... :)

Varus, Kalme..I also will try MS MovieMaker, I'm glad it's free and seems very handy...

[Frag Maniac]

"Good point! Didn't think of MovieMaker, you should definately try that and switch to WMV."

The Fraps readme says you're limited to 800 x 600 when using MovieMaker, I don't know if they mean the converted file, or what you start with.

I'm using in game res settings of either 1280 x 960, or 1024 x 768, depending on whether I see the full 60 FPS of the Fraps counter showing or not. If it drops below 60 a lot, I switch to 1024 x 768, I'm not willing to use 800 x 600 though, if that's what the Fraps readme means.

Also, I don't think I want to use a setting below 60 FPS in Fraps, the jumping is hard enough at 60!:D

[Frag Maniac]

"Nice video, Frag!....I'm very curious about Your crane-jumpings with minimal damage."

...damage. The results often vary slightly though in certain spots, even when using consistent techniques. Much of it has to do with the surfaces you land on with some descents I think.

"I finished "Docks" today morning, and I also found one or two safe spots..."

Funny you should say it this way, as I just cleared the first two areas of Docks without being damaged by any monsters, so I'm finding a lot of "safe spots" on the ground too.:D

[Frag Maniac]

...help features, index, search function, and fancy layout, I've only gotten to the point of importing the orginal clip of one of my videos.

It doesn't appear to be as easy to understand as the more straight forward VirtualDub.

The closest I came to getting to some kind of compression feature, is by going to Tools>Options>Compatability, where it shows just 1 codec, and it's Divx. I don't see anything in it that looks like a compression setup though.

As far as I know I have the latest version of it, being 2.1.4026.0.

I also went to the webpage for MoviMaker, and saw nothing about a WMV codec, or any others.

Microsoft stuff is easy to use for some, but others find it a royal pain in the butt!:rolleyes:

Can you guys help me out a bit more with this? I've got someone waiting for me to send them some clips, but I'd like to try to enhance them first.

For now I'll just try to do a Google search on how to compress videos with MovieMaker.

[SYS]

...a voice from the darkness.....


"I finished "Docks" today morning, and I also found one or two safe spots..."

Funny you should say it this way, as I just cleared the first two areas of Docks without being damaged by any monsters, so I'm finding a lot of "safe spots" on the ground too.:D

LOL Frag, I meant that for the "crane-tour" only! :D Of course there are many good "safe-chances" on the ground. I remember, when I first played "Docks" on Nightmare, those ******* dock-workers always killed me so quickly in the area after the 2nd CheckPoint. But today, that's one of my favourite places on "Docks": You can hide and shoot from behind the crates, so actually You can use the environment wisely, and I like that strategy for example. There's some very enjoyable fighting-experience there, and this is also true for many of the rest areas on "Docks"...

[Frag Maniac]

...I love to pop out around corners where I know one of them's lurking and blast 'em with the shotgun.

The guys up on the barrels with the rockets are funny too, but I have the most fun with them on the ship, when you get to use the wolf mask for extra damage.:p

It's much more fun when you've already got the card and can camp more, even if you're on higher dificulty levels.

[Frag Maniac]

...and I firmly believe it's superior with it's more efficient method of only resampling the movie parts your eyes see moving.

This is the same Docks 1st descent video done in 2.1 Mbps, with an incredible file size of only 5.7 MB! That's nearly 3 times the bit rate, and only 70% as large a file as the Divx clip. It's in 640 x 480 too!

Oh, I added some sound too, and I think it synced up rather well. The quiet part comes just as I'm jumping onto the ladder, so it adds a bit of hush whie the tricky part of the descending is done.

I'm hoping this streams fine, I did not wait for a reply from Varus in asking if I had to use a format labeled Lan in the Windows Movie Maker. This one is labeled "video for local playback (2.1Mbps)", so I hope that doesn't mean it won't stream over the net. I think it's just Microsoft trying to oversimplify things and making it in a way, more complex.:D Enjoy,...(crossing my fingers.):o

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Docks-1st-descent

...After just viewing it, I see it plays better in 640 than the other one did in 480, and DLs pretty fast too. The sound is also coming thru nicely, please let me know if it plays OK and DLs good for you, I think I will stick with this combination.:)

[Varus77]

Ah...yeaha....you got it! Now all is perfect :)

..and tell me: was it at the end so easy as I said before?

[Frag Maniac]

...I can't see beyond my nose sometimes.:rolleyes:

Did you notice how much more detailed it is, even in 640? You can now see the guys I'm shooting at very well, and even see the red dot crosshair if you look closely. The WMV codec is very effiicient with it's psychovisual method of resampling ony moving images.

Can you tell me how mpeg compares? It's the only other format I've read about that uses such technology. I'd like to know if it is any better at cleaning up the image, even if it adds to the file size a bit.

Thanks again for you help Varus, I feel much more confident in making them now.;)

[Varus77]

Many years, many tests, much read about all these stuff. There isn't a better codec if the competition is to compare quality and file size.
The trend since last 2 years you can see via internet, more and more use the WMV-codec.
An international music consortium have made a great test some years ago about music-codecs and ... the WMA-codec was the winner...much more better than mp3 if you need a high compression.
The only mysterium for me is that Microsoft not make more advertising about this...

[Frag Maniac]

...use it for music too. This is good news, because I was about to DL the Fraunhofer codecs for audio compression, hearing that they were the best.

I don't know who makes the codec that does mp3 Pro, but as far as I know, it's what my online music source Musicmatch uses. From my understanding, mp3 Pro is the same quality and data rate of 192 kbps, but streamed and stored in the size of 160kbps. Are you saying WMV is better than mp3 Pro and Fraunhofer technology for music?

"The only mysterium for me is that Microsoft not make more advertising about this."

I thought this at first too, but as with many Microsoft products that work well, they don't really need to advertise, but rather include a free version of it in their OS. In that respect, they're advertising for free, and to a very large group of people. Word gets around fast that way, but apparently not to those like me that hadn't tried it yet.:rolleyes:

[Varus77]

Not generally better but under the aspect of high compression. They tested it in a sound studio with some experts of hearing, composer, conductors and so on. At 192 kbps wasn't a great difference but for higher compression it was more and more.

[BloodBuster]

Hey, Frag, I've been playing around with the Fraps recorder (even though I said I would not in the mods.. thread), and decided to record some action scenes. This is my first ever time stepping into the video arena. My 30 sec Fraps recording made in 800x600 @ 50FPS (c. 250-300MB) compresses to between 5-10MB, DIVx, @ 25FPS @750bitrate using VirtualDub. Man, I never knew it would compress so much. When I record a good action scene I'll get it posted here and on your video thread 'over there'.

Thanks for the inspiration.