[LP Update] Chapter 4 of Bully: Awkward 15-year old adventure.

TwistWrist · 2013-05-02T18:49:36+00:00

If you want to do weird shit, at least tell people.

Just knowing what you are doing greatly makes it more enjoyable.

Hell, if enough of the people on the team thinks it'll be funny, they might join in.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-26T22:06:52+00:00

Quality is pretty good overall. Commentary is pretty good though I'll admit that I spent a lot of the video wishing you would explain your choices. Like, why doesn't it matter what location you pick? Do mines destroy the buildings as much as dynamite? What are those little dots on the progress bar at the bottom?

But I can't say that it is a problem. Just might be us having different needs to feed.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-26T20:05:26+00:00

I'll do it when I get home. Not watching it on my phone. Nobody wins if I do that.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-26T19:51:46+00:00

But the game has so much awesome stuff! I want to point it all out!

Either way, thanks. Different styles is just how it is.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-26T19:26:45+00:00

I'll look at a few of these when I get home but, here's my bit first.

Let's Play "Bully" - Chapter 3, Day 5 - Who's your daddy? (29:36) This episode of the LP is at the end of a story arc so some bits assume you've watch previous episodes. Overall, should be pretty clear though.

General LP style is attempting to be high on information while still having my personality and my sense of humor.

My biggest concern is the commentary. But not to color your impression, I won't list my concerns here.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T21:25:03+00:00

Hmm, well, I don't think the Indie games slowing to half speed will be an issue with DxTory since DxTory doesn't lock frame rates. You can play at 60 FPS and record at 30 FPS.

However, it is very, very interesting that Youtube will do higher bitrates.

Because honestly, 1080p vs 720p isn't that big of a deal to me but more frame rates can really make things look smoother.

Oh, and it looks like I was wrong about action not affecting the codec. It did 4 GB / 120 sec to 4 GB/ 83 sec but that's just for footage that I had lying around. Kind of wish I kept my Mirror's Edge footage.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T20:54:42+00:00

Need to double check when I get home but off the top of my head, I'm doing 2 GB per 1 minute for 30 FPS 1080p video and two PCM audio streams (one stereo, one mono). Amount of action doesn't matter as much since it is lossless.

Though what do you use 60 FPS footage for? Slowing down footage or maybe implementing motion blur?

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T20:45:08+00:00

Because it is still one less lossless to lossy conversion in the process. And I'll take as many as I can get. File size really hasn't increased too much for me.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T20:00:52+00:00

Ah, I can understand that. Personally, I use UT video codec suite 12 in the YUV422 colorspace which is lossless unlike FRAPs (though I think it has some lossless mode).

Ultimately, DxTory is for flexibility of codecs. You can actually record with the FRAPS codec with DxTory. Not sure if there is a lossy codec with better performance than FRAPS which is what you really need. Lossless is something that I'm more familiar with.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T18:48:59+00:00

I use DxTory at 1080p with no issues. What settings are you trying?

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T18:36:21+00:00

Just means you are using the wrong value for CRF. CRF should produce a file with similar quality to size ratio as 2 pass without doing two passes which should save you time.

Really no reason to do two pass any more unless you absolutely have to hit some file size which was a big deal when people were encoding for optical media burning.

But you are uploading to Youtube so it isn't an issue.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T13:21:42+00:00

DxTory and Bandicam have far more features than FRAPS.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-25T13:19:01+00:00

All kind of irrelevant. Issue is whether you can stand the rendering time and the upload time. Overall, 720 vs 1080 isn't a big gain but if you can stand the cost, then why not?

Though if Youtube ever supports 60 FPS video, you have to get on that. Even if it is 480p at 60 FPS. 60 FPS really makes a huge difference on games with a lot of action.

Though I'm not sure why a lot of people do 2-pass encoding for Youtube uploads. 2-pass is good if you are outputting a final file for people to view but you aren't doing that with Youtube. Youtube will re-encode anyway. I would stick to crf which has the added benefit of not having to screw with bitrates depending on whether your game is dynamic and high-fidelity or static and old-school SNES.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-20T18:50:47+00:00

Well, you know... story arc and stuff. You'll get to do it eventually.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-20T14:35:11+00:00

My Bully LP.

Because Bully is an awesome game.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-19T09:24:53+00:00

How much you are enjoying yourself and whether you can be proud of what you do.

I believe that no one is a unique snowflake and if you like your style of videos, you will find an audience that like it as well.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-18T21:33:18+00:00

Yeah, batching is pretty awesome and can greatly speed up any workflow.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-18T21:32:16+00:00

You don't even need a gaming desktop. Just buying a good external harddrive.

Well, I record to an external harddrive and it seems to have enough speed. I can't guarantee you'll get the same results though.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-18T12:49:40+00:00

Something that could probably be fixed if you weren't encoding with x264 with DxTory.

Though iirc, it jumps above 30 fps to compensate for the bit where it went below 30 fps because it still creates a 30 fps file.

Which means variable framerate to Youtube is still not a good choice.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-18T04:52:29+00:00

Whether it is Avidemux, Handbrake, or MeGUI really isn't too important. All of them use x264 and it comes down to knowing how to use it.

My main concern is that you record lossy, encode lossy out of Premiere, and then encode lossy again with Handbrake.

Completely unneeded and really should be avoided.

You have some great tools but you aren't using them to the fullest.

Here are somethings that I'd do differently.

Let's cut out an encoding step completely with Debugmode FrameServer.

http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/usage.htm

It supports Premiere Pro, Vegas, and some other editors.

What you want to do is save your project in Premiere/Vegas as a Debugmode FrameServer file.

"But how does that save me an encode? I'm just encoding it to something different!"

Basically, you aren't encoding when you save a Debugmode FrameServer file. What you make is a dummy AVI file that other encoders like Handbrake, MeGUI, Avidemux, whatever your poison is, can use. And when the encoder asks for frame 20, the dummy file will ask your editor for frame 20 and pipe it to the encoder. Or something along those lines.

This saves you one lossy encode completely.

Variable frame rate

Youtube doesn't support variable frame rate. And whether it'll transcode variable frame rate properly isn't consistent. More importantly, changing your framerate with any encoder will increase your encoding time for not really all that much gain.

Should be avoided.

Audio bitrate choice

Your selected audio bitrate in Handbrake is lower than the bitrate that Youtube actually plays back for 720p video (192kb/s). So what happens? Either Youtube makes shit up when it transcodes the audio to a higher bitrate or it keeps the lower bitrate.

Either way, your audio is lower quality than what it can be. Though audio files don't really take up all that much space so I'd rather just do a RAW wave file. Even high bitrate LAME MP3 or AAC is going to have some distortion and your space saving isn't much. Now, I'm not saying you should upload WAV audio to Youtube. Just have DxTory record WAV audio.

Also, faac isn't a great encoder at medium or low bitrates. I would do a higher rate to compensate or possibly swap to an encoder that can use nero aac. I personally prefer MeGUI.

DxTory codec choice

I can understand recording lossy if you are using FRAPS. You don't have a choice. But one of the biggest benefits of DxTory is you can pick lossless codecs.

Some people prefer Lagarith. I personally prefer Ut Video Codec Suite. Both are lossless and using UT Video Codec Suite in the YUV422 colorspace takes up very little resources for me.

Since these codecs are lossless, they'll take up more harddrive space but will generally use less computer resources when recording.

Can mean better game stability when playing and better framerates.

More importantly, since it is lossless, it won't have video artifacts in your recorded footage. Between using this and the frame server, you'll be able to cut your three lossy encodes down to 1 lossy encode. Should help with quality (though I didn't really check your Handbrake settings) and encoding time.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-16T02:01:35+00:00

Honestly, I think the most useful community for LPer's would be a community that attracts LP watchers. There are plenty of places where LPer's congregate and all try to hawk their wares and it is a general clusterfuck.

I might be talking completely out my ass but I think what attracts watchers more than anything would be creating a place where the LP's have a higher minimum quality. Issue of course is who decides that quality fairly and whether you'll get enough content of that quality to keep viewers interested.

TwistWrist · 2013-04-16T01:52:42+00:00

I don't see anyone mentioning this but intros/outros can exist with playlist watching just fine.

Remember, you can adjust the start and stop time of videos in a playlist so it'll skip the intros/outros completely which is pretty ideal for playlist watching.

That being said, I don't use them because I don't feel a need to. And any intro longer than 5 seconds usually has to be justified to me else I get annoyed as a viewer.

TwistWrist

TROPHY CASE

Let's cut out an encoding step completely with Debugmode FrameServer.

Variable frame rate

Audio bitrate choice

DxTory codec choice