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Not found anything on Google about this. So assuming it's a Windows XP configuration problem instead of WinUAE feature.
Activating "AVI output enabled" mutes game session sound. Playback of video has sound active.
Disabling AVI output during a play session and sound returns to game session.
Using XviD and PCM 44.1 KHz, 16 bit codecs. Onboard Realtek ALC882 chip.
Anyone got any pointers?
After you've enabled the avi output, what shows up in the Sound tab? Does it still show Enabled and Volume at 100%?
Sound settings remain set the same in record/normal mode.
Placing a tick in automatic switching (sound tab) vanishes once output has been activated.
Going to try a Shuttle forum (SN27P2) as I imagine this is a Windows Realtek setup quirk, or a limitation of the barebones.
Could be possible that the PC (if it's a barebones) simply doesn't have enough power to emulate the Amiga's sound and do on-the-fly encoding to XVid. Have you tried a less intensive codec such as HuffYUV?
Same thing happens to me. Emulation speed also drops from 50 fps to around 30-35 fps while capturing. So my bet is that dropping the sound is actually a feature, freeing some more CPU cycles for capturing. Considering the emulation speed drops a little (at least in my case), the sound would be horribly garbled if it was playing. In that case most people would prefer it not playing anyway, so maybe that's why it's off. :huh2:
Thanks for the help. HuffYUV didn't make any difference.
Tried DivX 6.5.1 bloated install and it caused an AVIStreamWrite() Failed (80044066) error. What version of DivX are people using?
Used this sites tutorial, and Recorded Amiga Games FAQ, and not changed anything else.
Pretty sure it's a Realtek configuration issue as reinstalled driver. Then lost sound recording on Fraps and had to remove a mute from Stereo mix.
For interest I get the following FPS:
HuffYUV v2.2.0 60FPS output active, 50FPS output off.
XViD MPEG4 40FPS output active, 50FPS output off
Sorry for the time wastage. Idiot alert.
Even though the option was unticked for "Disable sound output while recording", ticking "Disable frame rate limit while recording" then reticked sound option and ghosted it out.
I didn't notice the sound option was reticked while ghosted out. Or assumed as it was ghosted out it wasn't being utilised.
Trying a game with audio available and I can understand why it's disabled by default. Some more tweaking needed I think.
Hey Agram, welcome to the forums! A question, what made you decide to make movies of your gameplay on WinUAE?
Read a thread on a non-Amiga forum that had plenty of links to Amiga game videos on Youtube.
Searching Youtube had many personal favourites of mine not listed (Amiga versions), e.g. Populous 2, Hunter, Thunderhawk, etc. Other personal favourites that are available have audio playback issues or added music that ruined the experience for me.
I've never checked out these video streaming services before. So never knew there was an interest in retro and current game footage.
Previously I had considered recording PC game endings and cutscence using Fraps before reading the retro thread. I still intend to do this, with Boiling Point: Road To Hell going to be my first attempt. Or maybe Titan Quest as I don't fancy replaying all of Boiling Point to get the cut scenes.
As many PC games I've brought have been too time consuming, I though it would be handy to have the cut scenes and endings recorded for people that never got around to finishing a game. Or became bored with the game and only played it to see the ending (as I've experienced with Dungeon Siege 2, and currently with Titan Quest)
The Amiga game recording seems a good extension of the above. Especially as I don't buy many PC games. And I still have some games I transfered to ADF that I never completed originally on an Amiga (maybe maturity will help)
Only problem is I know nothing about encoding (don't want to start buying additional software so early into my attempts). Know nothing about emulation, as demonstrated by this thread. And need to reformat already as messed things up by installation so many different codecs and alike before I try again.
The record function of WinUAE seemed logical instead of trying to use a secondary program to record (not checked if any are available, or if Fraps would work). But I underestimated how demanding emulation is on a PC even with a X2 4200 (shame WinUAE doesn't support dual cores). As it's only been this week I've decided to try my hand at this its been a practical experience with no prior reading up.
The advantage of video stream is ease of use for the end user. And as it's rekindled my desired to play again, but with emulation, it would probably have the same effect on others. There's no need for the end user to download a large file and then realise the quality or content is poor. No need to try and source files from various places to try emulation. Just a readily accessible (historical if you like) record of an Amiga game experience.
Not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but bear in mind that there are certain drawbacks with these streaming services that are the reason the quality of the available videos is so poor. First and foremost is that the Amiga outputs video at 50 frames per second, resulting in pretty smooth animation and movement. Youtube for example do not allow videos with fps rates higher than 30. So when you encode with Youtube in mind, it makes sense to halve the framerate of your video to 25. And allready you have a significant drop in quality, for example you get uneven motion where the original amiga is smooth. Another problem is for example in Pinball Fantasies, some text outputs in the score field are flashing very fast: off one frame, on the next. So that it flashes 25 times per second. Now removing half of those frames will seriously mess up how that looks. This is a problem I encountered while capturing footage from Fantasies, and which I couldn't figure how to fix so will be apparent in the final video. This will be a recurring problem in other games that has real fast animation like that.
Also, the max screensize allowed on Youtube is 320*256. And it has to be less than 100MB. So in order to achieve this you have to do some serious downgrading of the overall video quality. In addition to that, Youtube also use their own compression algorithm on the video regardless, which degrades the video even further. So it's easy to understand why the videos on there are such poor quality, you really have to work to end up with a good result when there are so many hurdles in the way.
It is easily possible to create a decent video clip at 320x256 resolution. After all, that is the resolution VCD CDs use! And 100MB is actually quite a big file and a lot can be squeezed into this size.
I am going to try and create a detailed guide to capturing game footage, compressing and resizing and uploading to youtube and will be adding this to the site tutorials. I hope to create this next week.
For the reduction in framerate from 50 to 25, in actual fact PAL video only runs at 25FPS anyway, with the US NTSC running at 30FPS. The 50FPS is actually the interlaced TV signal, and each of these 50 frames is only ever showing half of the complete image at a time. So reducing the framerate to 25 frames per second should be an issue.
The problem with a game like Pinball Fantasies where you are losing parts of the frames due to fast motion is in how the original video clip was created. If WinUAE is capturing at 50 frames per second then it will in fact be capturing every interlaced frame a real Amiga would output.
The solution to this problem when reducing the framerate to 25FPS is to deinterlace the video clip before you reduce the framerate. This will merge every two frames interlaced content so you will then not lose any frame information when you then reduce the framerate. And, Teho, as you are using Premiere it has a deinterlace filter built in so it quite easy to use. You just need to quickly experiment on a short section of video first as you can choose to deinterlace the odd or even frames, and need to run a text first to see which frames you want to perform the action on. Hope that fixes that issue for you.
BTW, if any of you have any video related questions feel free to ask. I know quite a lot about it from my work.
Does Google Video allow higher quality video to be hosted on it? Just looking at their recommended upload specs:
- MPEG4 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 2 mbps
- MPEG2 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 5 mbps
- 30 frames per second
- 640x480 resolution
- 4:3 frame
- de-interlace
I believe it can be embedded in much the same way as Youtube.
Hmm. I don't actually capture at 50fps, but at 25. And the video that plays, well to give a specific example on the Partyland table, when you do three loops you get a "crazy letter spotted" flashing real fast. But in the video clip I get, the score field is simply blank. Which I assume means that the frames I captured are the ones where the text was blinking off, while the frames that were dropped are the ones where it was on. And that's not the only occurence of this in the various Fantasies clips I got.
So if I understand this correctly, to fix this I have to recapture the video at 50fps and then do that deinterlace trick? Won't that result in the text being simply on instead of blinking fast then? Because if what you say is true about the interlaced out put, Digital Illusions apparently achieved this fast blinking by having the text showing only in the interlaced frames. Does that sound plausible at all? And if that's true, there's no way you can capture that effect right without playing it back in 50fps, is it?
AlexJ, the Youtube recommended specifications are:
- MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
- 320x240 resolution
- MP3 audio
- 30 frames per second
So I was a little off when I said 320*256, apparently.
The 320x240 is just the US NTSC equivalent and the 320x256 is the PAL version. As youtube is from the US that would explain that one.
Some good news is that the video embedding code on the main site supports all of the best known video hosting services, including MSN, Yahoo and Google, so you are all welcome to use whichever service you think will give use the best results.
I think therefore we all need to do some testing this coming week and upload a video to each of the services to compare them and see which we think is the best one to use for classicamiga's videos.
Also it will be a good idea if we create a central account or in youtube's case a video group, where we can all link our accounts and group together the classicamiga video clips. This will allow us to have our own page on the video hosting service that groups together all of our videos in one place for easy viewing of them all.
I have already created a group on youtube called classicamiga with this idea in mind, and I expect it is similar on other services too.
Another idea relating to youtube is their new directors account. This would allow us to upload videos longer than 10 minutes and without the youtube logo appearing on them. I will need to look into how we can apply for this account though.
As for the deinterlacing, we need to experiment to see if it will fix the problem. I will have a go at this myself later tonight and see if I can get the flashing display to capture.
I've got a directors account - it doesn't allow me more than 10 minutes though. You simply change an option in your profile. You need an account with the 10 minute limit removed, which is done manually by Youtube.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
The option in your account to select to say you are a director, musician etc... is different to what I meant. Youtube have also confusingly added a recent thing called the directors program which you can apply for to remove the 10 minute limitation.
I've decided to wait for a guide. To start out correctly instead of the mess I've been causing, especially as now on a clean Windows installation. Only had a rush this week as free time permitted, so seemed a good time to experiment.
As a example for quality on Youtube ...
Youtube Assassin looked fine to me from normal sitting distance, but if you start scrutinising it you can see dithering (or what ever the correct term is) and distortions around the main character.
But then looking at this Youtube Shadow of the Beast 2 which looks pretty impressive (to me). It's probably converted using this method, as it's created by the same person that typed the forum post.
To a layman it seems pretty complex and long winded, but the end result looks worthwhile. I imagine a more streamlined method is available for people in the know.
I would wait for a guide aswell, once someone on here figures it out, its as easy as 1,2,3. Sounds interesting, there are many games I havent finished (I think it would be easier to list the games I have ;)) so it would be good to see the endings of different games. What other systems did you use to use apart from the PC? any NES, SNES?
No, I've always been a home computer person (Spectrum, Amiga, PC). Problem is it means I can't use a joypad properly to save my life.
Used to be OK with one-on-one beat `em-ups like Street Fighter 2, until you needed multiple direction combination in addition to button combinations to pull off special moves.
Have tried Halo deathmatch on the Xbox using the analogue sticks for movement and view with similar dire outcome as trying to control movement in games with the D pad.
Using a two thumb-stick control system in any game takes a lot of practice. I've never found FPS style games accurate enough on consoles and using one stick to control character movement, and the other to control angle of view has always been a lot harder than the keyboard and mouse combo.
I have however got to grips with dual thumb-stick controls in racing games now. One to control steering and the other to control throttle and break. To begin with I just couldn't get the hang of that system and always reverted back to buttons for the accelerator and break, but after playing MotoGP a lot I've now found I can use this system well and it is much better than buttons as you can hold the throttle open at specific amounts for cornering and in traffic for games like GTA. I still hate console FPSs though.
I managed to get used to that way back when the first Gran Turismo came out. Was really good to be able to control throttle analoguely, and definitely makes the game easier when you get used to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
I tended to still use buttons for Gran Turisno because it supports the pressure sensitive nature of the PS2 controller's buttons so I could feather the throttle that way and it worked really well.
It didn't on the PS1 version (mainly because the PS1 Dual Shock didn't have analogue buttons ;) )Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
Yep, that is true. I still just used the buttons on the first two games thought because at the time (for some reason) I couldn't get to grips with the two stick methods, and then when GT3 came out on the PS2 I liked the analogue buttons, but now I play it with the two sticks.