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MAME Movie Maker released
donnyj:
After making 50 or so movies, I have decided that manually is DEFINATELY not the way to go :'(
Even if you ignore the time and frustration of doing it manually, there is the much bigger concern that I have that running the same game from different versions is going to create a slightly different loop. I believe the best way to go would be to improve the loop detection and possibly adding some kind of hinting system.
For example, rather than absolute frames, if a correct loop could be detected by changing the min and max settings, etc. then record those...
I am definatly looking forward to the .91 update ;)
Also, there HAS to be a way to create much smaller .AVI files without sacrificing quality??? Some codec that takes into account limited colors being used or something? How much affect does using cartoon mode on XVid, etc. ?
Silver:
--- Quote from: donnyj on February 02, 2005, 08:30:56 pm ---After making 50 or so movies, I have decided that manually is DEFINATELY not the way to go :'(
Even if you ignore the time and frustration of doing it manually, there is the much bigger concern that I have that running the same game from different versions is going to create a slightly different loop. I believe the best way to go would be to improve the loop detection and possibly adding some kind of hinting system.
For example, rather than absolute frames, if a correct loop could be detected by changing the min and max settings, etc. then record those...
--- End quote ---
Seems like to be the consensus - it also seems that the loop detection currently does rather well. We can build a database automatically from this, then as people work through them make changes manually. Once 1 person has done it, everyone can then do it first time....
--- Quote ---Also, there HAS to be a way to create much smaller .AVI files without sacrificing quality??? Some codec that takes into account limited colors being used or something? How much affect does using cartoon mode on XVid, etc. ?
--- End quote ---
Havn't thought about this for a while. Forgot about it once it was all up and working.... Because of the annoying way that virtualdub sends config data to the encoder, settings have to be hard coded (ie Buddabing can't just add an option to let you set any bitrate).
Currently Xvid is configured to do a "quality based" encode. That means that it alters the bitrate as required to keep to the quality at a certain level. This is the best way of encoding a bunch of very different videos - eg if we had a fixed bitrate it would probably be hopelessy over-the-top for something lo-res like missle command, but make really ugly videos for something complex and hi-res like coolboarders.
The current "quality level" is generous and it makes (IMHO) high quality videos (You can play them back full-screen, and they look good). Its possible to alter the setting, or perhaps add "options" like low/medium/high quality but it would mean more work and some ugly copying/pasting for Buddabing. Not sure what he feels - if he agrees then I can try out a few settings and post him the changes.
However, if you wish as a workaround you can compress them however you want: set the movievideo option to 0 (no compression) and then you can use Virtualdub to recompress this using whatever video codec you like. Note the uncompressed videos will be *massive* until you compress them.
NB you could also try using the DivX (movievideo=1) or cinepak (movievideo=2) options. I do not know what settings the divx is set to. I would suggest that the cinepak is of a much lower quality, and therefore maybe smaller.
Also - is it the overall size of so many videos that is too big, or are there particular files that are much bigger? Could you list them if so?
donnyj:
overall the movies are too big, IMHO.
The way virual dub does the codec settings is a major limitation.
I am hoping to use the AVI's as an "animated gif with sound".... Picture a mame FE that has tabs for titleshot, marquee..., attract avi....
The quality-based is the best way to go because of changing resolutions also...
Is the MP3 encoding quality-based as well? Is there an easier way to add the new codec string to the source without manually breaking the lines and adding quotes?
Silver:
I forgot to add that obviously you can just alter the source and include any settings you like - this may be your best solution. (Just make a 'job' with the settings you want in Vdub, and replace the equivalent lines in the Source where it builds the job file.)
If you after something really small like an animated gif this may be your best bet. You could add resize filters to chop the image size right down too.
MP3 - no this is just a constant bitrate. Can't remember what bitrate it is, but its not that high (and doesn't need to be). I don't believe you will gain much size improvement by changing the sound compression, its relatively irrelevant compared to the video.
To add a new codec I would choose one you don't want - eg divx - and just place your own vdb file settings over that so you can use your own.
I will look to see if there are other ways of configuring encoders (such as a config file).
2600:
I guess I'm in the minority in thinking that Budda has already done a damn fine job. I just hate to see his time wasted with more and more options, although it really is up to him.
Even with this database setup with all the hints or exact frames people are still going to complain because they have to do a little work. Those people are only going to be happy when we can provide a torrent with everything already done for them (Of course they will complain about size, but they are many programs that can recompress them better for us to maintain the Higher Quality for those that appreciate it). So maybe after we get everything set up a bit more, we could provide a torrent, possibly a DAT.
Silver, SSF comment was targeted more generally for those that didn't know what SSF was and was wondering why there may be differences from the SSF.txt file I posted and what they see from the loop detection.
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