Update 19/03/2013 (deleted the entire post, and added my personal final conclusion) I wrote down the method i'll be using to record empires video's: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2Gxn3qASuTTfo04EfprgPHWmGenPaqvZFgBy33R8JM/edit?usp=sharing In short: For general action/gameplay video's i use Fraps, and to compress the fraps video's i use virtualdub. The exact settings i used are in the link. For 1080 gameplay vids i use a Ratefactor of 23 For map flythrougs (all from freeroam spectatormode) i use the Source record console command. I smooth the path in the demo editor and compress it with virtual dub as well. I use a Ratefactor of 18 for this. I keep ALL my video's on my hard drive for at least a few years (unless i make a shitload of movies). Since they are all recorded and compressed in the same way, i can use all these video's for montages later on. This video was created with this method using those settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC0HVOlGylM As you can see the quality is good It is 1.46 GB for 25 minutes though, but i can recommend this quality because a) Youtube still compresses it a but further and 2) You can always make it smaller in the future, but you can never make it more detailed again
Youtube gives hints somewhere but I haven't really tried. You have to do everything to avoid double encode. You have to either record directly to final H.264 or record to uncompressed video, encode to H.264 and send it to youtube. Try vimeo, maybe they're more predictable about transcoding.
You can get pixel-perfect video on YouTube by matching their encoding specifications. If the encoding doesn't match, the video will look blocky like in the comparison screenshot. The video should also only be encoded once; if encoded multiple times the quality will drop significantly. My setup is to record with FRAPS in lossless mode. Then I encode using Avidemux with MPEG-4 AVC video, AAC audio, and MP4 container. I leave all the settings at default except for the AAC bitrate, which I set to 384 kbps to match YouTube's specification. The end result should look like this.
Thanks a lot all of you I'll give that a go I was using virtualdub for this, and following the advice on the valve wiki i had chosen xvid for compression. I'll try your settings with avidemux next
well since jephir brough up fraps, i might as well ask this: theres gotta be something wrong with my fraps settings, since all my videos have less color than the original source. see my example, left is a screenshot, right is a fraps video
I get that same issue, but it's caused by video compression, not Fraps. But if you think Fraps is causing it, you can trying enabling "Force lossless RGB capture" in the Movies tab. Also disable "Monitor Aero desktop" under General to make sure that Fraps is recording the game using its color correction settings.
Thank you MOOtant and Jephir The second test is waaaaaaaaay better - Video is 35% longer than the first one - Size is 25% smaller than the first one - Yet the quality now is much much better Video test #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9YdBEU3wFs&feature=plcp
So, concerning smoothing the movement ... I'm really not made for this, as i can't really tell the difference #2 (no smoothing whatsoever ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9YdBEU3wFs&feature=plcp #3 (ingame smoothing AND youtube smoothing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSOtI59FoZw&feature=plcp #4 (ingame smoothing only) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuCX-u0jxLE&feature=plcp You guys see the difference ?
you see no difference? #3 (bad) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSOtI59FoZw&hd=1&t=3m50s #2 (good) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9YdBEU3wFs&hd=1&t=3m50s #4 (good aswell) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuCX-u0jxLE&hd=1&t=3m50s idk if it has to do with the smoothing thing, but the first one (#3) looks wobbly to me like youtube on acid :D edit: this is what i mean #2 #3 edit2: lol i just should have watched the vid from the start. look at the minimap in #3
The hell ... the third one didn't look like that at all at first ... I'm guessing the changes made by youtube took a lot longer to get added than i thought. When the message "video is being processed, check back later" disappeared i figured it was done. Apparantly it wasn't ... Which side? I have recorded the entire match, just haven't processed it completely yet
We should upload every video with YouTube smoothing. I think it makes it look awesome. Fuck, just put it in the game. Everyone will want to play it.
To be honest #3 is probably what Empires looks like to the majority of the community. Because they're drunk! Get it? Get it?
