Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 11, 2004, 09:36:37 PM
Sorry to say this so bluntly, but those videos had disappointing quality. Particularly in the "important" videos (like Zelda), frames were often erroneous, the images were very twitchy as if the field-order was backwards (leading me to believe you have the originals on DVD), and the file sizes were unreasonably large thanks to uncompressed audio.
I understand these might've been a rushed job, but I don't think they're fit for distribution yet. In any case, if you'd like some help with encoding videos using DivX (tips, how to's, etc), I'd be happy to help (i use DivX Pro, licensed).
[or send me a copy of the press dvd, and I'll encode them for you *_* ]
Post by: Bloodworth on May 11, 2004, 11:04:16 PM
Post by: BigJim on May 12, 2004, 02:09:30 PM
In case Windy didn't know, the audio is being encoded at 1024kbps. I guarantee you that is at least 4x the bitrate of the source material, and probably a lot more. There is no reason for a 30-second, 360x260 video of DS or GBA content to be 9 megs while using Divx.
I just re-encoded PGC's Mario 64x4 video (at 500kbps for video, 64kbps for audio), and it looks and sounds identical to PGC's video, but it's 2.15MB, not 9.6MB!
You could be saving your servers a hell of a load, and saving readers a lot of DL time.
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 12, 2004, 03:30:49 PM
I already commented on the audio size. This issue doesn't really concern DivX, nor would I put Windy/PGC at fault for not compressing them properly. You'd need a decent audio compressor, like an AVI-compatible Mp3 compressor, to get the nice quality/size ratios.
~~~~~
That twitching problem's making me very curious. None of Nintendo.com's nor IGN's same videos display the twitch. What's the exact video format of the originals?
Post by: Bloodworth on May 12, 2004, 10:48:14 PM
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 13, 2004, 12:05:20 AM
Post by: BigJim on May 13, 2004, 04:20:56 AM
Post by: RickPowers on May 14, 2004, 04:59:17 PM
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 14, 2004, 05:28:31 PM
But if ya run into any hurdles, I'd like to hear about them.
Post by: chaos on May 15, 2004, 03:11:56 PM
When I try to download videos or audio from this site (and others) it always cuts me off right at the start saying download complete which it isnt
It seems to have something to do with the computer not knowing how much its actually downloading and so cuts of at the start
Im on a 56k modem and use DAP would it have anything to do with either of these or it something wrong with the server
If its got nothing to do with the server sorry about bothering you but if you have any ideas it would be aprecciated
Thanks
Post by: RickPowers on May 15, 2004, 04:16:38 PM
I'll compress the other stuff too, later on ...
Post by: snacky on May 15, 2004, 05:56:05 PM
As for the video, it's always a good idea to use a deinterlace filter before encoding to an mpeg4 implementation (DivX is an mpeg4 implementation). It gives you a lot better quality per bitrate.
I realize I'm just some random guy to you, but if you'd be willing to spare the (admittedly humongous) bandwidth to let me see the source just once, I'm confident I can give you a file that's both several megs smaller and visibly better looking. If you're willing to believe this random guy has some experience with squeezing the best quality-per-bitrate out of interlaced content, let's work something out.
Post by: RickPowers on May 15, 2004, 08:26:15 PM
Post by: snacky on May 15, 2004, 08:54:01 PM
For encoding, if you want divx in an AVI container, mencoder is a good choice. I use it mainly because you can do an absolutely insane amount of tweaking of encoding parameters, and every once in a while it is actually useful ;) Also it has some decent filters, including a choice of deinterlace filters which usually do a much better job than the deinterlace filters the Windows crowd seems to be using.
In case you decide to download the win32 port of mencoder, here is a command line that'd probably do pretty well:
mencoder original.avi -vf lavcdeint -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:acodec=mp3:abitrate=96:mbd=0:v4mv:vlelim=-4:vcelim=7:precmp=2:cmp=2:mbcmp=2:cbp:trell:vbitrate=1400 -o finished.avi
You can probably see why some people don't use mencoder - it's a little complex and you have to learn a lot of options. These options should get it down to around 13.5 megs and I'm pretty confident it would look better than what you have now, mainly because of the deinterlacing.
Post by: sycomonkey on May 15, 2004, 09:26:24 PM
THERE IS NO DEINTERLACING!!!
Divx hates it when you don't deinterlace. It's like it's trying to compress a brick.
edit: Listen to the mencoder guy, he speaks wisdom.
Post by: KDR_11k on May 15, 2004, 10:00:33 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: chaos
I thought i'd put this here seeing how its kind of similar
When I try to download videos or audio from this site (and others) it always cuts me off right at the start saying download complete which it isnt
It seems to have something to do with the computer not knowing how much its actually downloading and so cuts of at the start
Im on a 56k modem and use DAP would it have anything to do with either of these or it something wrong with the server
If its got nothing to do with the server sorry about bothering you but if you have any ideas it would be aprecciated
Thanks
Maybe DAP is triggering the anti-DoS protection. Ever tried using your browser's default downloader?
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 16, 2004, 02:33:40 AM
Rick, what is the exact format of the source files? Are they video files sitting on a DVD/CD (what's the file extension?)? Or are they MPEG-2 video streams you had to rip off a DVD?
Post by: Pod on May 16, 2004, 04:07:25 AM
Post by: BigJim on May 16, 2004, 06:18:39 AM
With Divx, a full 2 Hr movie at high resolution should be able to fit onto a 700MB CD. At a rate of 21 megs a minute, that CD would be filled up in 33 minutes.
Have y'all tried Dr. Divx that's available on Divx.com? There is a 15 day trial version that is very 1-2-3 simple, and has easy customization for resolution, audio/video bitrate, deinterlace, and Divx's proprietary filters.
I use it all the time and it works very well. I re-compressed the High-Res Zelda video using 1000 kbps on video, 96K audio, and the file came out to 9.1 megs.
Post by: ssj4_android on May 16, 2004, 08:18:19 AM
Post by: ssj4_android on May 16, 2004, 08:25:28 AM
Post by: snacky on May 16, 2004, 08:55:25 AM
Anyway, both are great codecs but they will likely be entirely superceded by something like H264 someday...
Post by: RickPowers on May 16, 2004, 09:16:05 AM
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm intentionally trying to stick with doing everything in Premiere Pro, so that once we get these little things ironed out, I can just batch process everything else. That's why I'm not taking any suggestions on other programs to do it with.
To answer the question, no ... the original files are on a DVD DATA disc, not a video disc. It's a 200+MB RAW AVI they've given us, so I'm not ripping video.
Post by: Zach on May 16, 2004, 09:25:19 AM
Post by: BigJim on May 16, 2004, 10:10:34 AM
Zach, you need to go to divx.com and download the free divx drivers. If after that AOL won't play them, you need to play them with another program, like Windows Media Player.
Post by: snacky on May 16, 2004, 10:20:16 AM
He says: Go to export movie settings; go to audio. In compressor, choose mp3 as the codec.
In advanced settings, you can set the bitrate.
This will save you up to ~4 megs and let you keep better quality, so it's worth it.
The only time it's ever worth it to use PCM is if you absolutely do not care about space/bandwidth. If it matters even in the slightest, you can get better quality-per-byte from something like mp3.
Post by: RickPowers on May 16, 2004, 10:40:12 AM
Files are done. After some tweaking, I've got the Full Res version to 12.7MB. The 9MB version was decent, but had some unacceptable artifacting in places, so I tweaked the bitrate and keyframes to get what I wanted. This looks better. The 360x240 version is now 6.9MB. They have 1400Kbps and 700Kbps bitrates respectively. Uploading now, should be done shortly. I'll update the news story when they're finished.
Zach ... yes, you need to go to the Divx.com website and download the codec to play them. Use the DivX Player (NOT Windows Media Player, or AOL Media Player). There are known issues where WMP will play DivX files too slow, then jump forward.
Post by: mouse_clicker on May 16, 2004, 10:50:16 AM
Post by: snacky on May 16, 2004, 11:03:26 AM
Currently you're using about 5.9 megs on reasonable quality audio. You could get equal quality mp3 for about 0.6-1 megs, saving you 5 megs of filesize. Unfortunately, the nature of PCM is such that "Compressing" PCM by lowering the samplerate is basically throwing away bits indiscriminately without regard to how they affect the fidelity, which is why the fidelity drops off so sharply.
The most tactful thing I can say is that I wouldn't consider using a product to create downloadable video if the product could only output PCM. But surely there's a way...
Post by: Zach on May 16, 2004, 11:15:58 AM
Post by: ssj4_android on May 16, 2004, 11:58:41 AM
NSV/AAC/VP6 is nice. Play with winamp. 4MB, converted from Nintendo's official quicktime file.
Post by: RickPowers on May 16, 2004, 12:02:29 PM
Not to disagree with you, Snacky, but I know a thing or two about compression, and you're simply not going to save that much on 1 minute file. Longer, sure, but MP3 doesn't work miracles. What you're suggesting is that I could cut this file down to 6MB or so, and that's just not going to happen by playing with the audio. I'm sure Premiere Pro can handle MP3, I just need to find out why it's not on the list.
The Quicktime file on Nintendo's site is NOT the original, and has already been compressed once. Comparisons to how you compressed that file aren't entirely accurate. Like I said, the one we have is a 200+ MB raw AVI file.
Post by: snacky on May 16, 2004, 12:29:58 PM
Quote
and you're simply not going to save that much on 1 minute file.
You'll save exactly the amounts I said.
2 channels x 16-bit samples x 22050 samples per second * 69.8 seconds = 6.0 megabytes. That's the amount of space you're currently using on sound. If you want to be more precise, the amount you're using is 6,159,576 bytes, not counting AVI packet overhead
If you chose 96kbps mp3, the math is 96kbits/s*69.8 seconds= 837.6 kilobytes. Like I said, a savings of over 5 megs. Not small change by any means - the PCM is more than seven times larger.
I think you're underestimating just how massive PCM is compared to any reasonably modern lossy compression.
Post by: snacky on May 16, 2004, 12:39:05 PM
I only proposed 96kbps to reduce the chance that someone would complain it'd offend their golden ears (some audiophiles take pleasure in being picky!).
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 16, 2004, 04:47:45 PM
[Expensive] Video editing suites such as Adobe Premiere and Ulead Studio are meant to produce video projects/presentations, where the finalized output files are meant to be "master" or "source" copies. (MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DV, MJPEG, straight-to-film)
Video conversion/encoding/transcoding into small, internet-friendly distribution formats (such as DivX) should only be handled by (or combinations of) small, yet powerful video processing solutions like AVISynth, VirtualDub/NanDub/Gordian Knot, which specialize in frame processing techniques like deinterlacing, field manipulation, cropping/resizing, color adjustments, etc. In particular, you can experience dramatically shorter encoding times with AVISynth, since it's only a few kilobytes large, has significantly less overhead compared to a "monster" program like Adobe Premiere, and can process video without having to fully decompress it before applying changes. And besides encoding the distribution files, these solutions are great for "cleaning up" videos before importing them into a Premiere project. Premiere's deinterlacing and dimension resizing capabilties aren't nearly as powerful or flexible as AVISynth's. You'll have more control over the encoding/coversion process than Premiere allows, and they're free for public use.
In short, use scissors to cut a sheet of paper rather than a katana blade.
~~~~~
I watched the updated Zelda trailers, and the remaining stuttering and frame errors still bother me. I'm doubtful these are problems that can be fixed from within Adobe Premiere.
Post by: chaos on May 18, 2004, 02:41:54 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11kQuote
Originally posted by: chaos
I thought i'd put this here seeing how its kind of similar
When I try to download videos or audio from this site (and others) it always cuts me off right at the start saying download complete which it isnt
It seems to have something to do with the computer not knowing how much its actually downloading and so cuts of at the start
Im on a 56k modem and use DAP would it have anything to do with either of these or it something wrong with the server
If its got nothing to do with the server sorry about bothering you but if you have any ideas it would be aprecciated
Thanks
Maybe DAP is triggering the anti-DoS protection. Ever tried using your browser's default downloader?
Aye I tried that a while ago, I uninstalled DAP and set it back to my default downloader,
It seemed to work for a while but came back after a month or so
So I thought seeing that E3 was coming up I thought I'd need an accelerater even if it only worked sometimes
I use Internet Explorer do you think it would change if I used Opera or Msn
Post by: chaos on May 18, 2004, 03:08:58 PM
Just one last question if I change opera to my default browser will it keep a history in the same way I.E. does
I like to read articles on sites after I go offline (what can I say im cheap), trust Ireland to be the only country in the world where you cant get a proper internet plan eg. unlimited hours for €60 a month changes to 50 hours for €50 a month and broadband isnt in my area
any way thanks for your help
Post by: KDR_11k on May 18, 2004, 11:31:03 PM
Post by: chaos on May 19, 2004, 03:32:55 PM
