Author Topic: How to upload Touhou videos in HD quality Tutorial (Read 412318 times)

Jaimers · « **Reply #180 on:** January 24, 2011, 02:07:45 PM »

Okay, as it seems my previous post of this got eaten because of technical issues, let's just do it again here.

How to record the PC-98 games.

First, make sure the emulator is configured properly.
Also check "full color" in in the window tab for Anex.

I use Hypercam 2 for the recording. Set the recorder up like this if you're recording fullscreen:

Enabling Stereo Mix in your computer's sound config is recommended if you can't get any sound (it's a hidden feature, so right-click to make it visible).

Press F2 to record and again to stop recording.

After that, use this code in MeGUI instead of the normal one:

Code: [Select]

Lanczos4Resize(1152, 720, 0, 0.5) # Lanczos4 (Neutral)
AddBorders(64, 0, 64, 0, 0)
ConvertToYV12()

@Barakketh: I think I'm using constant? I have a constant Ratefactor of 20 if that means anything.

EDIT:

Okay it seems Hypercam 2 has some desync issues as of late, it's better to use Hypercam 3. Use the exact same settings except use uncompressed video instead.

Barrakketh · « **Reply #181 on:** January 24, 2011, 02:56:07 PM »

Quote from: Jaimers on January 24, 2011, 02:07:45 PM

@Barakketh: I think I'm using constant? I have a constant Ratefactor of 20 if that means anything.

Yeah, CRF (Constant Rate Factor) and Constant Quality (what it is called in the VFW interface to x264) are the same thing.

I was mainly interested in asking because at the time I was watching Sapz' Crimzon Clover Type-Z Unlimited 1cc and noticed that it was horribly blocky at 720p (I might bug him about his encoding settings later). Your stuff (the recent non-Cave/non-PC-98 games) are fine, but one-pass CRF is quicker than two-pass fixed bitrate.

Plus the way x264 works is that it picks the CRF value that would let you hit the target file size, so unless you're trying to fit something on a CD/DVD CRF is the better choice as the quality would be better (unless you picked a huge bitrate that would pick a lower CRF value) and the encode would be done faster.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #182 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:27:52 AM »

Quote from: Jaimers on January 24, 2011, 02:07:45 PM

Code: [Select]
Lanczos4Resize(1152, 720, 0, 0.5) # Lanczos4 (Neutral) AddBorders(64, 0, 64, 0, 0) ConvertToYV12()

Do you really need the borders though? Youtube's HD has been great for the past long time and doesn't need borders anymore for 720 pixels.
Unless they do something weird to your vids without the borders? I have no idea so...

Jaimers · « **Reply #183 on:** January 28, 2011, 06:52:26 PM »

Welp, guess I'm using Hypercam 3 now.

Same settings, except I'm not using any compression now.

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on January 25, 2011, 12:27:52 AM

Do you really need the borders though? Youtube's HD has been great for the past long time and doesn't need borders anymore for 720 pixels.
Unless they do something weird to your vids without the borders? I have no idea so...

I think it's to remain the aspect ratio of the game?

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #184 on:** January 28, 2011, 08:42:49 PM »

Quote from: Jaimers on January 28, 2011, 06:52:26 PM

I think it's to remain the aspect ratio of the game?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering about. I've seen many vids on Youtube where the games are either really fat or really thin. Mostly fat. Well, I might try a PC98 without the borders sometime in the future and upload it temporarily to see what it looks like. Unless someone else does it before me, that works too.

Dentsune · « **Reply #185 on:** February 05, 2011, 12:28:45 AM »

First of all, thanks a lot for all the replys on this thread guys, I have learned a lot about encoding reading your posts. Special thanks to Drake for this guide! You're amazing man, please keep up the good work!

Well, I have some problems encoding my TH video. I follow exactly what this guide says (except for one point: I use a widescreen 16:9 option), but when I upload my video to youtube, I get this ugly white screen during the very first seconds of the playback:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2qYnOniCHo

I have tried many options during the encoding, but I'm still getting that white screen. Also the audio, even on HD, sounds pretty bad to me.
Any ideas how to fix these things? Any ideas will be appreciated a lot.

Thanks once again for everything!~
See'ya!

LHCling · « **Reply #186 on:** February 05, 2011, 02:02:28 AM »

This has been a prevalent problem. I averted the problem by downgrading everything back to my previous, working settings (+the works) and then manually updating / installing plugins as required from there (so I basically touch everything but the core).

The audio sounded fine to me, though yes, a bit worse than the "original". You're on your own here as I can't accurately say what the problem exactly is.

If I had to make a guess as to what the problem is, I'd say that it's either MeGUI's doing some witchcraft, or the latest encoders are incompatible thus you get the garbage for the first 3 seconds of video, and may also be affecting audio quality.

WRT using Widescreen (16:9), it ends up stretching your output video since Touhou uses 4:3 resolution. If you were to put this into the same ratio, it would be 12:9 / 16:12, and the video therefore would end up getting stretched sideways, which would make everything look "fatter". This is why letterboxing (adding extra space to the sides of the videos) is done; to maintain the original ratio of 4:3 whilst still being able to take advantage of YT's HD settings.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #187 on:** February 05, 2011, 05:49:33 AM »

Quote from: Dentsune on February 05, 2011, 12:28:45 AM

First of all, thanks a lot for all the replys on this thread guys, I have learned a lot about encoding reading your posts. Special thanks to Drake for this guide! You're amazing man, please keep up the good work!

Well, I have some problems encoding my TH video. I follow exactly what this guide says (except for one point: I use a widescreen 16:9 option), but when I upload my video to youtube, I get this ugly white screen during the very first seconds of the playback:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2qYnOniCHo

I have tried many options during the encoding, but I'm still getting that white screen. Also the audio, even on HD, sounds pretty bad to me.
Any ideas how to fix these things? Any ideas will be appreciated a lot.

Thanks once again for everything!~
See'ya!

THIS! Yes, I just had that problem a few days ago. I tried the Lanczos4 codec for my SWR lunatic 1cc and had the exact same problem. But it had a twist! It had a strange clicking sound continually reoccurring in the audio. Like a tick-tock (a little faster than the average clock) that sounds like you could make it with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Exactly like that. So I deleted it thinking it was a youtube glitch. (which reminds me of donut's Mystic Acid Trip) I did recently update MeGUI though. (oh, and the weird sound WASN'T in the finished product of the vid either. I checked. nor was the white beginning)

That reminds me, does the window for MeGUI normally say "MeGUI 1911 (svn)"? I don't recall svn being in there. Maybe I should reinstall it?

Dentsune · « **Reply #188 on:** February 05, 2011, 03:48:18 PM »

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on February 05, 2011, 05:49:33 AM

THIS! Yes, I just had that problem a few days ago. I tried the Lanczos4 codec for my SWR lunatic 1cc and had the exact same problem. But it had a twist! It had a strange clicking sound continually reoccurring in the audio. Like a tick-tock (a little faster than the average clock) that sounds like you could make it with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Exactly like that. So I deleted it thinking it was a youtube glitch. (which reminds me of donut's Mystic Acid Trip) I did recently update MeGUI though. (oh, and the weird sound WASN'T in the finished product of the vid either. I checked. nor was the white beginning)

That reminds me, does the window for MeGUI normally say "MeGUI 1911 (svn)"? I don't recall svn being in there. Maybe I should reinstall it?

My, well, it's good to know that it's quite an usual problem. I still can't figure the source of that white screen. Maybe reinstalling meGUI could help a little? Updating everything but the core, perphaps? It's annoying how 3 seconds of white screen can screw the entire video.

About SVN well, my meGUI says exactly the same. I don't know if that's good or bad or something but it seems to encode well so... yeah.
Thanks for the replys btw.

Barrakketh · « **Reply #189 on:** February 06, 2011, 01:59:48 AM »

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on February 05, 2011, 05:49:33 AM

I tried the Lanczos4 codec

Not a codec. It's just a scaling filter/algorithm.

Quote

I deleted it thinking it was a youtube glitch.

One of the members here is a ffmpeg developer, and once said that Youtube is either using an old version of ffmpeg/libavcodec or a custom job that exhibits bugs that were fixed years ago. It's entirely possible that there is something weird on their end.

Quote

That reminds me, does the window for MeGUI normally say "MeGUI 1911 (svn)"? I don't recall svn being in there. Maybe I should reinstall it?

SVN = Subversion, the 1911 would be the commit ID or something similar.

FYI, the build of x264 that the latest version of MeGUI provides does have some bugs in it that have since been fixed on x264's stable branch. That could be related.

Dentsune · « **Reply #190 on:** February 07, 2011, 04:48:28 PM »

Quote from: Barrakketh on February 06, 2011, 01:59:48 AM

FYI, the build of x264 that the latest version of MeGUI provides does have some bugs in it that have since been fixed on x264's stable branch. That could be related.

Well, that helps a lot I must say. I'll try encoding using a non-updated version of meGUI and post the results here.
By the way, is it possible to know exactly what x264 codec is YouTube using currently? I guess that could help a lot too.

See'ya, thanks once again!

Barrakketh · « **Reply #191 on:** February 07, 2011, 09:25:55 PM »

Quote from: Dentsune on February 07, 2011, 04:48:28 PM

By the way, is it possible to know exactly what x264 codec is YouTube using currently? I guess that could help a lot too.

No. Normally when you encode you can find out what build and settings were used. For instance, one test video someone sent me a while back has:

Code: [Select]

Writing library : x264 core 98 r1649 c54c47dWhich has the version of the x264 library (not important), the SVN revision (r1649) and the git commit (c54c47d). I can then look and see that it was released on 2010-06-15.

The videos on Youtube don't have that information.

Dentsune · « **Reply #192 on:** February 08, 2011, 06:18:54 AM »

Quote from: Barrakketh on February 07, 2011, 09:25:55 PM

The videos on Youtube don't have that information.

Well, that's bad I guess. Thanks a lot for the info.
Today when encoding once again using MeGUI 1911 x86 (Stable), same preferences, exact same codec, etc, I got the same result: White screen during the first seconds when playing on YouTube.

Strange thing, when I play the video on Media Player Classic and other players (Real Media, Windows Media Player, etc), I just don't get the white screen at all. In fact, the output is exactly what I want to show on YouTube. Any ideas or similar cases? That white screen of evil is being a headache lately.

Thanks once again.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #193 on:** February 25, 2011, 08:02:07 AM »

Ok well, I downgraded back to MeGUI 0.3.5.0 but there's a problem I can't correct. It doesn't like the x264 thing at all. I even went searching on the net for the latest version and put it in it's folder (the exe) and ran MeGUI, but every time it freaks out with it. Config on the main screen brings up a fatal error and when I'm in the AVS script creator, simply selecting a video brings up two errors along with MeGUI crashing immediately after.
Here's the error from the config button. The other errors are really long so...

Quote

MeGUI encountered a fatal error and may not be able to proceed.
Reason: Value of '0' is not valid for 'Value'. 'Value' should be between 'Minimum' and 'Maximum'.
Parameter name: Value

I've kindly skipped the 1911 build (along with 20 other updates that won't update) so I'm the "good" version. Any ideas why it's doing this?

EDIT: Ok, I've gotten past the above error, but Avisynth is being a pain. Could someone put up their MeGUI folder in a zip file somewhere that hasn't been updated, since I'm getting nowhere fast? That would be great.

Drayen · « **Reply #194 on:** March 06, 2011, 05:46:28 AM »

I tried this method, but Simply opening a video and saving it on virtualdub seems to make it lag for some reason, never happened to me before..

I tried with the video virtualdub gave me, and the raw video from fraps (Which was fine), and both videos i got after using MeGUI were sped up for the first few seconds, then the sound was forever desynced.

Only thing I can say I'm not very sure about, I didn't get the same windows as the tutorial when it came for the bitrate for the video and the sound, I did select the same "scratchpad" thing for both though.

I like using windows movie maker, but i'd like to bring my video quality a notch higher though ;/

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #195 on:** March 06, 2011, 08:24:59 AM »

If you're using the newest version of MeGUI, some things have changed, but they should all still be there. I still can't get mine to work though. It's like I'm in a rut or something. Someone should literally pack up in a zip or something, somewhere so I can have the previous version of MeGUI since the newest is flawed and I can't fix up the previous since it's missing everything, quite literally, everything.

Drayen · « **Reply #196 on:** March 06, 2011, 05:48:16 PM »

Hehe, well it doesn't really matter anymore, I've read a little in the thread and someone suggested Allok Video Joiner, saying it's simpler and does the same job, and it really does, and it compresses the video really fast.

That's what I get, using SameAsSource resolution (I use 1024x768) and Normal quality so the video isn't too beefy, but you can up the quality. I don't know why, but using sameassource resolution puts my video at 1280x720, oh well. It gives me this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO09ousY-8U

Barrakketh · « **Reply #197 on:** March 06, 2011, 07:11:27 PM »

I don't bother with using VirtualDub to join the videos. With Avisynth you can do:

Code: [Select]

clip1 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th07 2011-03-06 00-50-44-34.avi", fps=60)
clip2 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th07 2011-03-06 00-53-14-23.avi", fps=60)
clip3 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th07 2011-03-06 00-55-35-57.avi", fps=60)
clip4 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th07 2011-03-06 00-57-57-04.avi", fps=60)
clip1 ++ clip2 ++ clip3 ++ clip4

Lanczos4Resize(960 , 720)
AddBorders(160, 0, 160, 0, 0)
ConvertToYV12(matrix="PC.709", interlaced=false)
trim(210,34254)

The first four lines assigns videos to the clip variables, the fifth uses AlignedSplice (++ is a shortcut for AlignedSplice) to join them together.

The x264 options look different, but you shouldn't need to do more than select "Const. Quality" with a value of 16 and use the "veryslow" preset. You can use faster/lower quality preset if you want, but I'm not impatient and like going overkill since Youtube is going to cause a noticeable drop in quality when they process it. I've added the Touhou tuning to the advanced options (Misc. tab, add "--tune touhou" to the CLI arguments).

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on March 06, 2011, 08:24:59 AM

If you're using the newest version of MeGUI, some things have changed, but they should all still be there. I still can't get mine to work though. It's like I'm in a rut or something. Someone should literally pack up in a zip or something, somewhere so I can have the previous version of MeGUI since the newest is flawed and I can't fix up the previous since it's missing everything, quite literally, everything.

The newest version is working fine for me, though I replaced x264 with a newer build.

EDIT: Here (link removed, re-upping with the changes I used for the Yuyuko fight) is a video I uploaded earlier. I let MeGUI handle the encoding (I'm using a different build of x264 than what MeGUI provides). The script is the same as the one I posted above.

I have another video I'm waiting to finish processing before I ask for input. I'm trying something a bit different to see if I can make things a tad smoother than what Youtube does to lower the video's FPS. It has another perk that should be suitable for MAME games, but I'll have to test it to make sure the method I've found works for that purpose (austere on the shmups.system11 site mentioned what to do, but now how to do it).

EDIT2: Oh, it's done processing.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #198 on:** March 07, 2011, 08:05:34 AM »

Oh wow, that's really beautiful. Just watched all of that second one you posted, then watched my stage 6 and there's a HUGE difference in quality and coloring. I'll see what I can do and hope it works out.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #199 on:** March 14, 2011, 10:09:55 PM »

Um, it didn't turn out as expected. (It's not bad but... It's not super-great either)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope1Y0cmTsQ

I used this in Avisynth:

Code: [Select]

Lanczos4Resize(960, 720, 0, 0.5) # Lanczos4 (Neutral)
ConvertToYV12()

Why did this not end up as clear as yours did?

EDIT: Also, it looks a little choppy. I'm not sure if that's how my machine is handling it so...

Barrakketh · « **Reply #200 on:** March 14, 2011, 10:59:54 PM »

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on March 14, 2011, 10:09:55 PM

Um, it didn't turn out as expected. (It's not bad but... It's not super-great either)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope1Y0cmTsQ

I used this in Avisynth:
Code: [Select]
Lanczos4Resize(960, 720, 0, 0.5) # Lanczos4 (Neutral) ConvertToYV12()
Why did this not end up as clear as yours did?

It's hard to say, but color-wise you might need to need to specify a color matrix. The default is REC601, which is wrong for a PC recording (definitely so for Fraps, should be the same for Hypercam) and uses TV levels (16-235) instead of PC levels (0-255). I've used both Fraps recording directly to YV12 and Fraps in RGB mode (see this).

This is my paranoid x264 profile (goes in 'MeGUI\allprofiles\x264'). The UFO Stage 6 video was encoded with CRF20 instead of CRF16 as a test.

Quote

EDIT: Also, it looks a little choppy. I'm not sure if that's how my machine is handling it so...

Take a look at this screenshot at full size:

Notice how the bullets have a translucent "clone" in front of them? I've been testing blending the two frames instead of dropping them, which creates a smoother video than how Youtube handles the conversion. That "clone" is the bullet in the next frame of the video at 60 FPS, which would be outright removed by Youtube.

I did notice on Murasa's bullets that the fast ones didn't retain their shape very well, so I may have to experiment with weaker settings so the bullet's...before-image (or whatever) is more transparent. Overall it makes the videos look nicer in motion.

The script looks something like this:

Code: [Select]

function BlendFields(clip) {
    clip
    (FrameCount % 2 == 1)  ?  DuplicateFrame(FrameCount - 1)  :  nop
    Overlay(SelectEven, SelectOdd, opacity=0.5)
}

clip1 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th12 2011-03-09 16-13-41-86.avi", fps=60)
clip2 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th12 2011-03-09 16-15-47-08.avi", fps=60)
clip3 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th12 2011-03-09 16-17-52-32.avi", fps=60)
clip4 = DirectShowSource("Z:\Fraps_Videos\th12 2011-03-09 16-19-52-95.avi", fps=60)
clip1 ++ clip2 ++ clip3 ++ clip4

Lanczos4Resize(960, 720)
BlendFields
trim(2963, 2963 + 9094)
AddBorders(160, 0, 160, 0, 0)
ConvertToYV12(matrix="PC.709", interlaced=false)

The call to BlendFields should be before any trim calls (it also reduces the frame rate to 30), and after you resize the video.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #201 on:** March 15, 2011, 06:12:51 AM »

Yeah, I'll try fiddling around with those settings and see what I can do. I do know, however, that none of my video players are capable of playing it though (or at least play it well), after checking that out. QuickTime just throws up an error very first thing saying "Error -2041: an invalid sample description was found in the movie (Test-muxed.mp4)", while Windows Media Player will play it, but often lag the image, fill it up with after images usually in square segments, and desync the audio with the video occasionally. It's only the muxed version that I have on Youtube, no other videos do this. I tried opening the video on my Mac also but it refused to play it. I must've done something wrong there so off I go fixing it again. :V

Oh, yeah. And Real Player on my Mac only plays the audio for some reason. :wat:

Quote from: Barrakketh on March 14, 2011, 10:59:54 PM

Notice how the bullets have a translucent "clone" in front of them? I've been testing blending the two frames instead of dropping them, which creates a smoother video than how Youtube handles the conversion. That "clone" is the bullet in the next frame of the video at 60 FPS, which would be outright removed by Youtube.

I should try that and see what happens. That's actually quite clever and I never would have thought of that.

Barrakketh · « **Reply #202 on:** March 15, 2011, 06:36:03 AM »

I have MeGUI output to RAWAVC and mux to the Matroska (MKV) container.

I also have CCCP installed, and the videos play fine in MPC-HC, WMP, VLC, and MPlayer. You'd probably need Perian to play content in a Matroska container on OS X.

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on March 15, 2011, 06:12:51 AM

I should try that and see what happens. That's actually quite clever and I never would have thought of that.

Someone on a shmup board mentioned it as a way to improve the quality of MAME videos (dropped frames can cause things to disappear, I believe it was something about flickering sprites used for pseudo-transparency), I found the BlendFields script somewhere on the ZSNES board

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #203 on:** March 19, 2011, 03:48:39 PM »

Another try.
This time, I had Fraps record in RGB and the Avisynth script was:

Code: [Select]

Lanczos4Resize(960, 720, 0, 0.5) # Lanczos4 (Neutral)
ConvertToYV12()

I didn't use the matrix 709 or 601 because those seemed to completely mess up the coloring, usually making everything really dark and it looked very bad that way.
Also, I did what you've suggested with the Very Slow preset and stuff. I don't know why the quality is so low on youtube after this. (the previous test vid had Very Slow also)

Barrakketh · « **Reply #204 on:** March 20, 2011, 12:55:27 AM »

You're using Rec601 anyway if you don't specify a specific matrix.

That said, use the best option for the source. For Ketsui PC.709 looks better (Rec709 makes Ketsui look washed out):

The AVS script editor I use lets you switch between them (it automatically updates the ConvertToYV12 command when you change it), so you can switch between the options and compare via the preview window:

I guess I'll try an encode of Hisoutensoku and see if the end result is good.

EDIT: Link.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #205 on:** March 20, 2011, 08:29:18 PM »

Quote from: Barrakketh on March 20, 2011, 12:55:27 AM

EDIT: Link.

Yeah see, the coloring on that video is bad, especially the shrine. That's the problem I'm having with the fighters.

Spoiler:

Barrakketh · « **Reply #206 on:** March 21, 2011, 01:27:25 AM »

Quote from: Agent of the BSoD on March 20, 2011, 08:29:18 PM

Yeah see, the coloring on that video is bad, especially the shrine. That's the problem I'm having with the fighters.
Spoiler:
Also you have a sound desync.

The desync is a result of me not using my normal frame rate conversion. It wasn't worth fixing since I'm going to delete the video anyway.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that there will always be some color loss The conversion to YV12 (which is required since the vast majority of lossless video codecs use it) does not keep all color information. Instead, the brightness (luma) and color (chroma) are subsampled.

The biggest changes one will perceive are colors that are saturated, like the red used for the active weather timer in Hisoutensoku, Reisen's eyes and the insides of Reisen's ears, and the card meter (plus the red border on the smaller cards). Compare this and this. Note that the shrine itself (which you've complained about) is more or less identical between the two images. Ditto for the trees and bricks/concrete/whatever in front of the shrine.

You'll also see a difference on the border of the health bars, the bands (or whatever) in Suwako's hair on her portrait (not sprite, though you can see the dress undergo a slight color shift), and Reisen's hair on her portrait shifts color slightly.

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #207 on:** April 09, 2011, 07:21:13 PM »

Huh, well, I've got the video up here now. For some reason, MeGUI didn't have any problems with the coloring this time. I did my standard coding which is four posts up, and it worked fine, with absolutely no change in the colors. I didn't update anything either. :wat:

I also figured out why my video player garbled it up, it was too high of a quality. I change that 16 number to 19 in the config for x264 so it would meet Youtube's size requirement, and it plays beautifully on Youtube and my media player.

Thanks again for your help though!

Barrakketh · « **Reply #208 on:** April 09, 2011, 07:56:57 PM »

If you use Youtube's advanced uploader there are no file size restrictions (that or the limit is something like 25 GB, one or the other).

Agent of the BSoD · « **Reply #209 on:** April 11, 2011, 03:38:22 AM »

Quote from: Barrakketh on April 09, 2011, 07:56:57 PM

If you use Youtube's advanced uploader there are no file size restrictions (that or the limit is something like 25 GB, one or the other).

I know, but doing it with that option, which uses Java, would take forever. I tried doing that originally but the time to upload was like 10 hours or something. I'd rather just drop the quality just a little bit so it would be faster because there are other people at my house who would like to use the internet.