Video Capture write-up on my blog

[laugh]

Actually, you/I/we can get the resolution (720x480), refreshrate (60Hz), and format (progressive) through any stock component cable for the PS2 if we use the Xploder HDTV player. We simple don't need VGA to do what we're trying to do.

When I said VGA, I was talking about DC since DC supports VGA natively. But since VGA signals aren't the same as component signals you need to convert the signal using VGA to component transcoders to capture with component capture cards. VGA is superior to component but not by much so we conversion wouldn't result in noticible degradation. If I had loads of money, I'd shell out a couple Gs for an RGB/VGA/Component/HDMI/DVI capture card but I'm dirt poor right now.

And BTW, PV3 does support and capture 480p at 60Hz. I'm looking after a couple of PV3 auctions right now and the ones that don't get any bids start aroud 70000yen, and the ones that do get bids have like 2 days left are at 50000yen with lots of people bidding on them. So the accepted price range for PV3 cards go for some where between 50000 - 70000 yen. That's fuckin rape compared to the original retail price of 27800 yen. I wish they still made PV2, which is an obsolete model they stopped making 2 years ago which also captures 480p plus other things and sold for 16000yen but has less features for other things that don't matter to us. I also read they(earthsoft) only made like 60 of those PV2 cards compared to like a thousand of PV3 cards that were made (which is still mad small).

[Maj]

Have you tried using CvS/CvS2/3S replay saves as a source?

[ZenFire]

I'll give it a shot tomorrow night. Good idea btw.

[ZenFire]

Ok, so I'm workign on getting a replay into progressive and it seems to be working. With impact animations and everything!

However, the recording of both fields seems to be unreliable.What I mean is, for some reason my PC can't consistently capture it for along time always at some point one of the two recordings doubles up on a frame. I'm still working on it, and I'll post again once I have something that works

[ZenFire]

Look at what I have so far:
http://www.drakenslag.com/progressive%2 ... 20deux.avi

What I said before was wrong (I think) I didn't have dropped frames, I had a DUPLICATE frame. I cut out that frame in the script itself to compensate, but then not much farther in the movie there is another desynchronization which ends up ruining the up til then perfect reconstruction. I haven't figured out the exact cause of the second desync yet but I tried to fix it again by cutting out one frame in the script manually. After I did that there was this one frame which I jsut couldn't fix and right after that ANOTHER desync, so I gave up cus it's obviously not very predictable. The end result is what I linked to just now. So impact animations aren't even the big deal, it's something else. Once I figure it out, I'll post again. For those that are curious this is the script

Code: Select all

one = AviSource("E:uno.avi")
two = AviSource("E:dos.avi")

# following two lines manually remove the frames that caused desynch
two = two.trim(0,478) + two.trim(480,0) 
one = one.trim(0,538) + one.trim(540,0)

# combine video one and two
Interleave(one.AssumeTFF().separatefields().trim(1,0),two.AssumeTFF().separatefields())
# combine adjacent frames into a single frame through weaving(aka interlacing)
weave()

[Maj]

Holy crap that's the cleanest footage i have ever seen in the history of ever. It sounds like way too much trouble for me jump on that bandwagon but damn, you make CvS2 look like a PS3 game.

[ZenFire]

It IS a lot of work if it turns out the desynchs are not due to my capture process. Also, the replay I made the above video with produced EXACTLY the same video output (at least for the first few seconds) every time I played it. Afterwads I tried another replay and to my surprise it wasnot the same at all. It might have somethign to do with the loading time because the words "Round 1" and "Fight" appeared at different times. After that I tried synching up the start of the actual gameplay, but there were differences there too. I have no explination for it other than the game doesn't play the recorded input perfect to the frame, which is very odd, obviously, because that could mean the same replay could play out to a different result.

[ShinjiGohan]

another capturing hardware that looks good is the HDRECS
It supports audio, HDMI (all sorts of HD resolutions, NTSC and PAL), RGB (comes with adapter for VGA), Component, S-video (comes with adapter for composite).

It runs on PCIe 1x (finally a use for that damn slot lol)

But it seems to go for 100,000 yen, which should be close to $1,000 I think.

[ZenFire]

So today I decide to give this thing another shot. And boy is my face red... it is entirely possible to accomplish progressive reconstruction with the replays. No need to even clipout frames manually. All the problems I had before were most likely simply due to bad capturing. I used VirtualDub this time without any resynching dropping or inserting and after putting the two sources in the script I get a perfect reconstrution form start to finish. So now, more of the same only longer and no desynchs. Enjoy my King whipping on a Sagat!

However, this is not all good news.... now that I know this is possible. It seems almost logical that I would use this in my next video but it's substantially more work than doing it the old fashioned way. What do I doooooo?

[Maj]

When i first read your post, i thought "Oh snap! All of my CvS1/CvS2 combos are done as replays! This is perfect for me!" But then i realized that most of the benefit would be lost when i shrank it down to fit inside of 400x300 resolution.

So here's an idea. How about a few months from now, once everyone is in the mood to make videos again after feeling burnt out over Evo, we all work on a CvS2 project? Not too crazy - maybe like 5-7 minutes total. Except instead of capping everything ourselves, we'll simply get them as Versus Mode Replays and send them to you. Either mail you the physical VMUs or email the VMU files using the Dreamcast internet browser. Then you can cap them in FancyVision and edit them up. I still think there's a few interesting things left in CvS2. I could probably contribute like 4 or 5 combos. Anyway, just an idea.

[laugh]

I just downloaded and watched the latest and greatest technique in video capturing history aka 'progressive perfecto tres.avi' and man, it took some time to pick up my jaws from the floor. It's simply AMAZING. I could tell myself to believe that the game was being played on my monitor.

BTW, I found something odd in the video. Everything is perfectly progressive like you said except King's flashing guard bar. Does this mean it might take one or two additional captures to get it right? I wonder why the guard bar would flash 1 frame apart in the exact same replay.

I really wanna start capturing random video games with this technique just to marvel at the beauty of it.

EDIT: Upon watching the flashing guard bar part again frame by frame. I don't see combs but I just see grey flashes. I'm not really sure any more if it actually looks like that and I'm just hallucinating, or the guard bar should flash with black and white without any grey in between like my memory tells me.

EDIT2: I wanna correct myself. There ARE combs in the flashing guard bars. King's guard bar flashes twice during the round and during the first set of flashes, you can see combs. Also, I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I'm kinda amazed that the hit sparks are also exactly the same cuz I thought they were randomly generated every time. It's great to be wrong about things sometimes.

[ZenFire]

hah! You are exactly right! I didn't think someone would pick up on it, though I did mention it on my last entry in my blog where I explain the theory behind it. Very keen eye you got there. I have no explination for it. It just happened. I guess re-recording it a few times might get rid of that, but I don't know how many possible results there are so I don't know how likely the one sequence you want is. even if there's just two it's still a 1/4 chance of getting the right guardflash starting on the right field.

@ maj:
That sounds like a great idea except I don't have a Dreamcast (that works) anymore. Maybe if NullDC gets perfect, we could use that and probably not have to worry about this technique at all, since it'll be perfect from the start. If it doesn't, this is always an option. And it's not so hard that Ican't explain to you guys exactly how to do it.

Either way, combining talents seems like a sure fire way of making an awesome video.

[laugh]

I just found some good info on capture cards.

Remember that HD capture card PV3 by a Japanese company Earthsoft and how they were going for about twice as the original price tag on Yahoo Japan auctions? Well, after I got back from Evo West and decided to take another look at their current going prices on Yahoo Japan, I was pleasantly surprised. The prices have gone WAY down to around 30000 yen range. I didn't really understand why that change happened so suddenly and didn't question it, but I found the reason why today.

Earthsoft is coming out with PV4 this september and it's priced at 18800 yen.

http://earthsoft.jp/PV4/tech-specification.html

That was announced during Evo West days and that was the cause of the price drop. That price tag reminds me of my very first capture card I bought at Fry's which I don't even use any more. Very affordable and supports 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i through component (PV3/4 only supports component input IIRC).

There's also HDRECS by Canopus, a PCIe card which costs about 100000yen and supports up to 1080p I think. It supports HDMI/VGA/component/S-vdeo and I think this is a one card solution that provides the best captures for all of the systems that we are interested in.

I've been wondering if there was anyway to capture raw RGB from systems without converting them to inferior signals like S-video.

Anyways, the PV3/4 seems good for capturing from PS2/PS3/X360/Wii as progressive at 60fps but the serious lack of input formats (only component) makes capturing VGA signals from Dreamcasts with their cards harder and costly (cuz you need to convert the VGA to component).

I personally am going to wait about a year or two and hope that more cards like HDRECS pop up at affordable prices. PV3/4 imo isn't gonna cut it in the long run.

[Magnetro]

I just found some good info on capture cards.

Remember that HD capture card PV3 by a Japanese company Earthsoft and how they were going for about twice as the original price tag on Yahoo Japan auctions? Well, after I got back from Evo West and decided to take another look at their current going prices on Yahoo Japan, I was pleasantly surprised. The prices have gone WAY down to around 30000 yen range. I didn't really understand why that change happened so suddenly and didn't question it, but I found the reason why today.

Earthsoft is coming out with PV4 this september and it's priced at 18800 yen.

http://earthsoft.jp/PV4/tech-specification.html

That was announced during Evo West days and that was the cause of the price drop. That price tag reminds me of my very first capture card I bought at Fry's which I don't even use any more. Very affordable and supports 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i through component (PV3/4 only supports component input IIRC).

There's also HDRECS by Canopus, a PCIe card which costs about 100000yen and supports up to 1080p I think. It supports HDMI/VGA/component/S-vdeo and I think this is a one card solution that provides the best captures for all of the systems that we are interested in.

I've been wondering if there was anyway to capture raw RGB from systems without converting them to inferior signals like S-video.

Anyways, the PV3/4 seems good for capturing from PS2/PS3/X360/Wii as progressive at 60fps but the serious lack of input formats (only component) makes capturing VGA signals from Dreamcasts with their cards harder and costly (cuz you need to convert the VGA to component).

I personally am going to wait about a year or two and hope that more cards like HDRECS pop up at affordable prices. PV3/4 imo isn't gonna cut it in the long run.

I think in a year or two the dc emulator might be perfect so you'll only need ps2 (cps3 emu???) for 3s, i dunno what cvs2 is on (my guess is cps3, too)

a ppad that goes at exactly 60fps should be 100% accurate on an emulator that goes 60fps, yes? It makes sense but I think the emu wont stay 60fps 100% of the time =/

[Xenozip.]

60 FPS Marvel on a PC monitor is so fucking hot. It's like eyesex. Hot nasty sticky eyesex.

[ZenFire]

What would make capturing stuff off a console obsolete:
a perfect emulator (with regards to a certain game) with input recording and greedy (all frame) recording. I haven't worked much with emulator recording features, but I think MAME can do all of the above out of the box.

IIRC CvS2 runs on a Naomi board, so does MvC2, which is close to what the DC is. If NullDC keeps progressing (or mamedev makes giant leaps) then we can do anything we want pretty soon

The HDRECS sounds sexy. I'm actually trying to thinkof more applications to justify buying wone of those, but I can't right now. Oh wait! perfect full res recording from another pc running FFXI!!

[Xenozip.]

All I know is if you hook up a DC with MvC2 to a computer monitor with the right thingy, then it is fucking beautiful. Gorgeous, I tell you.

[Maj]

Here's the script you asked for to change your footage FPS and make its audio fit the length

Code: Select all

AviSource("served.avi")
AssumeFPS(15)
timestretch( tempo = ((audiolength/audiorate) / (framecount/framerate))*100 )

Where "served.avi" is the name of your video file and 15 is the FPS you want for the target. After figuring it out it looks so simple.

I'm running into some problems with this script. The audio gets noticeably out of sync with the video in some cases. This happens with some source clips as soon as they are loaded into VirtualDub.

If i have a 15-second clip and i use this script to open it in VirtualDub, then cut out the first 5 seconds, the whole thing stays out of sync. If i open the source clip directly, cut the first 5 seconds to get right to the action, save it, then use this script on the shorter clip, it starts off in sync but gets out of sync by the end of the clip.

All of my source clips are in very slightly different framerates, so maybe there's a rounding error of some sort that doesn't play well with certain numbers.

[ZenFire]

it might be a rounding error, but I don't think AviSynth has type casts to fix that. I could try and figure it out if you sent me one or two of the cource videos taht are giving you trouble.

[Maj]

Nah, don't worry about it. The script served its purpose while i was making the trailer. This morning i tried importing the clips into AfterEffects and using its Conform to frame rate option in the Interpret Footage menu and it seems to have worked fine without dropping frames. At this point i can't afford to be too picky cuz i've got a hard deadline coming up in less than a week.

[ShinjiGohan]

another advantage is doesn't the DC support enhanced graphics if its displayed through the VGA cable? If so then you've got not only 480p Marvel, but perhaps even some enhanced grpahics version (not sure which games have this capability mind you).

[ZenFire]

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I just thought of another way to get 60 fps progressive video out of CvS2. Well actually two, the second one would (possibly) work for any game you can pause. Both require machine assistance. When the game is paused video keeps being sent but because nothing's moving you ge the perfect progressive frame as it lies in the PS2's video memory. So you basically pause the game every frame, choose "Window off" from the training mode menu and you get the frame like that. The second way actually is simpler and you might as well do it this way since you're using some kind of tool anyway. Basically you pause the game and unpause it an odd number of frames later (depending how you count) meaning you get odd field of frame you're pausing, next set of fields contains part of the pause menu, wait another in-game frame, unpause and next field should contain the even lines of the pause frame. That "should" work. These methods, unlike the one I demo'd before, avoid having to record something twice, however now you have to write a pretty complex script to get only those frames you want. As the smileys sorta indicate, it's not exactly practical. I, for one, definitely can't do it, because I don't have the tools (p-pad) and I'm not sure if there's one that operates at a perfect speed (synched to the game's speed) to accomplish this.

[ShinjiGohan]

quick bump
the HDRECS card that I posted eariler has come out to the USA. But under the name pegasus

http://www.canopus.com/products/Pegasus ... eyfeatures

however they don't list a going price for it. There are 2 auctions on ebay though, but they both started above 1G >.<

a quick search on google shows it between 850 and 900 roughly.