RECORD AVI - a Mission Editor tool

Thanks Bucic for the bump. Will check out. +1

this is an excellent tool !

every flight simulator should have this kind of function.

this is an excellent tool !

every flight simulator should have this kind of function.

I agree, but only ED has this, AFAIK ;)

Wondering, is it somehow possible to change the folder the recorded video will be saved in?

I installed FC2 on an 120GB ssd which is nearly full.

But i got another 1TB drive for data that is nearly empty. Any way i can let the game save the video on that 1TB drive?

(besides installing FC2 on that drive ofcourse)

Another question.

Lets stay my ingame setting are all set to medium, no AA

I fly a bit, and save the track.

Then i set my ingame settings to max including AA

Will the video be rendered whit the settings i used to record the track or the settings i have when converting the track to video?

Wondering, is it somehow possible to change the folder the recorded video will be saved in?

I installed FC2 on an 120GB ssd which is nearly full.

But i got another 1TB drive for data that is nearly empty. Any way i can let the game save the video on that 1TB drive?

(besides installing FC2 on that drive ofcourse)

 

Another question.

Lets stay my ingame setting are all set to medium, no AA

I fly a bit, and save the track.

Then i set my ingame settings to max including AA

 

Will the video be rendered whit the settings i used to record the track or the settings i have when converting the track to video?

1. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=66322

2. Trackfiles don't include infromation on neither graphics driver settings (antialiasing, aniso etc.) nor on in-game details settings. The rendering done by the Record AVI tool will be based upon current graphics driver settings and current in-game details settings. Current = at the moment of the rendering/recording process. It's an advantage BTW ;)

It's an advantage BTW ;)

Advantage? that must be the definition of an understatement.

Its just about the best thing that could happen, and that in an ED product.:shocking:

Thanx for the info BTW, REP inbound.

Advantage? that must be the definition of an understatement.

Its just about the best thing that could happen, and that in an ED product.:shocking:

 

Thanx for the info BTW, REP inbound.

Please mind that it's not perfect. Some people report it being unusable for recording whole long missions. Ask Madman777.

EDIT:

Answers to your questions included in post #1, Notes section.

Getting the right output video resolution

The beauty of the Record AVI tool is that you can set any recording resolution smaller than your desktop resolution (higher resolution video will be cropped) and the tool will deliver, without any scaling=quality loss. The tutorial comprises of 1 (yes, one) steps:

The end of tutorial for the Record AVI tool.

For video material that has already been recorded in wrong resolution - Basic cropping/letterboxing without quality loss

Scaling or stretching is a no-go when you'd like to preserve perfect quality. The only way to get your video material into the right resolution without scaling or stretching is cropping/letterboxing. The easy way of planning the operation is to use a drawing program to create rectangles representing source and target video areas (our resolution and the second one - output resolution).

Let's consider Macadam Cow's scenario. He gets his 1900x1200 recordings into 1920x1080 output format by scaling 1900x1200 video without preserving proportions. The effect is a video that looks stretched

Here's how he could execute the required cropping

Another example - preserving best quality while uploading 800x600 video to YouTube 1280x720 720p HD format

The next step is to find a cropping/letterboxing tutorial for the specific video editor you use which is usually easy.

Hello Bucic,

I have followed the above tutorial. Downloaded Virtual Dub and lagarth.

Every movie results in the audio file out of sync with the video file. IE the audio file ends at usually 1/3 of the way through the video. Even though the .wav file says its the correct length? Its like the video is missing some frames? Yet it looks to be at the correct speed?

I have no idea what is happening. A previous post here in your thread mentions a problem with audio sync, I see the same problem.

I am on Black Shark v1.02.

The sound is a major drawback, otherwise the method you post is good.

Hope there is a solution.

Regards.

Hi Accipiter,

I haven't investigated the out of sync audio with the PNG sequence method any further, sorry. I also don't remember my case. I would suggest the following* in VirtualDUB:

parameters as per post #10

• import image sequence of a 20 s test material
  
• import generated audio
  
• make sure video FPS set in VD matches that of Record AVI tool
  
• File -> Save as AVI
  

Does this procedure give out of sync audio? What do you use for playback and what do you play - image sequence or saved Lagarith AVI?

If that produces an out of sync audio I would suggest (the following are options - not steps):

• constant time difference between video and audio => VirtualDub -> Audio -> Interleaving -> Audio skew correction
  
• time difference between video and audio varies => VirtualDub -> Video -> Frame Rate -> Change so video and audio durations match ** NOTE: It can be done without recompressing/quality loss using Direct stream copy mode
   
   
  http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/283633-Audio-interleaving-What-is-it
  http://www.engon.de/audio/vhs_en.htm
  http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-149247.html
  http://lparchive.org/techsupport/guide-desync.html
   
   
  
• time difference between video and audio varies AND we ran out of ideas => fiddle with the upper part of Audio -> Interleaving options, read about what they do. Try to simply disable audio/video interleaving. If it won't help try to work with smaller recorded fragments
  
• same as the procedure above (*) but without audio; open the AVI (Lagarith) that you prepared and then load audio from file
  
• Other software: you can always try to use other software to assemble a Lagarith AVI out of image and sound sequence; alternatively you can assemble Lagarith AVI without sound and do the sound syncing in the target video editor e.g. Sony Vegas or even Windows Movie Maker (note: proper video editors are called non-linear http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=54182 )
  
• there have to be more obstacles to be worth dropping all the Record AVI tool advantages :)
   
  

(**) may cause unpredictable issues when exporting a non-standard frame rate (?), not tested

BTW, are there any new output methods in DCS W?

Hi Bucic,

I am on the case.

Have re done parameters as post #10 and set fps at 40. The duration of the sound track now lasts for the duration of the video track. The problem now is I hear "stuttering" sound. There is a music file, from BS .wave playing on the track. It sounds like its loosing a "frame" of sound , every other frame. Video is smooth, sound is not.

I am playing back from the image sequence on Virtual Dub. Prior to saving

WAIT ONE...:clap_2:

Sorted it! When played back from the saved Lagarith AVI, its as smooth as a Vikhr leaving its tube!:D

Very Many thanks, your help has fixed it:worthy:

Will try and put a couple of short films onto my U Tube site!

Regards.

Damn it. Look at the troubleshooting guide I produced because of you! :D

Yup, that's why I edited my post and added the question about WHAT and WITH WHAT you're playing back. It was simply your HDD not keeping up. I doubt many HDDs would. That's why you don't want to work with neither raw PNG sequence nor uncompressed AVI.

BTW, please write up on anything you do differently than my procedures describe, especially when something fails. Good luck!

I can load the AVI file into my editor (UleadVideoStudio) edit away then save back to AVI. However, I then have to open the AVI using Virtual Dub in order to re do the sound. For some reason my Editor just alters the sound to a hiss!!

One last thing, My 20 second "test" AVI is 532 MB! In Virtual Dub saved as AVI with Lagarith. Is that correct?

When I save from my Editor in WMV they are, eg 160 MB for 3 minutes?

Sorry for being rather stupid.:cry:

Regards.

Re file size

TO DO:

Estimate file size of 10 min long Lagarith lossless codec video, 1280x720, 30 FPS.

;)

So no, I have no idea what the file size should be. Knowing that Lagarith is lossless codec you can compare typical JPG and PNG file sizes of a game screenshot. It would be something like 200 KB JPG vs 2500 KB PNG. Just run a test yourself. If you've chosen Lagarith as virtualdub's compression then the output vid will be Lagarith (you can verify that easily) and you'll see.

Please note that 100% quality OGV recording gives near perfect results too. The OGV are just to quirky to work it further from my experience. Even though I am an open source supporter I consider it a sorry ass format...

Re the first issue - like I said before, try feeding Lagarith AVI without sound to your target video editor. Then load the sound file while in the editor.

My Ulead Video Editor wont behave itself with the sound files. No matter. I can use it to edit and then save the AVI file and re load the sound file back with Virtual Dub.

Now the finished AVI Lagarith file size I have, with 40 FPS at 1280 x 720 is 1596 MB per minute, so 15.9 GB for 10 minutes.

Hopefully, now I can do some videos for U Tube. I have a couple done with FRAPS and FSX. FRAPS will work in BS, with the "replay" feature. But you are quite right, that the in built recording feature in BS is a great feature.

Many thanks.

Regards.

Tagged

?

I am slightly confused by the output .ogv file. I am using the Theora + Vorbis codec to generate a video. I downloaded the codec to play the format, but when I open the file in Windows Media Player the result is not a movie, but rather a collection of screenshots. It doesn't play, but I can jump to any to any time of the "movie" and watch a standstill image. Am I supposed to convert the slideshow into a movie first or am I doing something wrong?

Yes, you're doing something wrong. You're trying to test ogv output from RAT before you tested the actual playback of ogv's on your system. Like I said before setting up everything needed to play ogv's on windows is PITA, no matter what ogv advocates are saying on their official sites. It's f^%$ quirky. The only way I got it to work was that I installed the directshow codec (filters) pack from og* official site http://theora.org/faq/#40 and the only player that will open og* on my system now is WMP.

Once you have confidence that the og* playback on your system is fine (use sample videos), you can start to assess the RAT og* outputs.

I hope I was of assistance :)

Just tried a sample ogv file which plays fine in WMP.

The RAT output looks complete, every frame is present. It just doesn't play back, it is like an album of screenshots.

...plays and rewinds without crashing or persistent artifacts? Because this is a proper and definitive test. Yes => please review your rendering (recording) settings. Please make sure that you've set high number of FPS (20+) AND the fragment for recording is at least 30 seconds AND that the track itself actually depicts a dynamic scene (it's possible to make a track showing only static scenes). Please at least try to open the file in VLC player and MPC HC.

recording settings reviewed and OK => you should fill a bug report and move to the image sequence + wav method

You can also send me the output file (please keep it below ~200 MB - record a short clip).

Thank you for the tip with the VLC player, it's working fine there.

As a word of clarification regarding the naming of that ogv, ogg etc. thing. I think that since it's described in RAT as Theora (video) + Vorbis (sound) it is de facto the Ogg format/container just like avi is a container of Xvid+mp3, DivX+ACC etc. So from now on I'll refer to it as Ogg.

I'm really an open formats advocate but this Ogg thing don't appeal to me because of playback problems. It may be not "Ogg fault" but Windows fault but as an end user I don't care.

Original post updated to include link to Audio editing software topic.

Great tutorial for recording tool, but me and my friends having problems with recording from multiplayer tracks. With singleplayer tracks its working fine, but it doesnt matter which quality, resolution, recording method i choose with multi tracks simply cant work. After pressing record, game loads and recording doesnt start. I see only map, on which i can move, so game is responding and its paused due to "P" next to time. I can press Pause Break, clicking on anything i want, recording cant start. I need it fast, for important video and worst is that its happening to my friends too :( can somebody help me?