Please Recommend settings to encode RO videos

[Raziel6969]

I have 6 videos from Ragnarok Online game captured videos with FRAPS software, it has his own codec (FRAPS Video Codec. Loseless, To capture gameplay while playing), from Guid vs Guid mode (the larger is 10 min.), 600x480, and 800x600.

I'm new to encoding with x264, but i like to test!
But i already read many posts with so many options, and the material is dificult because it has so much detail (i've tried with xvid, but 1000kbps looks bad)

I'd like to presserve detail while possible (not so if hurts size heavily).

Please Recommend Settings, I think maybe one of us has already encoded gameplay, any ideas is welcome.

Note: x264 + MeGUI is an easier approach to encode now at x264?

[Revgen]

I don't believe the problem has anything to do with detail.

Motion Pictures contain more textural detail than videogames because it's real-life footage.

The problem with video games is motion. With so many bad guys moving, guns firing, and so much action being recorded at over 60fps speeds, it's difficult for most codecs to handle well. Most codecs are built to encode Motion Pictures and Broadcast footage.

EDIT

I've never encoded VG footage before, but if you can post a sample I can try and take a look at it.

[Chainmax]

The biggest issue will probably be that it will probably have a very erratic framerate. There's also the issue of lag which probably affects the framerate as well.

[MyBestLaidPlans]

Check out this (http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/6) guide.

[DryFire]

You may want to check out some of sharktooth's profiles.

I don't know anything about the game but does your footage have a lot of dark scenes? a lot of motion?

I don't see why you'd need to treat game footage in a completely different manner. It seems like it's be a mix of anime and real world footage in regard to details.

[Hellworm]

Was the game antialiased?
Because one of biggest Problems ( I think ) for the video coder are the very hard contrasts in computer games on edges without anti-alias. They aren't there in real world footage at all.

What do you need the compression for, what size? You can try to reduce the resolution before compressing, this will reduce the hardness of edges.

[charleski]

:stupid:
Try a soften filter in your avs script.
Also, check what framerate you captured at. Anything over 30fps is a waste - I see FRAPS can capture up to 100fps.

Here's a suggestion for the script (warning: I've never used FRAPS and have never encoded screen-captured footage, so this may or may not produce pleasing results):
LoadPlugin("<path_to_avisynth_plugins>\Unfilter.dll")
AviSource("myvideo.avi")
Unfilter(-5,-5)
ConvertFPS(30)
ConvertToYV12()

You can preview the output from this directly in VirtualDub or some avi players like Zoom Player. If AviSource doesn't work try DirectShowSource. Unfilter is the softening filter. The more negative the values given to it the more it blurs. You might not need it at all as the Convertfps filter will introduce some motion blurring. I'm assuming you know about avisynth (http://www.avisynth.org).

Download the MeGUI profiles (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=101813) provided by Sharktooth. These are a good starting point for the settings, try CE_Highprofile or one of the HQ profiles (I use HQ_Slower with both deblocking parameters set to 0, but that's for natural-source video).

Finally, you'll have to demux the audio from your original FRAPS file, encode it as AAC in MeGUI and remux it with the video produced by x264.

As I said, I've never used FRAPS, never encoded game footage, so I can give no guarantees :).

[Hellworm]

For best results you may try to use Masktools to select the edges blur them, and denoise the rest with fft3D or another denoising filter.

But this may be some work, perhaps you want to ask the avisynth-gurus in the avisynth usage forum.

Of course you can just use a very high bitrate ( something like 10000kbps ) but if you want to have relatively small videos you won't come around some filtering.

[DryFire]

I'm with charleski as far as unfilter goes, but I use that for sources that aren't really noisy to being with.
I don't think there'd be a lot of noise so fft3D seems like a waste of time.

Also for the frame rate if it's below 30 fps I wouldn't want to use convertfps to up the frame rate. Smart decimate may be a good idea but you'll end up with a vfr (you started with one didn't you?) and will need to use .mkv (as mp4box can't handle it atm).

Though I'm not sure about the last part since I haven't dealt with game sources.

[Hellworm]

The Problem with unfilter is that the effect is not very big and therefor the hard edges will either stay, or with heavier bluring the complete image will be blured which is not the goal ( is it? ). The denoising is thought to remove effects on the textures caused by a higher texture-resolution than the screen resolution. Of course if the video was recorded with better filtering than bilinear (trilinear or anisotropic) this is not necessary.

[DryFire]

I simply assumed that anisiotropic filtering would be used as it is not a graphically intensive game. I suppose he should post what his settings were and some screen caps coudl help.

As for unfilter I use it to increase compressibility as it doesn't tend to be very noticable on anime sources and depending on the bitrate it may help more then it hurts.

Are the hard edges necessarily a problem if they are high contrast (or the opposite)? The deblocking filter seems to like blurring edges anyway.

[akupenguin]

The deblocking filter it not a replacement for preprocessing. The problem with hard edges is that it takes lots of bits to DCT-code them, and motion compensation doesn't work well. Deblocking only applies after coding the picture, so the bits are already spent.

[DryFire]

does that mean it would be possible to encode a file with the deblocking filter and then run theat file through again and apply the filter w/o re-encoding it completely?