Amiga Demo Recordings

[bLAZER]

Since I like demos I had this crazy idea of recording Amiga demos previews to use with Hyperspin/whatever frontend. So you could browse a lof of demos, and then launch them if you want to see the whole thing. The good thing about this is that it could be almost completely automated, since the demos themselves doesn't need human interraction. I'm currenty investigating how this could be done. I probably have to develop some software of my own to accomplish this.

[Nologic]

Tempest and myself both have code largely to this effect already.

Tempest's is more full bore automation...while mine is more work-flow enhancement. Nether are likely exactly like what you want but I'm sure with some fairly minor modification to ether code base would result in what you are looking for.

[bLAZER]

What kind of code? And what's it used for? Actually the only thing the program has to do is:

Scan files in a folder, then

Automatically load WinUAE with one file

Wait 30 secs

Quit WinUAE

Repeat

The problem is that it doesn't seem that the ouputsettings for recording video/audio are not in the configurations file, which means you can't automatically start a video recording. You'll have to use the mouse...

[Nologic]

My code is written in AutoIt where Tempest's is written in AutoHotKey two very like scripting langs.

AutoIt uses a syntax much like Visual Basic, where AutoHotKey uses a more C++ syntax.

Oh I can make your mouse do all kinds of silly things, but I tend to try and control the form controls directly if possible rather than manipulating the mouse or having key strokes flying god knows where.

I can code everything you mentioned above...my prior code was mostly geared at taking screenshots and was in the process of being modified to capture video with ether HyperCam or Fraps, but can certainly be modified to use the features of the Emu its self.

I support black lists, and batch resume of sorts.

[bLAZER]

AutoIt seems like exacty what I need... so could you send me your script so I can modify it to my needs? I could probably keep things pretty simple.

[Nologic]

Okay here is the source code and supporting files...this is the older script which is more likely to get you going down the right path.

Note the attached file is actually a RAR file as Circo hasn't allowed RAR's to be attached so the extension has been changed to ZIP...but you shouldn't run into any issues.

My_PSX_Screenshots_(Source).zip

[bLAZER]

Thanks! Will give it a shot now.

[Nologic]

Well best of luck.

[bLAZER]

Thanks... I already made some progress.. had to use mouse clicks at some places since some of the gui buttons in WinUAE couldn't be pressed from keys.

[Nologic]

Good to hear.

My pref is: Control > Mouse Click > Send Keys

Mouse Click should be based off the active window rather than desktop resolution...as that can change.

Send Keys is little better than just throwing up ones hands and saying fuck it. It works...just not all the time...so if you can work with the control directly awesome...with a mouse click cool...send key shit.

[Circo]

Okay here is the source code and supporting files...this is the older script which is more likely to get you going down the right path.

Note the attached file is actually a RAR file as Circo hasn't allowed RAR's to be attached so the extension has been changed to ZIP...but you shouldn't run into any issues.

Added support for .rar files in posts

[Nologic]

Thanks Circo

[bLAZER]

Had a test run while a slept and created 242 videos, and what I can see all went well So next step is to try to automate cutting/fading/cropping/normalizing.

[Nologic]

Cropping and Volume Gain should be easy enough...provided all the cropping will be the same dimensions...or can be separated into proper folders based on crop dimensions.

Batching fades may also be possible...but I'm not really visualizing cutting happening.

As I see it you'll need to make two manual cuts game-play & title...as it would seem extremely rare for all the games to have the title and game-play all start and stop at the same places in the raw recordings.

Once those are done one could more than likely batch process everything else.

Anyways its good to hear that you had a success.

[bLAZER]

You know this is "demo" like in cracktro/intro recordings.. otherwise automatic recordings wouldn't be possible... so there are no titles, just a 30 seconds extract from one minute into the demo. I made the cutting and cropping totally automized and it worked fine, just a handful of crops that's not 100% perfect because of complicated screen issues with the Amiga/WinUAE.

So what's left is normalizing the sound and fade in/outs.

[Nologic]

ahhh...well I was assuming something different.

Like with some if not most PSX games...they will display the title then do a demonstration mode where they show some game play.

Anyways good to hear you had rather good success all the same.

[bLAZER]

Unfortunately that's very often not the case with Amiga games, but that's a very good idea - I should do a batch of amiga games and then sort out the ones that has gameplay in them. Beats playing every single game manually.

[bLAZER]

Just popping in to say that I've now made scripts that also normalize the sound and does fade in/outs. So let the massive automation process begin!

[Nologic]

Good to hear!

So your normalizing rather than just doing Volume Gain?

Well I'd be interested in a code snippet for doing fade in/out...as it would probably save me some coding/testing/monkeying around.

[bLAZER]

Yeah normalizing is the real deal. Volume gain isn't very helpful, it will either leave the audio to low or make it clip.

I'm attaching the normalize and fade in/out scripts. You'll need Adobe Audition and Premiere. They aren't optimized (I have some hardcoded wait amounts) but works fine, I've used them on about 600 videos in a row without problems. The trick I used for fade in/out's is using a black and silent video that the main video will fade into/outto, so you'll have to create one.

autoit scripts.zip

[Nologic]

Thanks I'll have a look.

[bLAZER]

So here we have it:

2239 demos recorded, normalized sound and fade in and out

Hyperspin database converted from my own database which means it contains group, type (cracktro/trainer/music disk etc) and year

Since the recording was totally automatic there will be some bad videos (not working in emulator etc.) but I have deleted about 300 hundreds.

So what's left:

make a winuae-config (these 2239 all use the same config) so they actually will launch from the frontend

encode them to flv

do the rest of the videos missing

So, Circo is it ok with you if I encode the vids to 640x512? Reasons: scaling to 640x480 will make the encoding slower and it will only make them look worse.

[bLAZER]

I just found out that Hyperspin can play F4V-videos (if renamed to FLV) and that means a lot better looking video with even smaller filesize! So I'm, gonna do all these vids in F4V. And also will re-encode all Amiga WHDLoad to F4V. Good thing I still have the lossless avi's otherwise it would be pointless.

[Bigby]

-

[Circo]

So here we have it:

2239 demos recorded, normalized sound and fade in and out

Hyperspin database converted from my own database which means it contains group, type (cracktro/trainer/music disk etc) and year

Since the recording was totally automatic there will be some bad videos (not working in emulator etc.) but I have deleted about 300 hundreds.

So what's left:

make a winuae-config (these 2239 all use the same config) so they actually will launch from the frontend

encode them to flv

do the rest of the videos missing

So, Circo is it ok with you if I encode the vids to 640x512? Reasons: scaling to 640x480 will make the encoding slower and it will only make them look worse.

This one is your baby I added an amiga section as well, for bad games I have a default error video, let me know if you would like it. As long as they make the theme for your resolution vs 4:3 it will be fine.