PROJECT: Super NES / Super Famicom Video Snap Overhaul

[Circo]

Oh Oh, silly me will be fixed at the next Videos. :-)

Will redo the old ones after im done with the rest.

 

I included them for now but that would be awesome if you redid them.

[DamnedRegistrations]

Don't expect them to play right unless your using VLC, but its a great container to share videos without losing any quality.

 

I have a different version of x264 than you with a lot more settings. Maybe you're using an older version?

 

I don't like VLC player due to brightness/contrast issues so I use Media Player Classic HC. I fixed the problem though, just had to disable MPC's built-in filter for H.264 so it will use ffdshow. Plays fine now.

[Circo]

I linked to one made for use with virtualdub, but im sure you have a newer or offshoot version.  Should work the same.

[DamnedRegistrations]

Alright, I uploaded my first intro + gameplay vid to ftp at: /Upload Here/DamnedRegistrations/Super Famicom

 

Just want to be sure I did everything right and it's encoded properly. Looks like I'm gonna have to do the crop work in Sony Vegas because that gameplay vid required two different crop sizes, rendered to lossless avi then encoded in VirtualDub. lol this is going to take a while to do 70+ more games, yikes.

[Circo]

Im getting through almost 100 a day, although thats a lot of rpgs

 

You can also submit multiple scenes ie

 

gamename g1

gamename g2

 

EDIT: Your submission was dead on!

 

Also you can batch things in vdub using the "Job Control" function.  

[DamnedRegistrations]

The only game I recorded that has multiple scenes is Rendering Ranger R2, because further in it changes into a shoot 'em up. Pretty cool game too.

 

The crops are what's going to take the longest. I can't use presets since every game seems to need different crop dimensions, total pain but it'll be worth it in the end.

[Circo]

The only game I recorded that has multiple scenes is Rendering Ranger R2, because further in it changes into a shoot 'em up. Pretty cool game too.

 

The crops are what's going to take the longest. I can't use presets since every game seems to need different crop dimensions, total pain but it'll be worth it in the end.

 

You are a true artist  but your right snes is kind of a pain in that regard

[Nologic]

Okay silly question but has anyone tried generating a AviSynth script using AutoCrop? Then editing the file in VirtualDub...or better yet editing the merge script generator to use AutoCrop?...so there is hopefully no cropping that has to be done manually.

 

Granted this will probably only work with black bars...but might be worth a shot all the same.

[Circo]

Okay silly question but has anyone tried generating a AviSynth script using AutoCrop? Then editing the file in VirtualDub...or better yet editing the merge script generator to use AutoCrop?...so there is hopefully no cropping that has to be done manually.

 

Granted this will probably only work with black bars...but might be worth a shot all the same.

 

That might be worth a try, though it makes me nervous.

[Nologic]

Well if it's just used in VirtualDub it shouldn't make you to nervous...but yeah I could see general batch merge's being questionable...however if things don't turn out right...one could then redo the ones that failed to do the right thing.

 

If you got a sample file with bars I'll see if I can make stuff work right...it probably won't need to be lossless but it should be of good quality.

 

Right now I'm in a bit of a coding mood...adding a feature to MAMErenSET per brolly's request. Which "should" be a simple addition.

 

P.S.

- I don't care with the default's forum theme's quoted style...while a header is nice...it would be also nice to know where the quote ends....or is this some odd issue with my Firefox config?

[Circo]

I'll get some clips together.  Totally agree on the quote, I need to go in and fix that.

[DamnedRegistrations]

The new quote style does look a ton better, thanks for doing that.

 

Well I uploaded my first ten game vids to ftp, only... 82 games left to edit/crop. I think I'll be done in about five years lol

[brolly]

Okay silly question but has anyone tried generating a AviSynth script using AutoCrop? Then editing the file in VirtualDub...or better yet editing the merge script generator to use AutoCrop?...so there is hopefully no cropping that has to be done manually.

 

Granted this will probably only work with black bars...but might be worth a shot all the same.

 

Yeah I used it a while back to crop a batch of videos and I must say it worked pretty well, only tested with black bars, but that's usually the case anyway.

Personally I don't see a big deal with the title clip having black bars, if only the title screen has black bars I usually don't crop them out.

[Nologic]

Well it's not a big issue having the bar's...but it is an issue...and from my perspective if we can get ride of them more or less for free (AutoCrop) then we should.

 

I'm all for the best video's possible with the least amount of work to obtain them.

[Circo]

At the moment I'm manually cropping every submission that comes in. If necessary of course.

[DamnedRegistrations]

I actually set up 3 or 4 different crop presets in Sony Vegas. Saves a bit of tedious work but I still have to keyframe a lot. No way can you autocrop Super Famicom games, as many of them have different black bar spaces and many shift these to widen the viewing area for battle screens.

 

Another thing I'm doing is adding music tracks to games which have silent title screens. Nearing the halfway point of finishing.

[Circo]

I'm not noticing that to the degree that your stating, the most I've seen is two crop points in gameplay and that's with RPGs. I'm still able to cap and process an average of 50 a day. Of course I've been at this for a lot of years. What emulator are you using and can you give an example of a game that needs all these key frame crops?

[Nologic]

Well the AutoCrop merge script I just sent Circo...will crop each video file on it's own. I don't have any resize...just cropping.

[Circo]

It's going to do different crops on titles vs gameplay will this be an issue?

[DamnedRegistrations]

Not ALL SF games require keyframe crops but a lot of them do. Like mentioned, mostly RPGs. I know sometimes bars are used for effect but they still don't look good in vids usually, especially when they ruin uniformity. I use RetroArch with SNES9x Next libretro for my patched roms, and BSNES libretro with other SNES roms. Nice all-around emu with Braid-style rewind and other great features.

 

Anyway, Tales of Phantasia is a good example of a game requiring either keyframes or split clips. I'll attach a few raw screenshots.

 

1. Town Screen = left + right bars

2. World Screen = left small bar  (that small black bar is prevalent through every SF game I have recorded)

3. Battle Screen = top + bottom + small left bar

[Nologic]

Heh I would think so...but someone hasn't gotten me any test vid's yet.

 

Now it's my understanding that in most if not all cases...when you end up with black bar's it's because the pixel aspect has changed...so the ideal fix would be to make the crops...and change pixel aspect on the fly...rather than do a resize or anything of that type.

[brolly]

Taking the example DR just posted how can you crop the town and battle screen clips and merge them together in the same clip without distorting the AR of at least one of them? As they clearly have very different aspect ratios if you remove the black bars. Wouldn't the black bars be preferred over a wrong AR?

 

[Nologic]

Personally I'd crop and resize to match what was seen on the original TV screen, as best as possible.

 

In a lot of emulator's we keep the overscan, don't have proper pixel aspect...in other words we use square pixels at lot of times when we should be using rectangular ones.

 

So overscan may or may not be present...and if so hard to tell what side(s) it's on...and hard to tell if pixel aspect is correct.

 

Only real way would be to drop a cart in and boot it up in a real system and take a look.

 

I can add in a hard crop for overscan that the user can set the values to, then do an autocrop, and finally autoresize.

 

Tell me what you want and need and I'll see if I can make it happen.

 

Now given the example above...I'd treat the thin left bar as underscan, and hard crop that if it's common, as it'll likely turn into overscan in other games, then autocrop the rest of the bars and resize all of them to a set resolution.

 

Now according to this thread, the PAR is 10/11 this might make a difference when recording.

 

*Update*

Attached the WPI of the scripts, which require the installation of:

AutoIt, AviSynth, AutoCrop plugin, DSS2 plugin

AviSynth Merge Scripts.rar

[DamnedRegistrations]

I've surprisingly not run into any stretching problems or anything excessive from these crops. I guess Sony Vegas just does a good job when it comes to maintaining ratios, no idea really but everything's been fine so far. Feel free to check the vids in my ftp folder if interested, I've gotten quite a few done now.

[Circo]

Taking the example DR just posted how can you crop the town and battle screen clips and merge them together in the same clip without distorting the AR of at least one of them? As they clearly have very different aspect ratios if you remove the black bars. Wouldn't the black bars be preferred over a wrong AR?

 

Honestly the crops are still so minor that they typically look fine, sometimes you have to use your gut for what looks right though.