New YouTube channel for Amstrad CPC Demos

[Interrupt]

Hi all,

I'm a big fan of demos and wrote a couple of small ones "back in the day". I've decided to have a go at making a YouTube channel covering the Amstrad CPC demo scene...

I'd really welcome any feedback (content, presentation, etc.) as I begin to prepare new episodes.

Channel Introduction...

Episode 1 - French Classics #1
(unfortunately the audio isn't brilliant on this and I'll resolve this before the next episode - hopefully it should give enough of an idea to provide some feedback as to whether you would like more content...)

Thanks for any feedback, likes, subscriptions, comments etc. in advance,

Interrupt...

[BSC]

That's cool, I think there's no dedicated CPC demo channel yet. Looking forward to your next videos. 

[Skunkfish]

Great idea! Are the demos shown emulated or running on real hardware?

[Interrupt]

Thanks.

I'm running them emulated at the moment. I'm on Linux having mostly abandoned Windows in recent years so I have Retro Virtual Machine or CPCEmu available (I think this is all?)

I've used Retro Virtual Machine for these videos because it can do the CRT filters which remind me so much of the real machine and I've switched to 50Hz display and recording - the result seems to be ok when I've watched it back on my TV via the Apple TV. I might turn off the "beam" from the CRT filter as the video compression seems to not get on brilliantly with it.

I do have my original CPC6128 (still working) and a USIfAC board for transferring data but I don't have a camera that will record at 50Hz so I'd need to feel it was worth the trouble. Also with real hardware I'd technically need all the CRTC types to be able to watch all the demos - I have a CRTC Type 1 and definitely came across demos back in the day that wouldn't run.

[Interrupt]

Thanks all! I'll let you know when the next episode is available - I'll focus on improving the audio for this next one.

[Gryzor]

Thanks, subscribed! Looking forward

[ralferoo]

I'm running them emulated at the moment. I'm on Linux having mostly abandoned Windows in recent years so I have Retro Virtual Machine or CPCEmu available (I think this is all?)

I've used Retro Virtual Machine for these videos because it can do the CRT filters which remind me so much of the real machine and I've switched to 50Hz display and recording - the result seems to be ok when I've watched it back on my TV via the Apple TV. I might turn off the "beam" from the CRT filter as the video compression seems to not get on brilliantly with it.

Can you go more into your process for recording these videos?

I was pleasantly pleased to discover last weekend that loads of new emulators have appeared in recent years, and they all look really good. I noticed that RVM looks really pretty for "experiencing" the retro feel, while "Caprice Forever" looks really good from a programming perspective - I had a quick play with its breakpoint on memory access features and cycle counting, and all seems super useful.

But none of them seemed to support any kind of video recording option, and I'd rather have the emulator output the videos directly - even if it doesn't run at realtime, I want a 100% perfect capture of what *should* have happened. No stutters because Windows decided to do something in background, audio in sync, etc...

I was kind of surprised that none of these new emulators seem to have this option, but I had quite a whistlestop tour of some, so I could easily have missed something. The only thing I know of is WinApe, which seems not to work well for me any more... (like after a few minutes it just pops up a "divide by zero" error and needs to be force quit).

So, what's the best emulator for recording videos nowadays? Or alternatively, what setup do you actually use to record things with?

[Raft]

Good idea! Looking forward to see more Demos 

[Interrupt]

I'm running them emulated at the moment. I'm on Linux having mostly abandoned Windows in recent years so I have Retro Virtual Machine or CPCEmu available (I think this is all?)

I've used Retro Virtual Machine for these videos because it can do the CRT filters which remind me so much of the real machine and I've switched to 50Hz display and recording - the result seems to be ok when I've watched it back on my TV via the Apple TV. I might turn off the "beam" from the CRT filter as the video compression seems to not get on brilliantly with it.

Can you go more into your process for recording these videos?

I was pleasantly pleased to discover last weekend that loads of new emulators have appeared in recent years, and they all look really good. I noticed that RVM looks really pretty for "experiencing" the retro feel, while "Caprice Forever" looks really good from a programming perspective - I had a quick play with its breakpoint on memory access features and cycle counting, and all seems super useful.

But none of them seemed to support any kind of video recording option, and I'd rather have the emulator output the videos directly - even if it doesn't run at realtime, I want a 100% perfect capture of what *should* have happened. No stutters because Windows decided to do something in background, audio in sync, etc...

I was kind of surprised that none of these new emulators seem to have this option, but I had quite a whistlestop tour of some, so I could easily have missed something. The only thing I know of is WinApe, which seems not to work well for me any more... (like after a few minutes it just pops up a "divide by zero" error and needs to be force quit).

So, what's the best emulator for recording videos nowadays? Or alternatively, what setup do you actually use to record things with?

Sure. I'm running Pop OS (Ubuntu-based Linux distro). I've used RVM because of the nice CRT effects. I turned some of the "beam" settings to reduce video encoding artefacts. I set my display to 50Hz and record using OBS Studio screen capture + web cam capture + emulator audio capture on one channel + vocal audio capture on a second channel. OBS Studio is set to work at 50Hz. Then OBS Studio creates a video output which I use kdenlive to edit and render, using Audacity to process the audio as part of that work.

Not sure if that is all necessary but it seemed to produce a reasonable recording from what I've been able to assess. I haven't seen if any emulators are able to output video for themselves.

I'm going to explore whether I can run WinAPE or others using some Windows emulation but haven't got around to that - I could do with some good debugging tools.

[Interrupt]

@Gryzor Just checking its ok to keep posting links to new videos here? I'm thinking I would append updates to this topic - I would like to keep some activity here rather than just relying on YouTube subscriptions. Is that ok?

[Gryzor]

Sure, absolutely.

[ralferoo]

I'm running them emulated at the moment. I'm on Linux having mostly abandoned Windows in recent years so I have Retro Virtual Machine or CPCEmu available (I think this is all?)

I've used Retro Virtual Machine for these videos because it can do the CRT filters which remind me so much of the real machine and I've switched to 50Hz display and recording - the result seems to be ok when I've watched it back on my TV via the Apple TV. I might turn off the "beam" from the CRT filter as the video compression seems to not get on brilliantly with it.

Can you go more into your process for recording these videos?

I was pleasantly pleased to discover last weekend that loads of new emulators have appeared in recent years, and they all look really good. I noticed that RVM looks really pretty for "experiencing" the retro feel, while "Caprice Forever" looks really good from a programming perspective - I had a quick play with its breakpoint on memory access features and cycle counting, and all seems super useful.

But none of them seemed to support any kind of video recording option, and I'd rather have the emulator output the videos directly - even if it doesn't run at realtime, I want a 100% perfect capture of what *should* have happened. No stutters because Windows decided to do something in background, audio in sync, etc...

I was kind of surprised that none of these new emulators seem to have this option, but I had quite a whistlestop tour of some, so I could easily have missed something. The only thing I know of is WinApe, which seems not to work well for me any more... (like after a few minutes it just pops up a "divide by zero" error and needs to be force quit).

So, what's the best emulator for recording videos nowadays? Or alternatively, what setup do you actually use to record things with?

Sure. I'm running Pop OS (Ubuntu-based Linux distro). I've used RVM because of the nice CRT effects. I turned some of the "beam" settings to reduce video encoding artefacts. I set my display to 50Hz and record using OBS Studio screen capture + web cam capture + emulator audio capture on one channel + vocal audio capture on a second channel. OBS Studio is set to work at 50Hz. Then OBS Studio creates a video output which I use kdenlive to edit and render, using Audacity to process the audio as part of that work.

Not sure if that is all necessary but it seemed to produce a reasonable recording from what I've been able to assess. I haven't seen if any emulators are able to output video for themselves.

I'm going to explore whether I can run WinAPE or others using some Windows emulation but haven't got around to that - I could do with some good debugging tools.

I'm mostly still using primarily WinCPC for development despite its faults just because it's what I've always used.

Caprice Forever does look really good, but the assembler seems a little less integrated, and so while I'll probably use it for debugging, I don't want to switch to using it for development yet. Also not keen that the hotkeys are all set up for end users, and all the things I'll be using all the time like run, pause, single step all require the alt key. But it's really close to what I want, so I'll definitely use it for debugging cycle counting issues.

[ralferoo]

@Interrupt just to answer my old question, I just happened to find http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/cpcec.htm which records to its own custom XRF format as it runs and then there's another program that converts that to AVI or let's you pipe it into ffmpeg. Seems to work very well, and I recorded a video at about 4x speed, so that's pretty handy. And the main thing I care about is that it records tape noise to the video, which is obviously the most important feature when recording a demo...

It doesn't have as many fancy CRTC effects as RVM, but it still has enough to look pretty good. I just turned on y-mask and left everything alone.

[Interrupt]

A couple of updates from me...

Episode 2 (available for a while now)

A couple of shorts...

[Interrupt]

Episode 3 - British Demos

[genesis8]

What demos did you write so I can state them in the news I will just write right now, will update it with your reply ?

[Interrupt]

I haven't written anything new (not yet anyway). The collection I covered had a demo I wrote ~30 years ago (imaginatively titled "Interrupt Demo I"). I'm planning to do  some explainer videos too and might make "Interrupt Demo II" as part of that process.