Recording video in WinApe

[Cholo]

I think the was a thread a while back about how to videos in sync in WinApe, but i cant find it so here goes again 

Been trying to record some videos but the audio keeps running ahead out of sync. And audio isnt just a 1-2 sec ahead, its like accelerating? Maybe its my dualcore/vista pc that does something bad? I donno.

Anyone remember how to record good videos? All hints appreciated!

[TFM]

And maybe somebody know, how to record without having Mode 2 screwed up...

[Xyphoe]

Richard kindly sent me a beta version of 2.0 Alpha 18 which seems to be a lot better with recording video. If you're reading this sir, what exactly did you tweak as its made an improvement for me?

I seem to have best luck with Window Video 1 codec, don't know why but anyway trying to do Full Frames often ends in disaster.

Some tips -

Close off any unnecessary programs that may hog memory or decide to 'do something' that will sudden require a large chunk of memory. A good example is I had a Firefox window open that reloads graphs of load averages, mail queues, service problems for about 100+ servers that I have to watch and because there's a large amount of data and images to process it made the PC chug just for a microsecond that often put recording out of sync.

Loading from snapshots, resetting WinApe, etc will horrendously mess the video up.


Otherwise you can of course resync the audio in other software which is a pain in the arse to do.

[Cholo]

Thanks for the tips 

I ended up doing the following "hard" way (did this with Turrican):
0. Already had Xvid codec installed.
1. Installed Camstudio (camstudio.org) and its video codec.
2. Use jack-2-jack audio cable to send the audio from audio-out to audio-in
3. Starts the game like normal in Winape and then pause it.
4. Use Camstudio to capture video (mark winape area and press record).
5. unpause and play until done.
6. Once recording is done press stop and Camstudio will process the video (save it somewhere).
7. Opened the video in VirtualDub (32bit version as the other version isnt as good with "odd" codecs. From virtualdub.org).
8. Select compression (xvid)
9. select the from-to markers so i got rid of some useless "pause" minutes in boths ends.
10. Choose "save as" and conversion begins.
11. uploaded to youtube 

It may seem like quite a lot but it works quite fast and painless. Most Pc's are quite powerfull today .. and even my fairly average pc did recompress a 10 min video in like 5 mins tops and even tho video actually gets (re)compressed 3 times in all it still has quite ok quality in the end (and no audio troubles).

[Xyphoe]

Wow that does seem a lot of effort!

2. Use jack-2-jack audio cable to send the audio from audio-out to audio-in

Really? Why necessary to do this? Camstudio doesn't capture the audio correctly? So you plug a lead from the headphone out to the mic in socket?

[Cholo]

Indeed Camstudio didnt capture any audio untill i send the audio back in (using the cable). Donno the technical reasons why Camstudio didnt "intercept" the signal (it would have been logic if it did capture it). Wasnt that big a deal for me tho as i pretty much always have a jack-2-jack cable connected up (to a tape recorder for tape preservation purpose) so its was just a quick replugging for me.

[Gryzor]

I think it depends on your OS - up till XP it was easy-peasy, with Vista and Win7 it's much harder to record audio...

[TFM]

Especially Vista is a pain in the behind for (nearly) all CPC Emulators and sound recording especially.

[Executioner]

Sorry I haven't been around for quite a while. Busy doing stuff around the house. There is a problem with audio sync which has been fixed for the next release. I want to fix full-screen under Windows 7 on my new laptop and check a problem with disc image erasing, which I think may be caused by running more than one instance of WinAPE at the same time, and fix the RTC for TFM so it works in FutureOS, then I'll do a new release. There was a lot of other stuff I wanted in the next release but it's gonna have to wait a bit.

[redbox]

check a problem with disc image erasing, which I think may be caused by running more than one instance of WinAPE at the same time

I have this problem when I run WinApe on two different PCs (I have the application in a Dropbox folder) - at best it just says "can't find DSK image" (but only when trying to load a new one) and at worst it erases the DSK/makes all the filesizes huge and knackers it that way.

I think the problem here might be that WinApe uses direct addressing for directories such as C:\Users\User\My Documents\WinApe\disc.dsk rather than something like %My Documents%\WinApe\disc.dsk which would stop a lot of this when using it across multiple machines (XP, Vista, Win7 etc all store these folders in different places).

[Executioner]

I think the problem here might be that WinApe uses direct addressing for directories such as C:\Users\User\My Documents\WinApe\disc.dsk rather than something like %My Documents%\WinApe\disc.dsk which would stop a lot of this when using it across multiple machines (XP, Vista, Win7 etc all store these folders in different places).

That may be a slight problem, but the main problem is that WinAPE opens the DSK image exclusively which excludes another copy of WinAPE opening the same file. If WinAPE fails to open the file, it assumes (incorrectly) that it doesn't exist and will try to create it when it closes or it's changed for another disc image. For now, I'm going to get it to show a message and stop it from re-creating (truncating) the file.

[Xyphoe]

Hi Richard!

Good to hear from you and see you back again!

I don't think the video recording problems have been fully sorted in the beta version you gave me of a18 sadly, although it's a *lot* better.


I posted a reply to Metr about his problems in the "Infiltrator" topic in the News sub forum, but I think it's useful here too -


=====================

METR
Do you have any problem recording long videos? I just tried to record a 1h video and I'm having problems.
I   recorded it like 3-4 times, first time I got like 20 minutes showing   zillions of screens of the full game and after that the video continued   as it should. Second time I got the same problem until the minute 40 and   then continued with the game.
I don't know if it's a problem of   temporal memory or if the size it's too heavy (I get a 4Gb video for the   complete hour of gameplay).

XYPHOE
Sometimes yes, other times no - I can't work it out. It's russian   roulette whether it works or not - I try not to have anything running in   the background in Windows when recording that may cause a 'jump' in the   video stream.

I just did a complete longplay of Double Dragon in one go and found the vid file was f***ed! GRRRR
I'm   on a different PC and don't have access to the corrupt video, but I   often have to chuck it into VirtualDub and see if I can fix it there and   re-encode. Often the audio ends up horrendously messed up even if I do   fix the video file.

I hope Executioner can fix one day for WinApe.

XYPHOE
I've just done the Double Dragon longplay again, it was 30minutes in   length and created a 2.15GB file - and this was using a codec to   compress!

And yep, the file is borked.

But I used VirtualDub to fix.

Here's what you do -

When   you go to "Open Video File" make sure "Ask for extended options after   this dialog" is selected before choosing the file to open, then on the   next pop-up make sure just "Re-derive keyframe flags" is selected ...   and on import it will rebuild the video file properly. It appears the   AVI looses it's indexing - ie the data is all there but the program   being used to open the file does not know where the data starts or ends   in simple terms. Bit like when your hard disk goes tits up ... your   files are stored in various sectors all over the disk, but it needs a   table and indexing to reference where each file is - when that table   goes bye-bye you need special tools to extract the data.

Lastly,   check the Video / Video Colour Depth settings, as when you export the   video it often uses a strange pallete and wrong colours - select 32bit   RGB or something high. Will result in a MASSIVE video file - it turned   the 2.15GB file into a 35.5GB MONSTER!!!! But it's enough to import into   Windows Movie Maker and then just save using that.

[Executioner]

Hi Richard!

Good to hear from you and see you back again!

I don't think the video recording problems have been fully sorted in the beta version you gave me of a18 sadly, although it's a *lot* better.

Was the play-through smooth or skipping some frames (eg. when a HDD buffer gets flushed)? The AVIWrite Windows API functions are not all that well documented, and (before a18) the audio was wrong because it assumed 50FPS yet the CPC with normal CRTC registers is 1000000/19968 (50.08012820512821FPS). I think I've re-worked it so the timing should be correct regardless of CRTC settings.

There may be a need for some regular key-frames in the AVI stream, although I have no idea how often they should be or exactly how it should be done. It's also interesting that it's coming out with bigger files depending on the screen mode. I thought I originally fixed the AVI writing at 384x270 with 8 bits per pixel. This was done because I didn't want huge files or huge processor or IO overhead in creating the AVI. Computers have got a bit faster since (though not much, just more threads/cores really).

[TFM]

I'm really looking forward to the next release :-)))

[Metr]

the audio was wrong because it assumed 50FPS yet the CPC with normal CRTC registers is 1000000/19968 (50.08012820512821FPS). I think I've re-worked it so the timing should be correct regardless of CRTC settings.

I'm more than happy if the audio is corrected, I started playing and recording with WinAPE but had to change when someone pointed me out that the audio was different as it sounds in the CPC, and after testing it, it was true.


Looking forward to get that new release soon !


Cheers !

[mr_lou]

And maybe somebody know, how to record without having Mode 2 screwed up...

Any news on this?

I'm in need of recording video of MODE 2 stuff.

[mr_lou]

And maybe somebody know, how to record without having Mode 2 screwed up...

....this just in!

Executioner just gave me the solution to my problem....

Seems that the latest version does in fact offer proper MODE 2 recording.
But only if:
You don't have the display set to "Half size". I.e. you have to double the pixels.
You set video recording to "Full Size Video" in the dialog.

Now MODE 2 recordings aren't "smudged" anymore.
I can't believe I've been waiting since 2010 for something that was already possible.... 

[seanb]

I've always found recording in winape to be problematic.

It records fine and plays back the first time no problem but playing the clip back after that I'll rarely get picture or sound.

I made a video using recordings and I had to convert the video using various software before after effects could display it properly

[ZbyniuR]

I recommend to choose one from Microsoft codec in window "Video Compression", because it makes less problems, and you can choose quality by slide.

[seanb]

 I'll try that

[Prodatron]

Btw, does someone know if it's possible to remove the repeating "click" sound, which is added as background sound when recording videos?

[arnoldemu]

Btw, does someone know if it's possible to remove the repeating "click" sound, which is added as background sound when recording videos?

This is a guess.

There is a parameter which makes the internal sound buffer larger/smaller or at least introduces a bit of latency.

Make that longer.

I am guessing the recording is slowing down the fps enough that the emulator is not filling the sound buffer fully leaving a click.
Give more of a latency and it has more time to do it.

However, the audio *may* then lag the visual a little; so you may need to adjust it after recording.

[Prodatron]

This is a guess.

That was a very good idea, but unfortunately it didn't help. I tried 0 and 50 for the "sound buffer synchronisation" and set all other options to "low" but I still have these clicks in the video.

[arnoldemu]

That was a very good idea, but unfortunately it didn't help. I tried 0 and 50 for the "sound buffer synchronisation" and set all other options to "low" but I still have these clicks in the video.

Does it change if you choose a different output format? perhaps 16-bit or mono or?

[Prodatron]

Yes, I switched all other settings to the lower ones (mono, 8bit, 22KHz) but it didn't help. Strange thing is: This issue started in 2012 (before that everything was fine) and I have no idea what was changing (as I still have the same PC setup).
Anyway not a big thing, I can live with that