The Don's Craptastic World » Software

Intel Core i7-2600K and encoding with VirtualDub

Don Salva — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:44:53 +0000

A couple weeks ago I retired my old 3GHz overclocked Q6600 and upgraded to Intel's new flagship CPU i7 2600k. Now before I start writing up my very short opinion and review, those are the settings I still use in VirtualDub. Virtually nothing has changed. Even after more than 2 years, those settings are still the best in terms of "filesize:video quality"-ratio.

Encoding speed is measured in (average) frames per second. The more, the merrier. It's also important to know that there are, what I like to call, "motion-heavy" and "motion-light" scenes.

This is, like the name suggests, a scene in-game (or anywhere for that matter, but I'm talking video gameplay specifically here) in where there's either very much motion / moving happening on the screen or the opposite. Why is that important you ask?

Motion-heavy scenes take much longer to encode than motion-light ones, at least that was my experience in those 2+ years since. I might of course be totally wrong about this, and unfortunately I don't have hard statistics to show for, i.e. benchmarks while encoding. Just my observation, unfortunately.

This is of course explained as if you were 5 years old. There are much, much more complex processes going on during encoding which I won't get into because this article isn't about that. Please also bear in mind that I'm by no means an expert in video encoding. I do it as a private hobby and I say what I have observed.

Right, moving on then. A standard 10 min. uncompressed gameplay video recorded in 1920*1080 with FRAPS is about 20GB large.

When I was using my old, overclocked 3GHz Intel Quad Core Q6600, with the settings linked above, I encoded with about 8fps in motion heavy videos and about 13fps in motion light videos.

With my i7-2600k, clocked at stock speed, I average at 16fps in motion heavy videos and at 25fps in motion light videos. That's an increase of 50% in motion heavy scenes and 52% in motion light scenes.

For example my recent video was about 24GB uncompressed. And compared to action games there's not very much moving/motion happening in those 11 minutes. This video took me, with above linked settings, 15 min. to fully encode at average 24fps. The final size was about 200mb.

VirtualDub makes use of HyperThreading, while encoding, this is how my CPU load looks like. The blue bars are HT, the green ones cores.

Was the purchase worth it (for me)? Absolutely. If you, like me, are encoding quite a lot, the 2600k is a good choice. It brought me a huge boost in encoding speed and will save me a lot of time down the road. Not to mention it will encode even faster when I overclock my 2600k to 4GHz and beyond.

Unfortunately I've no access to a 2500k, so I can't compare the 2600k to the 2500k and see for myself how much better or worse the 2500k performs under the same set of circumstances. If I'd hazard a guess, I'd say not by a whole lot.

The 2500k is essentially a 2600k without the HyperThreading, and I don't quite believe HyperThreading alone makes up for the huge performance jump from Q6600 to 2600k. So if you don't care about a few dollars, get the 2600k. If budget is a priority, get the 2500k. Or wait for Ivy-Bridge CPUs, which will come out next year.

VirtualDub: How to use mkv, mp4, flv, mov and other file formats with VirtualDub

Don Salva — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:35:19 +0000

A lot of people keep asking me how to use VirtualDub with other files formats besides .avi. Like mkv, flv, mp4 or even .mov.

VirtualDub, as stand-alone, cannot handle mkv, mp4, flv, mov or any other files besides avi. You need a plugin or plugins to load anything else besides avi. Mind you, VirtualDub still only can and will save in avi!

There are a couple plugins that can handle loading different files formats. For me personally only 2 come to mind:

There's my personal favorite: Ffmpeg Input Driver which can handle 31 different file formats according to the plugin developer. Among them are the popular mkv, mp4, flv, mov, rm, rvmb, wmv and ts. The plugin is based, as the name may suggest, of the ffmpeg libraries. And if something doesn't work, remember, this is a plugin still in early development stage as of 03.07.2011.

Then there's fccHandler, which can handle mpeg-2, flv, wmv, fli, flc, mkv. However fccHandler also offers the AC-3 ACM codec, which I use for sound in my videos.

Download whichever plugin you prefer, and unpack it into your VirtualDub plugin folder.

Remember however that those plugins only allow you to load said file formats. You cannot save those loaded files in mp4, mov, flv, only in avi.

VirtualDub: Use ffdshow filters (resize, sharpen, wartermark) in VirtualDub

Don Salva — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:05:25 +0000

In the guides here and here I talk about using the VirtualDub internal filters, namely the resize and sharpen filters. But you can also use external filters. I use the ffdshow filters.

What is ffdshow, you ask? Here's the quote from the ffdshow sourceforge page

ffdshow tryouts is a DirectShow and Video for Windows codec with support for a wide range of audio and video formats, such as Xvid, DivX, and H.264. It includes a powerful filter set that can enhance the video quality - with filters for resizing, deinterlacing, and displaying subtitles - as well as audio quality through normalization, down-/upmixing, and resampling.

First of all, you'll need to download the latest ffdshow codec. Although it's "safer" to always use the latest stable builds, in this case however I'd recommend always using the latest SVN builds. Because they are updated way more often including the filters. The latest SVN build, as of the time writing this article was 2011-01-19.

Even the SVN builds are subdivided in 3 areas:

Start installing the ffdshow codec now. You'll be asked what you want to install. This is your choice:

After that leave the rest of the settings as they are and continue finishing the codec installation. After the installation a file named ffvdub.vdf should be inside your VirtualDub/Plugins folder:

Now we can start using the ffdshow filter in VirtualDub. Start up VirtualDub, open a video file, then add the filter:

Now the important part: VirtualDub processes the selected filters in their order. Meaning concurrent. This is very important because it affects your quality especially in connection with watermarks.

Say such as if we were using the filters in this order: 1) waterwark, 2) sharpen, 3) resize. What happens is this: First a watermark is slapped on a frame, then this frame including the watermark is sharpened and after that the sharpened frame including the watermark is resized. Now this is not an idea. Why?

Imagine you have a watermark 100*100 pixel. This image is first slapped on each frame, then it is sharpened and then it is resized. You don't want that. You want the watermark to maintain its original quality and size. So the ideal filter order would be:

Resize the frame, sharpen the frame and insert original, unedited watermark. Let's take a look at the selected filters.

ffdshow filter: Resize

It's pretty much straightforward. Enable resize, choose "Specify horizontal and vertical size" and enter the numbers you want to resize it to. It's 1280*720 for 720p HD and 1920*1080 for 1080p HD.

If you're resizing down or up from a 4:3 resolution, remember to enable "Keep original aspect ratio" under Aspect ratio. Otherwise the end-result will look over-stretched/-squeezed.

If you're resizing down or up from a 16:10 resolution, you could ignore this option. The end-result won't look too bad. But check it out yourself to make sure!

ffdshow filter: Sharpen

Sharpen is a bit trickier, and a lot different from VirtualDub's internal one. In fact there are 5 different sharpening algorithms, I haven't experience with them all, but I've made best experiences with "msharpen". Enable "high quality".

Sadly I can't give you ballpark figures like in the previous guides because this filter works very different. I'll do my best to try to explain how it works.

There are 2 sliders: Strength (1-127) and Threshold (0-255). Strength dictates how strong it should sharpen. Threshold dictates how much of the frame should be sharpened. A Threshold of 0 means everything (every pixel) in the frame will be sharpened, a Threshold of 255 sharpens nothing in the frame.

In order for you to see how much of a frame is sharpened enable "only mask" and press "Preview", play with the slider "Threshold" and set it to your liking. All that "white" in your Preview will be sharpened. Once you've set your Threshold to your liking don't forget to turn off "only mask"! Now play with the slider Strength and set to your liking. Each video needs a different setting I've concluded so far.

This is how the different msharp settings look like: Sharpen filter off, Sharpen Strength 127/Threshold 255, Sharpen Strength 127/Threshold 0, Sharpen Strength 35/Threshold 20, Sharpen Strength 30/Threshold 3.

Sharpen filter with "only mask" activated: Threshold 255, Threshold 0, Threshold 30, Threshold 15, Threshold 7, Threshold 3, Threshold 1.

ffdshow filter: Bitmap overlay (Watermark)

First thing fist: The watermark image needs to be a bitmap (.bmp). Everything else is pretty straightforward. Position your watermark with the sliders "Horizontal/Vertical position". Choose the mode of watermark inclusion and its Opacity. Preview your settings.

VirtualDub: How to prevent asynchronous sound

Don Salva — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:15:45 +0000

According to some comments from here, here and in some of the Emails I get people sometime experience asynchronous sound. As I have speculated here, this is most likely due the CPU being overwhelmed with the whole encoding process. Let me try to explain, and bear in mind, this is just speculation based on nothing but my own suspicions.

When you set the threads in the x264 codec to fully utilize your CPU, meaning all cores, and then some, you make sure the CPU is working at its maximum capacity just for video processing.

If you then add audio to the pile, the CPU just hasn't got any resources to spare, and if it does, it does a miserable job, thus resulting in lag which translates in asynchronous sound.

If that is the case, lowering the numbers of threads in the x264 codec should fix it. This way you can have both audio and video encoding in one go. I haven't tried this method, because I employ a different solution.

How I do it:

I process video and audio separately. First I encode/transcode the video, leaving the audio in its original form. Then I encode the audio and overwrite it.

Let say we have recorded a video and named this video myvideo_unedited.avi .

Transcode/Encode your myvideo_unedited.avi according to this or this BUT leave "Audio" at "Direct Stream copy". DO NOT change it like suggested in the aforementioned links and name this new video for instance transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.avi.

Now open transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.avi and set your "Video" to "Direct Stream copy". In "Audio" you set it to "Full Processing Mode". Go on and set your "Compression", "Volume", and other settings to your liking and save this new sound via "File"->"Save WAV...". The WAV-file is called the same as the video, in this case it'll be transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.wav.

Now set your "Audio" to "Direct Stream copy", and click "Audio from another file..." and select the new transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.wav and save this new video with its new audio via "File"->"Save as AVI..." and name it for example myvideo_final.avi.

You're surely asking why I'm doing this stupid extra work, when I can just lower the threads and be possibly done with it. The answer is transcoding/encoding speed. Lowering the threads in the x264 codec translates into longer transcoding time. Processing video needs much, much more time, than processing sound does.

Say for example, if I were to encode a 15 min. video, and I'd lower the threads just so I can process sound and video in one go, the whole process might take me maybe 1 hour, 30 min. If I encode video first, and leave the sound alone, the process takes me about 1 hour to complete. Then I process the sound alone which takes about 10 seconds. After that I merge both and I'm done in 1 hour and 5 min. That's 25 minutes shaved off.

Another important notice: Sometimes the sound is asynchronous when you play it in your vlc or any other player. However after you upload your video to YouTube the sound magically seems to be synchronous again. I haven't got a clue why that is but it happens sometimes.

VirtualDub: How to split and merge video files

Don Salva — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:27:20 +0000

Folks have been asking me here, here and on my YouTube channel how to split a single movie file into multiple ones, and how to merge multiple ones into a single movie.

I made 2 How-to clips way back then, but somehow forgot to include them in my previous tutorials, so here they are:

How To: Split a single video file into multiple video files with VirtualDub

Click here to view the embedded video.

How To: Add multiple video files into one single one with VirtualDub

Click here to view the embedded video.

Make your Firefox load faster!

Don Salva — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 23:26:46 +0000

Me dad was complaining that his Firefox takes ages to start up and didn't want to run yet another application in the background.

So I hit google and came up with UPX, Ultimate Packer for eXecutables. What it does, is very simple: It compresses the .exe and all the DLLs associated with said .exe! Thus reducing its total size and load time.

Download UPX and unpack the upx.exe into your Firefox folder, usually it's C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.
Close Firefox, and make sure its not running by checking the task manager
Start the command prompt, the cmd.exe in ADMIN MODE!
go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox in cmd.exe
enter this command and execute it
for %v in (*.dll *.exe plugins\*.dll components\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v" -9

Should you, for whatever reason, need to decompress and get the original files back, run this command
for %v in (*.dll *.exe plugins\*.dll components\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v" -d

What does it do?
It compresses all the DLLs and all the *.exe in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox, then it goes to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins and compresses all the DLLs, lastly it goes to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components and compresses the DLLs in there. The -9 is for the best possible compression. The -d is for decompression.

My dad's Firefox folder went from 31 MB down to 20 MB. A 35% save!

The best bit?
UPX is usable on any other application you have. As long as they have *.exe and DLLs, you can use UPX on it.

VirtualDub: How to watermark your videos

Don Salva — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 09:07:48 +0000

There are many folks out there who like to watermark their videos in all possible kind of ways. Some like to use huge introductions and others, like me, are satisfied with small but noninvasive logos.

Before we start, you'll obviously need VirtualDub, and in this case for the watermark to work, the ffdshow codec. Yes, I'm afraid, yet another codec. You need this codec, because it provides filters we need, such as implanting the logo into a video. The ffdshow codec installs a plugin called "ffvdub.vdf" into your VirtualDub plugin directory. This plugin allows the access to ffdshows filters via VirtualDub.

VirtualDub has it's own internal logo filter, but the problem with this filter is it leaves a mess after encoding. The logo is barely readable, it's pixellated and all other sort of issues. Whereas the ffdshow filter leave a clear, readable logo instead.

Open your video, set your VirtualDub up to do whatever encoding your need. Here are two ideas. Now comes the logo part.

Adding a logo to a video

Open up Video -> Filters and add the filter "ffvdub" from Milan Cutka:

Now a new window will appear where all the available ffdshow filters are listed:

You're looking for the filter "Bitmap overlay". Enable it. Now select your *.bmp logo, place it to your liking via horizontal/vertical position and "Alignment". Experiment with "Mode" and "Opacity". Don't forget to enable preview it.

If you don't have a *.bmp logo or don't want to waste a lot of time, you can use the logo template I made a while back.

It's very important in what order the filters are listed! For example in the screenshot you see "Resize & aspect" followed by "Sharpen" followed by "Bitmap overlay". Although Resize and Sharpen are deactivated, if they were all enabled then the video FIRST is resized, THEN sharpened, THEN the logo is applied in this order.

This way the logo remains unaffected by Resize and Sharpen and retains its original quality (but in the end will ultimately be affected on how you set up your compression settings).

Here's how my logo looks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFBM5q98mwc (in the bottom right corner)

Create your own “perfect” password!

Don Salva — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:05:50 +0000

Recently I've read some articles about the most insecure and most used passwords folks use. Boy, I gotta say, it's mind numbing just how stupid some folks are, sorry to be harsh.

I for one create my passwords through my own convenient "algorithm" if you want to call it that, so I can remember even 20 characters long passwords with numbers, letters and special letters.

Or you could simply go to https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm and be done with it. Yes, this site is secure, it's using https, and the passwords generated there ARE very strong. Start using your heads folks, don't get f'ked because y'all are too lazy!

And if you can't remember each password you're using, use KeePass, store your passwords there, set a unique password you won't ever forget for your password database and either burn it on a DVD or better yet, use a password-ed flash drive.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony. A password for the flash drive and a password for the password database!

Just for the fun of it, test how secure your password is.

Start Up Firefox in Private Browsing mode!

Don Salva — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:07:20 +0000

If you're one of the paranoid ones, like me, and are tired to constantly start up your Firefox and change to private browsing, here's an easy solution!

1. enter "about:config" without the " in your URL bar
2. search for "browser.privatebrowsing.autostart"
3. change false to true
4. ???
5. Profit

If browser.privatebrowsing.autostart doesn't exist, then create a new boolean string called just that and set it to true!

Enjoy!

Simple Text- and Movie-effects made easily with Sony Vegas Movie Studio

Don Salva — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:49:10 +0000

If y'all been reading my blog somewhat you'll know I'm a somewhat active YouTube user. I've my own channel and I infrequently upload mostly pc gameplay videos. A very dear friend o' mine joined recently and has been actively recording, encoding and uploading to his 'tube channel, McAkomx.

Now I've been using mostly VirtualDub, a superawesomewtfbbqomgz application by the way, for encoding my recorded raw footage into acceptable size and quality. The guides I wrote can be found here and here.

But that's it, VirtualDub, compared to Sony Vegas Movie Studio or even Adobe Premier it is relatively primitive in terms of effects, filters, etc. But that's ok it was never VirtualDubs intention to be a full blown editing suite like the aforementioned applications.

Lately I've been watching user-made machinimas and clips and I've found some pearls amongst them on YouTube. I liked the movie effects, the text effects, and any other effects they implemented into their movies, and I set out to try some of mine.

I set out to do very simple text- and movie-effects in Sony Vegas Movie Studios. And I recorded the steps I've done until the final product. Enjoy!

The how-to's:

Part 1/2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2/2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

and the final product:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boy howdy, was I blown out of my shoes when I first started Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Dood, I tells ya, I haven't seen this many options for that many options in a long, long time.

Now I'm by no means an amateur nor a professional, I'm a full blown newbie with almost absolutely none knowledge what-so-ever. The little knowledge I've got is through trying out hundreds of different options and reading up a few guides on the internet.

So my utmost respect goes to folks who know their stuff in Adobe Premier and Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

The Don's Craptastic World » Software

Intel Core i7-2600K and encoding with VirtualDub

Related posts:

VirtualDub: How to use mkv, mp4, flv, mov and other file formats with VirtualDub

Related posts:

VirtualDub: Use ffdshow filters (resize, sharpen, wartermark) in VirtualDub

Related posts:

VirtualDub: How to prevent asynchronous sound

Related posts:

VirtualDub: How to split and merge video files

Related posts:

Make your Firefox load faster!

Related posts:

VirtualDub: How to watermark your videos

Related posts:

Create your own “perfect” password!

Related posts:

Start Up Firefox in Private Browsing mode!

Related posts:

Simple Text- and Movie-effects made easily with Sony Vegas Movie Studio

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